Title: Louisville Slugger (2/?)
Author: See Jane Conform
E-mail: Hurri-Jane@juno.com --- (ok, one of the reasons this wasn't out a lot sooner is that my e-mail address was giving me all sorts of trouble, I finally just got a new one until I can work out what's wrong with my other one, thus for a while I might be posting under two different addy's)
Category: BtVS/WWE
Pairing: Willow/Matt Hardy
Disclaimer: I don't own or have any affiliation with BtVS or the WWE. This is being written for the sole purpose of enjoyment and I am in no way making a profit from it.
Rating: This is a hard one since I'm not actually done with the story, but I'm going for a strong PG-13 as it deals with some adult situations and there might be some language in it. If the rating looks to change at any time I'll clearly make note of it.
Spoilers: None really for the WWE as it's not taking too much part in it, for BtVS it's up to season 6. I watched the episodes all out of order so I'm not too sure how far into this takes place. Like, you know the episode with Buffy's birthday party? Anything up to there is fair game.
Summary: Willow's house sitting for a certain yummy male wrestler and chaos ensues. (emphasis on chaos)
Notes: Most of the questions brought up in this chapter will be answered in the next couple installments, so if things don't make sense… they will probably be explained soon.
Chapter Two:
"So I get there and the line is like out the door! Now I've never been fond of lines personally, but I wait like any other good law-abiding citizen, which this time happened to be behind a large man with -might I add- a really bad B.O. problem. Anyway, I *finally* get to the front of the line and what do they tell me? That they're *out* of the jumbo blueberry muffins. As if that wasn't depressing enough, then the little ingrate tells me that I can *wait* if I'd like. Wait! The nerve of the guy! Just what exactly did he think I was doing for the past twenty minutes?" Cordelia ended her rant with a huff, ignoring the fact that the other occupants of the room weren't actually listening.
"I guess I'm being helpful-girl already then." The newcomer announced her presence while holding up a brown bag. "Jumbo blueberry muffins," she offered as way of explanation.
"Willow!" The seer jumped up from where she had been perched on the edge of a desk to embrace the former-witch. The hug also put her in the position to catch the delicious aroma emanating from the bag. She quickly released the girl and instead grabbed the bag from her friend's grasp. "Oh, you remember Faith right?" She questioned around a bite of muffin.
Willow snorted at Cordelia's downplay of her previous encounters with the renegade slayer. "Yeah."
Faith for her part looked uncharacteristically nervous. The simple "Hey," she offered the young woman she had once turned on was filled with uncertainty.
"Hey yourself." There was a long awkward moment, filled only with the sound of Cordelia's chewing, as each tried to reconcile their memories of the other with the people they had become. Willow seemed to reach a decision first and broke the silence. "You look... sane." As ambiguous as the comment was, it did much to reassure the reformed 'baddie', because beyond the words, she knew she was being offered a chance.
"It's nice to see you again Willow," said Wesley, trying to remind the women that he was present in the room also.
"You too," she offered him a small smile before spying the last member of their impromptu reunion enter the office. "Angel!"
"Hello Willow." The two hugged briefly, and she noted, not for the first time, that he pleasantly lacked the smell of decaying flesh.
"Ok," Cordelia resumed charge once she had ate her fill of muffin, "Now that everyone's here, we got you a little something." She pulled the present out from behind the desk but used her body to keep it hidden for a moment more.
"Oh, you didn't have to get me anything!" Despite her protest, Willow was touched.
"Nonsense, its just a little housewarming gift! It's from all of us." The seer handed her a long heavy object wrapped in green shiny foil paper. "Go on, open it."
Willow tore the paper off, trying to keep the smile on her face despite her befuddlement.
"You *really* shouldn't have..."
"It's a bat!" Cordelia told her helpfully.
"It's not just any bat, it's a Louisville Slugger." Faith added her input.
"Oh, thank you."
Cordelia misread Willow's confusion for disappointment and was quick to shift the blame. "It was Faith's idea."
"Yeah, well I just figured since you were going to be all alone in that big house..."
"You got me a bat to protect myself?"
Angel broke in to help explain, not missing Faith's eyes pleading with his own, "Well of course hopefully you'll not need to use it. It's to remind you that were all here for you if anything happens, and it's to give you a little peace of mind."
"Hell yeah, it's two and a half pounds of solid oak peace of mind," said Faith more confident after Angel's explanation. She eyed the misty eyed girl in front of her warily. "You're not going to hug me or anything are you? Because I'm really not a huggy type of girl and oh-" The recent parolee suddenly found herself with an armful of redhead, "Well ok, but let's not make a habit of this."
