Greetings. I know I said the BB would be by around now, but I lied. Bad Star Mouse. I apologize, except not really, because this chapter has plot, and is really essential to introducing the Big Bad, so ha. But it will probably be into villain~ness *next* chapter.
I have a geography test tomorrow, on Northern Eurasia. Whee. a lot about stupid communists and prideful czars (except when they called themselves Great Princes) and lots of consonants, and few vowels. I did a report on Kyrgyzstan, so i know what i'm talking about, here.
You know when the jealous nobles (vocabulary word: boyars) tried to kill Rasputin, they invited him over to dinner, and fed him poison. He's all, "Mmm good. More, please." They watched, aghast, as he cheerfully and unknowingly swallowed enough poison to kill several people his size.
The nobles had a powwow out in the hall. One volunteered to go in and stab him dead. So he goes in, takes a (butter) knife, and stabs Rasputin bloody and dead. He goes back out. "Ok, he's dead." They go in, to check the corpse or something, and Rasputin lunges up from the floor, screaming (and dripping) bloody murder.
So they knock him senseless with their huge, diamond-encrusted jewelry, and drag him outside, to the river. The river is frozen over. they chop a hole in the ice, dump him- who is starting to stir- in through the opening, and slam the lid back on top. THey can see him struggling for purchase, clawing at the ice, etcetera. They watch for a bit, and go back inside to finish dinner.
The next day, they go back down to check out their handiwork, and they see his lifeless fingers, nearly clawed through the ice. An autopsy was done, and his cause of death was determined to be drowning -- water in the lungs. Not poisoning, loss of blood, puncture, concussion, exposure, or shock. He swallowed river water and choked on it.
Creepy.
....
And on *that* cheery note, on with the story!
~Star Mouse
@ @ @
Dawn came home from school early, on account of the principal had gone insane and set the cafeteria on fire. Again. There'd be a new one on Monday, but for now it was a three~day weekend. Woohoo!
She knew no one would be home. This was Buffy's training time, Willow, as part of the staff, did *not* get the day off from school, and Birdie would be training with Marion at the Magic Box.
And as teenagers faced with an empty house will sometimes do, she started to daydream.
She was the Slayer. Stealthy, super~strong, and she was tracking a vampire. Her stupid big sister had invited it into the house, and it was somewhere in here. She had to kill it before it killed her.
Silent as a shadow, she crept inside, carefully lifting the door on its hinges so it didn't squeak. No. Her last stake had disintegrated with the vampire that had attacked her in the sewers on her way home. She'd have to improvise.
Dawn the Vampire Slayer stalked through the kitchen. Pulled a wooden~handled salad tong from the drawer. Her head spun to the stairs. What was that? The fiend was upstairs. She could play that game.
She took the stairs two at a time, avoiding the creaky ones. Making only light taps with her sneakers on the wood surfaces. Stopped at the landing, cocked her head, dashed to the bathroom, with it's open door, struck a pose, and froze.
Buffy
was on the floor,
gagging into the toilet,
one finger down her throat. .
Dawn watched, aghast and gaping, as Buffy retched her lunch into the toiletbowl. The Slayer's hands gripped the sides of the bowl, clenching spasmodically. Tried to force more out of her when her stomach emptied.
Dawn found her voice, and motor controls. "Oh, God." She dropped the salad tong and hurried to her sister's side. She pulled her hair back from her face and held it.
Buffy was sobbing. And retching. And sobbing, and gagging. When nothing more came out, and all she had left was tears, she wiped her mouth with a trembling hand and flushed. Then she turned in towards her sister and collapsed onto her shoulder.
Dawn closed her eyes in pain as her sister hugged her full~force, but she hugged her back. And realized she was crying too.
"God, Buffy! What were you doing?" she asked in a whisper.
Buffy just shook her head into her shoulder and sobbed.
Dawn held her on the bathroom floor until the sobs died, and the tears stopped. She pulled away gently, to look in Buffy's face. Really red and blotchy. Better not let her near a mirror until it had calmed down a bit.
"Buffy?"
"Dawn..." Her sister rubbed a palm over her face. "Dawn. You can't tell anyone. Promise me you won't tell anyone."
"What, just keep it our little secret that you're bulimic?"
Buffy looked up, startled. "Bu--oh. Right. Bulimia. Yeah, that's what I was doing."
