Chapter Six: Pour Me
The heavy rhythms of Madison's electric guitar pound through the house. It had been like this for over an hour now, ever since the two teenagers had arrived back home. Madison had stormed through the house with a murderous glint in her eyes as she carried a large wooden crate full of various wine coolers up to her room. Locking the door she had effectively shut Dawn out. A few minutes later the first frantic notes began pouring out of the room.
She had been extremely quiet and moody on the drive home. Dawn had attempted to engage her in conversation, tried to draw her out of the dark mood she had fallen into. Nothing worked. In fact the harder Dawn tried, the more she said, the more Madison had withdrawn.
To the young brunette it felt like someone was dragging an old rusted, jagged edge knife slowly across her stomach. The worst part of the feeling was that it was Madison herself who had her fingers firmly gripped around the knife's hilt. Dawn wanted to help the young redhead as Madison had helped her earlier only she had shut her out completely.
For a few minutes she had toyed with the idea of picking the lock, but had quickly discarded it. Even if she did manage to open the door what was she going to do after that. She had no idea what to say to her, no idea how to fix what was wrong. So instead she waited for Buffy to get home by frantically pacing from the pallor to the kitchen and back again looking out every window she passed. Dreading the sight of Xander's car pulling into the driveway nearly as much as she prayed for its sudden arrival. She was going to have to tell Buffy everything that had happened today, or almost everything anyway.
The front door opens startling Dawn. Spinning around the young brunette gazes at her older sister's stern expression. "When'd the Osbourne family move in upstairs?" She asks in a very unamused tone of voice as she walks into the house.
"Think that's Areosmith," Xander quips lightly as he follows Buffy into the house. The tiny slayer shoots a glare at him that knocks the slight grin off his face, "but hey what do I know."
"We did something really, really stupid," Dawn blurts out hoping if she can tell Buffy before she asks it might mitigate their punishment slightly. She didn't think it would but it was better to try. "Well okay Madison was the one that came up with the idea but I went along with it so okay we both did something stupid but it didn't really seem stupid at the time," She rushes on before Buffy can cut in.
"What did you do?" Buffy asks sharply finally manages to cut her sister off.
"We went for a drive," Dawn answers in a small voice.
Xander shrugs, "that's not so bad."
Buffy shoots him another withering glare before returning her attention back to Dawn, "what else?" She demands sensing that there's more to the story then what she's said so far.
Dawn's head shifts downward as she says, "Madison picked up a lot of wine coolers," she admits the level of her voice dropping another octave as she gazes at the floor.
The expression on Buffy's face goes from stern to stark in the time it takes her to register the words, "you what?" She growls in a harsh voice.
At the same time Xander wonders aloud, "someone just sold you two liquor?"
Dawn shakes her head looking back up, "she paid some guy to go in and get it."
"Have you been?" Buffy asks Dawn in a cold voice as she keeps a tight reign on her temper. For the moment anyway.
Dawn shakes her head again as she meets her sister's eyes, "I probably would have," she admits to her. "But I had Madison take me to see Tara. She went for a walk while I... When she got back to the car she was. Well she was just so angry all of a sudden. It just didn't make any sense. She had been in such a good mood before, it just doesn't make any sense," she repeats more firmly.
"Grief," Buffy says softly. Sudden understanding doing nothing to lessen her anger. "Xander you want to take Dawn out, maybe pick up a pizza or something," she suggest in way that left no doubt it wasn't a suggestion but an order.
"You sure..."
"This is something I need to take care of. Alone."
Buffy unlocks the door to what had been her room, from just after moving to Sunnydale until a couple of months ago when she had finally taken over her mother's old room. The room that Willow and Tara had made theirs while she had been dead last summer. The room in which Tara had lost her life.
Setting her melancholy mood aside Buffy pushes the door open, she had a distraught and volatile teenager to deal with. Not that she knew how she was going to deal with Madison, she just knew she had to put a stop to her self-destructive behavior. She couldn't allow the girl to carry on the way she was.
