Title: Louisville Slugger (3/?)
Author: See Jane Conform
E-mail: Hurri-Jane@juno.com --- (ok, 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.
Distribution: Ask and ye shall receive.
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: ok, there's some action in this one (finally). I rewrote it like three different times because I couldn't quite figure out how to handle it. It sort of jumps back and forth from Matt to Willow so let me know if it's confusing or if you like it or what your favorite food is… seriously, I heart feedback.
Chapter Three:
For the third time, Matt swiped his keycard through the locking mechanism on the door and was denied.
The glare he sent the red light that was blinking mockingly at him was more wary then scary.
It was taunting him. He knew it.
Nerves shot, his hand shook as he passed the card through again, holding his breath as he waited to see the tiny green bulb light.
The red light came on again and he gave the door a sharp kick, unfortunately doing more to bruise his leg then anything else.
The tiny red bulb blinked its laughter at him.
Just one more thing to add to his growing list of reasons he hated hotels.
"Hey man, you coming with?"
Matt was grateful for the interruption when he turned to see Shane Helms coming out of a room a couple doors down the hall.
"Where?" He asked, used to his friend's personality quirks enough to know that he hadn't missed anything. Shane often seemed to confuse what he was thinking with what he was saying, causing irregular conversation jumps and overall confusion.
"Were you planning on spending a night in LA *sleeping*? Wake up, dude, we're going to par-tay." Shane slid on his black sunglasses and affected a surfer-dude accent.
Matt had no desire to do anything but climb in bed and fall asleep, but casting another glance at the jeering lock on the door, he knew he didn't want to spend another night alone in a hotel room either. He weighed his options, trying to determine the lesser evil when something that his friend had said finally caught his attention.
"Wait, we're in LA?"
"City of Angels." Shane confirmed.
Matt smiled, the first real smile in a long time, and grabbed Shane's face, kissing him hard on the cheek before taking off down the hallway.
"Hey!" Shane called out once he got over his momentary shock, "Where are you going?"
"I'm going home!" Matt stepped onto the elevator and let the doors close on his friend's confusion.
"Hey Matt. What was that all about?"
He looked over at Shannon Moore, the only other occupant in the elevator.
"I'm going home." He repeated, bouncing slightly on his toes. "I'm going to be sleeping in my bed, in my room, in my house tonight!"
"That's great, but aren't you kind of out-of-state for that?"
"Nope." He gave Shannon a cheeky grin but didn't elaborate.
"Ok Matt, spill."
"What? I bought a house in LA a while ago, sort of an impulse buy."
"You bought a house," Shannon seemed doubtful, "on an impulse buy?"
"Yup." He waited another moment before he decided to enlighten his friend, "I was sick of all the hotel rooms and I figured it was time I got my own place. North Carolina will always be home, but you know, I needed a place for myself. Rio handled all the details, all I really had to do was sign on the dotted line."
"Cool man, I still can't believe I didn't know about it though."
"Hey, tomorrow why don't you come on over and I'll show you the place. Bring Shane and we'll barbecue or something."
"So why are you going there tonight? It's already close to midnight. Wouldn't it be easier just to stay here and go over in the morning?"
Matt's smile dimmed only for a moment, "I don't think I can handle another hotel room tonight."
The elevator dinged and let the two men out into the lobby. They parted ways as Matt ran outside to hail a cab. It was only once he got in and the driver looked at him expectantly that he realized the flaw in his plan. Pulling out his cell phone, he quickly dialed his agent's home phone number.
"Hey, it's Matt. Where exactly is my house again?"
***
Willow awoke with a start, her eyes snapping open. A quick glance at the clock by her bed told her she hadn't been asleep more then an hour or so. Her ears strained against the silence, trying to gain some clue as to what had woken her, but the house remained mute, the only sound she could hear was her own breathing.
She tried to shake off the uneasiness she felt and relax, but her body stubbornly stayed alert. One hand reached to touch the baseball bat she kept by her bed, the cool wood reassuring under her fingertips. Not for the first time, she was thankful for her friends' thoughtful gift. She'd had no reason to use it, but it was comforting to keep it close.
Despite the fact that she was listening for it, the soft thud still startled her. She gasped loudly before quieting quickly, experience telling her not to give away her position yet.
She slid out of bed, ignoring the slippers beneath her and instead let her bare feet hit the soft carpet knowing she had better mobility and stealth without the fuzzy bunnies on her feet. Her hands itched to call on the magic coursing through and around her, her mind tried to justify it's use with the danger of the situation. Instead she reached for the bat, giving her hands something to occupy them. She was gripping it so tightly her knuckles were turning white, but she wasn't sure if it was fear or temptation that tightened them so.