"How long?"
Buffy swallowed, and stood shakily. "...A week?"
Dawn stood too, and pointed angrily at the floor. "Well it stops here! You can't do this to yourself, Buffy. I'm going to get you a glass of gingerale. We need to talk about this."
Buffy nodded. "Right. Talk, we will. I'm just gonna, you know, brush my teeth."
Dawn nodded slowly, swallowed, and headed for the kitchen, grabbing the tong up from the floor.
Buffy listened to her clomp down the stairs, and then turned to the sink. Picked up the empty pill bottles, and buried them in the waste basket.
Thank God Dawn hadn't seen anything.
@ @ @
Birdie kicked out again. And again. And again. One, two, One, I never
heard you cry, Two, One, And you never heard me scream, Two, One, But I
heard the door click closed and I burned your clothes and...
She fell into the rhythm of the song, one from her collection, and her feet
hit with each beat. She got her fists into it, too, and started with some
syncopation. Changed the rhythm slightly, staying in the tempo. Hemiola?
Sure. Tri~puh~let~tri~puh~let~Whamm!
She let the bass guide her, but buried her soul in the riffs of the lead guitar, fixed her heart on the lyrics. The bag swung wildly, and she caught it as if was halfway back to her. Batted it back and forth and back and forth and FORTH and back and forth and back...
"Alright, then, that's enough of that!" The music faded as Marion twisted the knob on the volume control. "What say we work on some of the martial arts you've been learning? I've noticed you drop your arms when you front kick. That leaves your torso exposed, and we can't have that, now can we? Besides," she added, smugly, "your music's complete shit."
"Right. And . . . Pufpuf . . . BloodSole's thought-provoking lyrics blow Entity's out of the water." Birdie hugged the bag to stop it swinging, and wiped the sweat out of her face, slicking her hair back as she did. The song still echoed in her head.
"Buffy said I needed to work on my uppercuts," she tagged, before they could get into a real debate about the merits of Birdie's favored alternative punk vs Marion's 'acid' punk.
Marion nodded, one corner of her mouth pulled up. "I agree. Too slow. But I was very impressed with your flip~work last night. You're getting a lot of height on that." And BloodSole's lyrics can scorch your heart, so there, she added silently.
Birdie shrugged off the compliment. "Do you want to spar, or just watch me run some katas?"
Marion shook her head. "We'll wait for one of the Superhumans for that. I'm too slow to really teach you anything through practice. Besides, I'm not dressed properly."
The pantsuit/Gilesette getup had lasted exactly one day. Marion, to everyone's general surprise --at least until they got a good look at her music library-- dressed punk. The plaid kilt, black tee, army boots way. Liberal safety pins, several piercings. She'd told Willow something about not all of them being on her face.
"I don't know about slow, but I'm sure you could hurt me if you wanted to. You and Giles busted this place up pretty good last month."
Marion cleared her throat, and ducked her head a bit. "Yes, well."
Birdie stretched a little, bouncing on the balls of her feet to get loosened up.
"You know," she continued, "neither of you guys has actually come clean about that whole thing. What was it, anyway?"
Marion blushed a little. Birdie remembered that Willow had told her she thought it was cute. Birdie did a few quick toe~touches, then a couple side kicks.
"C'mon. 'Fess up. You're too young to be his jilted lover...." Her eyes got wide, and slightly panicked. "Right?"
Marion blanched. "Ugh! Right, right! Eugh! No, that wasn't it at all. It was ...very stupid, actually."
"So? Spill."
"Alright, fine. *Deep sigh* I...failed. The first time I took the written exams for the Watcher title? And the low score that sent me into the failing range was ...awarded by Ripper Giles."
Birdie blinked. "You mean Rupert."
Marion shook her head. "No, all the students called him Ripper. Bit of tongue~in~cheek, 'cause he was so stodgy all the time. But anyway, I retook the test five years ago, after he was selected in the new Watcher post here. Passed, of course."
Birdie stared. "You beat him up because he flunked you?"
Marion shrugged apologetically. "S'rry."
Birdie started the katas. "That is so bizarre."
@ @ @
"C'mon, Ahn. Let's go get some food."
"No! We can't rest for a second until we have this done. The wedding's in a week, Xander, and how many invitations have gone out? Zero! None!" She dived back into the pile of cream~colored envelopes. "Now lick! Lick for all you're worth!"