Willow pulled back to look at her; "You're full of surprises. Thank you."
"Let's not forget the girl who got you this cushy job." Cordelia, in typical Cordelia style, interrupted the moment to bring herself back to everyone's attention.
"Cushy?" The witch raised an eyebrow, "Are you kidding? I've got a whole binder full of things I have to do every day! I have to feed the fish and water the plants, run the cars, get the mail..." she laughed at the expression on her friend's face. "The house *is* beautiful, and I can't tell you how much I need this right now. Thank you Cordelia."
"Why don't you girls go out for the day. Shop or whatever you do. Anything comes along I'll page you."
The three girls rushed out of the office before Angel could change his mind. And that was how the unlikely trio's friendship started.
***
Where was he?
His eyes snapped open and slowly focused on a plain white ceiling. Some part of him vaguely connected the insistent ringing that had awoken him to a telephone, but where was it?
His head rolled to one side to face a beige wall with a single picture hung on it. Even in his disoriented state the tackiness of the printed painting couldn't escape him.
His head rolled to the other side to find the source of his growing headache: a solitary object on the standard bedside table.
Propping himself up on his elbow, he used his other arm to reach across his body and pick up the cheap plastic phone.
"Good morning Mr. Hardy. This is your six o' clock wake-up call."
The voice, so annoyingly chipper, blended into the other thousand voices he'd heard at the other thousand hotel rooms he'd been to. It was a different one, but it was all the same.
"Thanks," he managed to whisper into the phone, his voice hoarse with sleep. He hung up the phone and sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. His eyes barely noted his surroundings, so desensitized to the look of hotel rooms.
He wasn't missing anything, nothing ever changed.
He stood, freeing himself from the blankets and sheets -he hated hotel sheets- and stretched, letting the artificial cold of the small humming air-conditioning unit assault his bare body.
He hated hotel air-conditioning and the metallic taste it seemed to add to the air.
He pulled the curtains away from the solitary window to try and gain some clue as to which city he was in, but could see nothing but a near empty parking lot. With a sigh he let the curtains fall back to cover the small opening, and entered the cramped bathroom.
He hated hotel bathrooms.
He splashed cold water onto his face, trying to shake off sleep's clutch and put some sort of life into his drained body. His hands stilled in their movements as his eyes caught onto their reflection in the mirror.
"You're getting too old for this," he whispered to the two-dimensional image in front of him.
Unbidden, a childhood memory came to his mind of a book someone used to read to him.
A hope born of desperation swelled within him, as one hand reached out to meet it's twin.
And for a moment, just a brief pause in his hectic life, he thought he could do it. For that one moment he truly believed that in another inch his fingers would go past the physical, into another world. It didn't matter what that world held, because lately it seemed as if anything would be better then his own...
The moment passed and his fingertips met the cold surface of the mirror. He withdrew his hand immediately, feeling foolish, and wrote it off as a momentary delusion from his still sleep-addled brain. This wasn't any looking glass. It was just a cheap mirror in a cheap hotel in his cheap life.
The anonymous hotel rooms never changed, and neither it seemed, would he.
Magic had no place in his world.
***
The three girls slipped into a booth at IHOP. The so-called International House of Pancakes had quickly become their choice of hangout as much for the yummy pancakes as the fact that it was open twenty-four hours a day. It was, at the moment, nearing to three in the morning but the restaurant was still pretty full.
"So what do you actually know about this guy your house-sitting for anyway?" Faith asked Willow.
"Well his name's Mathew Hardy..."
The two girls looked expectantly at the third.
"And?" Cordelia prodded when the redhead said nothing more.
"That's about it."
"You've been living in this guy's house for two weeks and that's all you know about him?" Both Faith and Cordelia seemed doubtful.
"The house is fully furnished and decorated, but beyond that there's nothing. I swear it looks more like a show room then someone's home. There isn't one photograph or personal touch in the whole place. I wouldn't even know his name if his 'agent' hadn't let it slip," explained Willow.
"Seems kind of suspicious. Maybe we should get Angel to look into it-"
"No!" Willow was quick to put a stop to that suggestion, "If this is baddy-related I don't want to know. At least not until the month is up," she amended.
"Are y'all ready to order?" The waitress's arrival put a stop to the conversation, as the friends took turns ordering.