Her eyes caught sight of the phone lying within arms reach of her. She might never know if it was foolishness or courage that made her walk by it without using it to call for help, but she supposed it had to be a mixture of both.
Shifting the comforting weight of the bat slightly, she opened the door and crept into the hallway to find the source of the noise.
*
Matt cursed as he hit his shin against an invisible table.
Whose idea was it to put sharp corners on furniture anyway? He made a mental note to put foam over every edge in the damn house.
He rubbed his shin, trying to rub away the pain with it. It was one thing to be body slammed by a three hundred pound giant, it was quite another to be attacked by razor sharp wood. At least he assumed the table was made out of wood, by the way his leg was throbbing it could have been steel. Of course he'd be able to find out exactly what the table was made of if he could find a damn lamp in this place! As much as he hated hotels, he had to grudgingly admit that their uniform layout was convenient.
His hand returned to the task that he had assigned to it -before he had been blindsided by the evil furnishing- searching for a light. He tried clapping his hands, in a vain attempt to activate a clap-on lamp he evidently didn't own.
Was it possible that he didn't have any electricity?
The only real specifications he had told Rio was that he had wanted a house that would be ready for him when he needed it, but he hadn't exactly given any advance notice of *when* he would be needing it.
The inky blackness was starting to creep him out. He couldn't see anything. The darkness seemed almost threatening. Not the feeling he was expecting when he came home for the first time.
Was that footsteps that he had heard?
He shot down the notion immediately. Now he was just paranoid. He attributed the irrational fear to lack of sleep. Groping the wall, he finally found a switch.
He sighed with relief as warm light flooded the room.
Then everything went black.
*
Willow dropped the bat, the loud clattering harsh in the otherwise silent room.
Shock froze her in place.
She did it.
She gasped as the fear that had been choking her relented and she greedily gulped in air. Her heart was still pounding violently in her chest when she regained control of her limbs and took a couple steps backwards, inching away from the man she had felled with one powerful blow.
Well that wasn't quite as difficult as she anticipated.
In fact, it was rather simple. Someone broke into the house. So she clobbered him with a baseball bat. All in all, the situation seemed almost too easy. The reality seemed anti-climatic when compared to the terrible scenarios that had run through her head since she had first woken. She tried to bite down on the knowledge that in her life, whenever something seemed too easy, it usually was.
She just needed to remember that this wasn't the hellmouth. This wasn't a demon or apocalypse. It was just a stupid human trying to commit a stupid crime.
Rationally she knew before she did anything more she should call the police, but the ease with which she handled the situation gave her a bit of arrogance. That, and the fact that something seemed wrong to her. She wasn't sure what it was, but something about it seemed off.
The man was lying on his stomach, so she couldn't see his face, but what she could tell of him didn't exactly fit with her profile of the average stereotypical robber. Where was his ski mask? Where was the crow bar? He was wearing a fluffy blue fleece pullover and jeans. Not quite the intimidating outfit she would have picked for some good old fashion breaking and entering. In fact, if she had met him under different circumstances, he looked more like a guy she'd be likely to hug, then one she'd bash over the head.
She frowned as she saw the slight bulge in one of his back pockets that could only be a wallet. It was another thing that didn't fit. Why would anyone bring their wallet when they were up to some middle of the night larceny? It didn't seem that smart, but she supposed thievery didn't take much intelligence.
Curiosity overwhelmed her doubts, and she warily pulled the wallet from his pocket, keeping her eyes trained on his prone form. When he didn't move, she once more backed away to a safe distance. She hesitated a moment before opening it. It seemed like an invasion of privacy to snoop through his wallet while he lay unconscious on the floor. It was only a moment of hesitation though, because she quickly justified that he didn't the right to any privacy since he was the one the broke into the house in the first place. She snickered over the awful drivers license picture for a moment before scanning the information on the card. The blood drained from her face as she read the name. She tried to calculate the odds of the burglar having the same name as her boss before the full extent of the situation clicked.
She scrambled to her boss's side and rolled him onto his back. His eyes were closed and his face looked peaceful, almost like he was sleeping. Her glance fell onto his motionless chest. She wasn't sure how long she stared at it, willing it to rise and fall and prove to her he really was just sleeping, but it remained still. When the reality of what she was seeing, or not seeing, struck her, she scrambled away from him in horror. She was white as a ghost when she pulled the phone from its cradle and dialed a number she knew by heart.
"Faith? It's Willow.... I think I just killed my boss."