Xander ignored all the puns possible from her outburst, and grabbed another filled envelope. Licked the adhesive. Pressed it shut. Pulled a stamp off the roll. Stuck it on [the stamps, blessedly, were self~adhering.].
It took thirty minutes to get through the pile. When they were done, Anya gathered the stiff squares of paper together and began shuffling them into a neat stack.
"Okay, now we just need to call the caterer, go by to pick out the cake on the way to the post~office, oh, and hire the valet for the parking -"
He guided her into the elevator and set it moving.
"Ahn, calm down. Everything's going to be fine." Xander took hold of her arm and led her gently out the door of the apartment. "I took care of it. I also called the florist and got him to take out that order of tulips you had second thoughts about. Everything's fine," he repeated.
Anya hugged the stack of invitations. Then her head perked up as she registered Xander's words. "You did? Really?"
"Yup. I, Super~Groom, also picked up the tuxes, passed them out to the manly men, and took your order to the caterer. We can drop these," he tapped the stack of invites, "off on our way to lunch."
"Aw, Xander!" She wiggled happily. "Thank you. I'm very happy now."
"Good. 'Cause there's one more surprise."
The elevator stopped, and they started down the hall to the front lobby. The car was parked out in front.
"Surprise?" Her eyes narrowed. "Good surprise or bad surprise?"
"Good, I hope. Unless you've undergone drastic changes in the last few months that I don't know about."
"Uh huh?"
"Yeah. . . .You know how you said you didn't want to be married by an old guy in a dress that lisped like a cartoon duck?"
"Yes..."
"Well, how's two out of three?"
"Huh?"
"D'hoffryn. He's going to be the one giving us directions and stuff. You like?"
Anya fumbled for words. "Xander, I-- I don't know what to say. How did you get him to answer you?"
Xander looked sideways at her as he started the car. He couldn't tell if she was happy about this or not. Maybe this had been a big mistake... "I summoned him. Just like with you. We had a chat. When he found out we were back together, he was a lot nicer."
Anya blinked. "... Xander. That ...was very dangerous." Xander looked over at her. Back at the road. Back at Anya.
"Ahn? Are you crying?"
*Sniff* "It's just so sweet. You did that for me?"
Xander hooked an arm around her shoulders. "All for you. Was it a good idea? Should I cancel?"
"No! No, don't cancel! This is perfect!" Anya wrapped her arms around his waist and gave him a squeeze. "Mm. Thank you, Xander. This means so much. I love you."
"I love you too, Ahn."
@ @ @
Buffy sipped her gingerale. Dawn sat across the table from her, glaring at her big sister in a big~sisterly way.
"Now spill. Why are you barfing up your food?"
I don't need to barf it up, because I don't eat it. What you saw wasn't lunch,
it was my diet for the last five days. This gingerale is the first thing besides
water I've had in the last two.
"I don't know."
"Wrong answer, Buffy. You've got to have a reason, and I don't think it's a weight thing. Why were you hugging the toilet like that?"
Because I swallowed about twenty sleeping pills and then had second thoughts.
"I hate myself." Close enough.
Dawn sighed. "Is this about Spike?"
Yes. "Of course not. This is about me. I'm a terrible person, and I should be punished." Wow. That was actual honesty.
Dawn shook her head. "Buffy... God. How am I supposed to handle this? You're supposed to be my guardian. And you're destroying yourself over whatever the hell you're not telling me. What does it mean?"
"Watch your language," Buffy murmured. She took another sip of gingerale.
"Oh, ...Bloody hell!" Dawn stood, leaning forward on her fists. No doubt a posture she'd picked up from Spike, just like the epithet. "I'm telling Giles."
Buffy stood, slightly shakily. "No! Don't--" her throat clenched. Odd. Must be from the throwing up. She swallowed for a second. "Don't tell Giles."
"He should know."
"He shouldn't know. There's nothing to know. I won't do it anymore, I swear." Her eyes pleaded with Dawn. The teenager was put off balance by this whole situation. She hated all the role~reversal going on around here. Buffy was supposed to be the responsible one looking out for her. She swallowed and nodded.
"I won't tell."
@ @ @
Review, please. It rocks my world. Stay tuned for next chapter. Let's hear it for kilts!
~Star Mouse