As the door cracks open the first thing to assault her senses, even with the decibel level increasing dramatically, is the odor. The smell of stale smoke hits her like a sledge hammer. Mixed in with the strong aroma of cigarette smoke is the light flavor of half a dozen different fruit blends.
As the door swings open even further Buffy is appalled by the sight that greets her. Everything she sees is seen through a heavy haze of bluish smoke. More then a dozen, maybe as many eighteen or twenty, empty wine coolers litter the floor. Several of which are being used as impromptu ashtrays. A crush pack of cigarettes lay discarded by overturned amplifier.
The sight that truly horrifies her though is Madison herself. The young girl knelt on the floor sweating profusely, her hair plastered to her scalp just as her shirt was clinging to her body, as she almost hypnotically wound her way through an amazingly intricate piece of music. Blood from her sliced open fingertips slicked the neck of her guitar, dripped down from the instrument to her clothes, the floor, or splattered in a small spray as she strikes one note after another.
"Jesus," she mutters reaching the girl in one quick stride. Grabbing the blood slick neck of the guitar she silences the instrument as she rips it out of Madison's hands and off from around her shoulders, hurling it across the one room in one swift motion. It hits the wall with a loud screeching shriek.
"What the," Michael slurs as his large eyes snap open to glare at Buffy. "Off me," he hisses shoving at her.
Buffy grabs hold of Madison's blood covered arm hauling the girl to her feet, "I've tried being patient with you, giving you some space while you deal with what you're going through..."
"You have no idea what I'm going through," Michael hisses angrily.
"I know you're going through some tough times right now, but I can't, I wont condone this kind of behavior..."
"You don't know nothing," He slurs into Buffy's speech.
"I know all you're doing is hurting yourself," Buffy retorts hotly.
"Screw off," Michael mutters managing to place the palm of his bleeding left hand on the inside of Buffy's right elbow. Giving it a hard push he doesn't even manage to budge her arm. Angered his right fist swings around in a short hook punch.
Buffy sees the wide, looping punch coming as soon as Madison began throwing it. She easily ducks under the punch. "You know," she begins just in time to get hit with Madison's returning elbow. "I'm getting a little tired of people hitting me in the face," she grumbles punching the young girl in the side of the head.
Buffy watches as Madison's eyes roll back in her head and her legs give buckling under her. The tiny slayer maintains her grip on the redhead's arm keeping her from falling to the floor. "I hate dealing with drunks," she mumbles as she lifts Madison off her feet.
The first thing Michael became aware of, as he slides back towards consciousness, is the fact that he spent the night chewing sandpaper. That comes a split second before the feeling of having his head immersed in a bucket of ice water explodes inside his skull. He groans knowing the signs of the having the mother of all hangovers keeping him company all day.
"There's water and aspirin on the table," Buffy's says from where she's leaning against the far wall.
Her voice sounds like a church bell going off inside his skull. He pops his eyes and closes them instantly as light stabs into his bloodshot orbs like a thousand red hot pokers. The blinds and curtains were wide open spilling sunshine into the room. Covering his eyes with a small hand he groans softly, "somebody just shoot me now."
"Careful what you ask for," Buffy quips softly. "Get up," she says coldly after a few seconds.
Michael groans but manages to pull himself into sitting position on the bed. Squinting his large eyes into little slits he gets his first good look at Buffy as he becomes aware of a numbing pain in the tips of his long fingers on his left hand. From Buffy's body language, her facial expression he could easily tell the small woman was pissed beyond any measure of the word. "I screwed up last night didn't I?" He inquires softly his own voice like a jackhammer behind his ears.
"You have no idea," Buffy answers with no concern about the volume of her voice. "I know you're dealing with a lot of stuff right now. I really don't care," she after a slight pause in a voice cold enough to leave a vapor trail. "Whatever it is eating you up inside. Get over it. The crap you pulled last night, I'm not going to put up with it. I could care less what your watcher allowed you to get away. I have a young sister I'm responsible for and I really don't need you or you're bullshit getting her pulled out of here."
Wincing at every word Buffy said Michael slowly nods his head, "I know," he says softly.
"What?" Buffy asks slightly surprised by Madison's quick admission.
Tossing the blankets aside he uncovers his small, lithe body as he says, "I screwed up." He swings his legs over the side of the bed only vaguely aware that somebody must have changed his clothes last night after he passed out. It wasn't even something that he registered as he rises to his feet, "I'll have my shit packed and be out of your hair..."
"Who said anything about you leaving?" Buffy demands even more confused by her behavior. "You don't think I'm going to clean up this mess do you?"
Michael blinks, "then what?"
"First you're going to give me your car keys," Buffy answers. "Then I think for awhile we're going to have to keep you extremely busy."
Dawn pours the freshly popped popcorn into a large bowl. It was time for her favorite afternoon past time. Watching Madison as she spent part of the afternoon working on her fighting forms. Both with weapons and barehanded.
That was how the past ten days since their impromptu trip the package store and the graveyard had been going. Madison was up before the sun to begin her training, a good hour worth of calisthenics, stretching, Yoga, and Tai-Chi followed by a five mile run that she finished within twenty-five minutes. After breakfast the redhead truly began torturing herself.
At first Dawn had just thought she was standing there, gazing at the scenery. First one minute passed, then another and another and another until finally a quarter of an hour had passed. Then Madison moved, a slight shift, raise one arm, lower the other, bend one knee, turn the waist to face another direction. Then do it over and over again, from one posture to the next.
That would last from just after breakfast till Dawn called a break for lunch. They'd spend about an hour, eating, talking, and just hanging out. After that Madison would give Dawn her lesson. An hour of light, in comparison to what Madison put herself through, but intense torture that the young brunette wouldn't give up for anything in the world. Except for muscles that didn't act like rubber and feel like red hot needles were being jabbed into them, all at the same time.
After the first time Dawn complained about the pain Madison showed her a few simple meditative exercises that allowed her to re-channel her energy back into the aching muscles. At first Dawn was skeptical about the concept, but like she had begun doing with the redhead, she simply put her trust in Madison and followed where the younger girl led. Within only a few minutes of performing the techniques Dawn literally felt a warm energy flow through her body soothing the fatigued muscles. Of course Madison had chided her for not mentioning it sooner, telling Dawn she couldn't help her fully if she didn't tell her when something was bothering her, or felt wrong, or out of place.
Dawn enjoyed those few hours each day most of all. Not just because she got to spend them with Madison, which was a definite plus in her book, but because she was able to forget about her problems. Even if her biggest and most recent problem was standing no more then a few feet away from her most of the time, and other times when she was much closer then a few feet. Like when she was showing her a technique and their bodies were pressed together in such a way that Dawn found breathing was a hard task to remember.
Over the pest ten days Dawn had begun to admit that she was attracted to Madison, maybe more then just attracted. Which was confusing her greatly. Up until the lithe redhead had shown up on her doorstep Dawn had never seen another girl in that light. She had always been attracted to boys, liked checking out the opposite sex, looking, gazing longingly at them. She enjoyed kissing them. Despite the fact that the only one that she had kissed had been a blood sucking vampire.
Dawn wasn't holding out any hope of the younger girl returning her feelings. Madison had made it abundantly clear early on that she saw Dawn as a friend. Had told Dawn that she valued their friendship above anything else and wasn't going jeopardize it by doing something as stupid as coming on to her.
She had been struggling with how she felt at the time so instead of speaking up, of telling Madison that she liked her, Dawn had taken the simple way out and kept her mouth shut. She had in fact told Madison that she agreed completely with her. Madison's smile had been so big as she clapped Dawn on the shoulder that it nearly tore her heart out, but she managed to keep her fake smile plastered to her lips. Even increased it slightly despite wanting to run upstairs and bawl her eyes out.
She had made a silent vow at the time to enjoy what time she could spend with the younger girl. So that was what she was doing. While kicking herself every second of every day for not saying something.
There was just something about Madison that clicked for her. She didn't act like any other girl Dawn had ever met before. From the music she listened to, the movies she watched, the books she read, to the food she ate, how she ate it. The way she walked, talked, even the way she thought was completely unlike anything she had ever seen from any other girl.
Like the day she had found out Xander wasn't Buffy's boyfriend. Her derisive sounding comment had been something like, "he sure as hell acts like it." The fact she didn't like Xander was obvious from the first night they met. That had been the best night between the two of them.
After that things had gone from bad to worst in less time then it took Madison's corvette to go from zero to sixty. Four point nine seconds the one time the redhead had demonstrated just how many horses she had under the hood of her car. Or something to that effect. It had culminated a couple nights ago when Madison, fed up of having Xander staring at her ass, told him in no uncertain terms the next time he checked her out she'd cut his balls off and shove them down his throat.
Not that Madison couldn't piss her off, or irritate her at the drop of the hat. Like the fact neither her or Buffy would tell her what they had talked about the morning after her night of drinking. It was hard for Dawn to figure out.
Since that night Madison hadn't drank, hadn't smoked. She was training night and day. Not just physically either, but also going through their meager collection of books looking for the creatures that had killed her watcher and her cousin. Human looking beings without eyes. Dawn had figured the watcher council would have been able to come with something in a heartbeat, but they came up with as much as the residents of the Summers house. Nothing.
In the early evening, after Buffy got home from work her and Madison would usually train. Madison all sweaty from a day spent torturing herself, Buffy all smelly from a day working in a greasy fast food restaurant. Dawn had been mildly surprised to learn that it was again Madison doing the teaching. She would go into these vast and detailed explanations the Dawn only half understood, but Buffy absorbed like a sponge.
During their training sessions, occasionally Madison would ask Dawn to join them. At first she had been ecstatic to help out, to be training with Buffy. It didn't last though as she realized she was nothing more then a demonstration dummy for Madison to showcase a technique or move so Buffy would see how it worked on a human body. Then her role would switch to that of practice dummy as Buffy did the technique on her so Madison could watch and see if she was doing it properly. Dawn felt fortunate that Buffy rarely, if ever, needed to do anything a second time as she learnt exactly what Madison was showing her effortlessly. One of the many benefits that came with being a slayer she had explained.
During the first week, if Madison was in a particularly foul mood, she would ask Xander to join them. She had the habit of using Xander to showcase the more vicious aspects of her art. He would normally leave the house those nights with a new limp and several new bruises decorating his body. It didn't take him long to learn it was better for his long term health if he declined her invitations.
At times during their training sessions Dawn would catch Buffy giving Madison a hard stare over something she had said or done. She was never able to figure out what the redhead had done to anger Buffy but she had, and soon after Buffy would call an end to the training and the sparring would begin. An activity Buffy had an extreme advantage in. Especially the strength, speed, and the fact that Madison's punches didn't seem to faze Buffy. Not that the young girl gave up, it just made the outcome predictable.
The first time the two of them had sparred, Madison was able to hold Buffy off despite her superior speed and strength with skill and a tenacity that rivaled Spike's. Buffy won, eventually, but Madison didn't make it easy for her. She made sure Buffy earned her victory.
The first day Madison had gone for her run, after she had gotten back, she gave Buffy five hundred dollars. Rent the young girl had called it. Buffy wasn't going to accept it at first, but Madison had convinced her otherwise saying she had spent more and gotten less with some of the places she had lived in her life. When Buffy inquired where she had gotten the money from Madison inform them Michael had left her his entire fortune. Twenty-five million dollars. To say a few mouths dropped open after that would have been an understatement of the year.
That was how the last ten days had been going. Madison pushing herself to what Dawn had to assume were the limits of human endurance, day and night, and still being able to give Dawn her hour long lesson. Teaching Buffy the little nuances of fighting she had never known before, then having it used back on her as the two of them sparred.
At night Madison would spend an hour or so reading. Dawn had quickly learnt what her favorite titles were; a series called The Wheel of Time, followed by two sagas called The Rift War and The Serpent War, and Star Trek books written by William Shatner. She had named off other book titles, as well as authors that she liked, but Dawn had never heard of them.
The redhead had been quite indignant when she made an observation over what George Lucas had done to Star Wars. Dawn had responded by telling her the new movies were great, to which Madison had given her the classic duh face and informed Dawn she had been talking about the latest series of books. How they had killed off Chewie and turned Luke into an indecisive wimp afraid to use his power.
Dawn wasn't so sure considering her experiences with Willow going evil and trying to destroy the world while she was hopped on dark magic. When she had told Madison what had just before the beginning of summer the younger girl had shaken her head and told Dawn it wasn't the power that made Willow do what she did, but her own rage and grief and pain.
"Power by itself isn't good or evil. It has no consciousness. It just is," Madison had said, "it's the will that controls the power that determines good or evil. Just like having power didn't make a person one or the other, it was how they chose to, or not to, use it that would determine weather they were a hero or villain."
She had changed the subject after that. It hadn't stopped Dawn from quickly exiting the room and closeting herself in her bedroom. What Madison had said made sense to Dawn, and that was the problem. The young brunette had wanted, still wanted, to blame Willow's actions on the magic. Only it wasn't the magic that made Willow threaten to unmake her, it wasn't the magic that tried to destroy the world. It was a choice Willow had made, a choice she had been driven to by Tara's death and the fact that she did have the power to make her desires a reality.
That had been last night. This morning Dawn had been rather distant to everyone. She was finding that having her illusions shattered to be a difficult experience to deal with. Only with Madison around she was having her preconceived notions of the world torn apart left, right, and center.
Dawn steps up to the back door. Gazing out the window she looks for Madison, only the petite redhead was nowhere to be seen. Dawn found that to be highly unusual. Madison was always out in the backyard practicing. Rain or shine that was where she always was.
"Hey." Dawn jumps startled by Madison's soft voice from behind her. "You okay?" She asks concern suddenly shinning in her voice.
Dawn whips around indignantly as her eyes course over Madison's form, "of course I'm alright. Why wouldn't I be?" She had thought the younger girl had been in shape before, but after a ten days of her intense training regiment she made her old self seem flabby in comparison.
Michael quirks his lips giving Dawn a crooked half smile as he says, "maybe because I just saw you jump out of your skin."
"Yeah, well. Maybe if people made more noise while they walked around here barefoot, then maybe they wouldn't go around handing out heart attacks now would they?" She gripes rapidly not giving the young girl in front her a chance to speak. After catching her breath Dawn asks, "so how come you're not out practicing?"
"Felt like taking a day off," Michael says with a shrug.
For the past nine days he had been immersing himself in the identity he had created for Madison Rose. He had stopped thinking of himself as Michael, instead taking great pains to call himself Madison. Inside his head he had stopped thinking of himself in terms of he, him, or his and had started using their feminine counterparts. It was a fairly difficult task, more so then he had originally thought. He was starting to succeed, a little anyway. Maybe a quarter of the time, but it was a start.
"Look about last night, I'm sorry. I had no right saying what I did. Willow's your friend, you know what she's like so if..."
"It's okay," Dawn says cutting her off. Not wanting to discuss the subject any further she inquires, "so what are you planning on doing with your day off?"
"Power Puff Girls are on," Dawn groans at the excitement in her voice. This was another one of those things like was like no other girl Dawn had ever met before. "Come on you'll love it," Michael adds grabbing her hand and dragging her into the pallor.
Michael sat in front of the t.v. by himself, a bowl of microwave popcorn sitting in his small lap, as he paid minimal attention to Johnny Bravo. From his new perspective he didn't find the cartoon as amusing as he used to. That wasn't what was bothering him though.
That distinction belong solely to Dawn, and not in the way it usually did. He had taken care of that shortly after seeing the way the brunette was checking him out, checking her out, he amended silently. While he enjoyed the feel of Dawn's hungry eyes drinking in his shapely curves, his lithe and supple body, he was nearly twice Dawn's age. Michael felt guilty enough about his own desires that he wasn't about to let anything else happen between them.
A few simple words telling Dawn that he valued her friendship more then anything else in the world, that he didn't want Dawn to feel uncomfortable around her. Words he savagely ripped out of his own throat when he wanted to do nothing more then to grab her and devour Dawn's lips with his own new, softer lips. To run his long fingered hands over Dawn's tone body, to feel the brunette shudder under his touch, to feel her gasp, moan into his mouth.
Michael quickly pulls his mind from those more then pleasant images. He was going to have to do something soon to relieve the tension that just a few seconds of thinking about Dawn had built up. That was another one of the reasons he had taken to training so much. There was no thought, everything existed in a single moment, in a single action that once immersed within there was nothing else. It was a state he had never achieved inside in his own body, but inside Madison's he found he could slip into it at will, as if her mind and body had been specifically designed to be a perfect fighting machine.
He had noticed the same thing with a lot of different exercises he did. It was easier for him to find his center, to feel his energy, is chi, and channel it how he desired. He quickly found that a couple hours of meditation and a few hours of sleep and he felt as if he had a solid eight hours worth of rest at night. There were techniques that he had never mastered, had only in fact begun learning, but they were suddenly at his fingertips with barely any conscious thought.
It was the same way with Buffy only amplified a hundred fold. She picked up whatever he showed her after only one time. The tiny woman had it perfected within half a dozen attempts and was waiting for the next scrape of knowledge that he was going to toss her way.
Dawn however wasn't like that. She had to struggle with everything she did. It was work until she nearly fell over from exhaustion. That was nearly everything anyway. The girl was like an ocean when it came to internal energy, her chi. Just as her physical strength was almost as impressive. Michael had come to realize early on that the brunette was far stronger then he was. It was no where near Buffy's strength but it easily surpassed his own, but Dawn seemed to be unaware of her preternatural strength. That was why he had need to talk to Buffy, to find out if she was aware of her younger sister's superhuman strength.
The doorbell's chime broke Michael out of his thoughts. Getting up he walks over and answers the door. "Hi, there," a FedEx driver says cheerfully.
Michael can't help himself as his eyes graze over the tall woman's bosom chest, "hi yourself," he says a slight hitch in his voice as he lifts his eyes to her handsome face. Her light brown hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail that left the rest of her face exposed. Smooth cheeks, and warm brown eyes were the woman's most attractive features.
"Got a package here for a Madison Rose," she informs the young girl who was obviously checking her out.
"That would be me," Michael replies as he takes the package. Noticing she wasn't wearing a wedding ring he grins slightly.
"I just need you to sign here," she says handing him an electronic clipboard. Michael takes it and signs, in an almost unreadable script, the name Madison Rose before handing the pad back. "Thanks a lot," she adds taking the pad back. Giving Michael the once over she says in a husky voice, "if you were a few years older," before turning around and leaving.
"Fuck me," Michael groans as he watches her walk back to her truck with a lust filled eyes. Once she was gone he turns his attention to the large box in his hands with a smile. There was no name on the outside of the box, but he knew exactly where it had come from.
________________________________________________________________________
Pour Me - Trick Pony
Pour me, pour me
Pour me, pour me another shot of whiskey
Bartender hit me one more time
He left, I cried
I'm lost inside, won't ya help me
Fill it to the top 'cause I hit rock bottom this time
Well I don't want to listen to the old jukebox
so don'tcha put no quarters in the slot
I don't wanna talk and I don't wanna dance
I dang sure ain't lookin' for romance
I don't wanna hang out with the crowd
I don't wanna party and get real loud
Believe me when I tell ya that I've thought this through
There's only one thing that I want you to do
Pour me, pour me
Pour me, pour me another shot of whiskey
Bartender hit me one more time
He left, I cried
I'm lost inside, won't ya help me
Fill it to the top 'cause I hit rock bottom this time
Here's my story, it's sad but it's true
There's so many things that I never knew
He loved to party and he loved to dance
He loved to get loud every time he had the chance
I always thought he was a simple-minded Okie
Little did I know he was the king of karaoke
He was everything that a man should be
Problem was that it wasn't with me
Pour me, pour me
Pour me, pour me another shot of whiskey
Bartender hit me one more time
He left, I cried
I'm lost inside, won't ya help me
Fill it to the top 'cause I hit rock bottom this time
Fill it to the top 'cause I hit rock bottom this time
Fill it to the top 'cause I hit rock bottom this time
Pour Me
Pour Me
Pour Me
Pour Me
