Fic: What The Hell(mouth) Happened?

Author: mkcrl120

Disclaimer: All the characters mentioned in this story belong to Joss Whedon or Mutant Enemy or some other people. I own nothing and wrote this just to get it out of my system.

Summary: I'm writing some of these, as I've come up with ideas that I honestly don't know what I'll be doing when the Ultimate series gets that far. In the meantime, these won't go away from my brain unless I do something with them. Warning: It may be a standalone it may be spoilers for something later; only time will tell.

Rating: 15 probably... mainly for language.

Setting: Season 3 - I think you'll recognise when.

What The Hell(mouth) Happened? - 13/?

Buffy swung the panel around, catching the first vampire in its side, the glancing blow doing nothing more than knocking it over; maintaining the momentum of the swing she continued her spin lifting the broken end of the fence panel up, succeeding in slashing the second vampire across it's face. Still facing the second vampire, she twirled the panel around, staking the fallen vampire where it still lay. "Would've been easier with a post." She told it while shrugging.

The vampire put a hand to the scratches across it's face. "You'll pay for that bitch!" He told her.

"I'm sure I will." Buffy replied sarcasticly, "Hey Faith..." she offered as a greeting, forcing the vampire to turn to see where the second Slayer had entered the battle.

Faith had dusted the vampire that was getting up from where it'd been hit, without pausing. She ducked and rolled under another's wild swing. "Hey B." She said as she got to her feet, right behind a vampire who'd been watching the other two face Buffy. Staking it quickly she added, "Nice weapon... want a real one?"

Buffy caught the spare stake Faith had casually tossed her way. "Thanks... talking of which, Xander wants his axe back."

Faith turned to face her remaining opponent. "No way. I like that axe."

Buffy dropped the fence panel, and walked towards the injured vampire. "Well... I said I'd ask. Hey you, you said something about making me pay?"

Meanwhile, Xander had got to the vampires first. He dived in, attacking the larger one with a tackle to it's torso, successfully taking them both to the ground. "Kill it!" He ordered.

Jesse went to stake the creature, only to find it blocked his thrust. Punching it in the face, he tried again. This time the creature blocked the move with his arm, and got a return punch on Jesse. Xander was trying to use his entire bodyweight to stop it getting back to it's feet. Suddenly a scream from Willow distracted both Jesse and Xander.

The other vampire had used its opportunity to face Willow alone. She'd attempted to stake it, but it had simply knocked her last stake out of her hand. Now it had managed to grab her and was moving her into a position to feed. "Help her." Xander ordered from his place from beneath the vampire.

Decision made, Jesse turned and headed towards his girlfriend. "Hey fangface," he called, desperate to stop her biting Willow. "Yeah you. You always pick on girls or you man enough to face me?"

Willow used the opportunity to knee it in the groin. Something that should have been more effective than it was. The vampire had curled over, but was still standing and still had a hand on Willow's arm restricting her escape.

Cordelia had finally got to the bottom of the hill, and sizing up the situation ran towards where Xander was in the process of losing a wrestling match.

Jesse had moved once the vampire was bent over. Quickly staking it in the back, he kissed his girlfriend as it turned to dust. "You okay babe?"

"MMmmmm." Willow noded, looking over to where Cordelia had just reached the others.

Xander had been overpowered. The vampire had managed to pin him to the ground. Vampiric strength easily holding Xander's own arms down; one over his head, the other by his side. He was struggling but the vampire was leaning in for the bite, utilising his only free limbs, he tried kicking and kneeing the vampire. Cordelia was about a foot away when he started this. One of his kicks caught Cordelia's own ankle and succeeded in tripping her.

"Ow." She whined as she fell forwards on top of the vampire. Panicking she lifted the stake and, holding it in two hands, she held it to her chest, pointy end facing outwards.

She closed her eyes and braced for impact; she landed bodily on top of the vampire. Opening her eyes she could see Xander below her, looking directly into the face of the demon. Which then promptly exploded in a cloud of dust, Cordelia realised that she was falling again, and this time the stake would be piercing Xander's torso. She twisted her body as best she could, moving the weapon out to arms length in an attempt not to stake her ex.

Buffy and Faith were hurrying back, having finished off their own opponents and seeing if the others could use any help. They had been heading in Xander's direction when they'd seen the vampire dust, and Cordelia land heavily on Buffy's boyfriend.

"Mother Fuck..." Xander cried out, cutting off the end of his own comment as he bit into his lip.

Buffy just raised her eyebrows at the scene in front of her. Cordelia was practically lying in the arms of her boyfriend. Rushing over to put a stop to that, she saw Cordelia sit up.

Cordelia realised whose arms she was in, and sat up before she found it too comfortable. However she wasn't impressed with his comment on the situation. "You saying I'm fat..? Cos Slayer's boyfriend or not, she won't be ab..." Cordelia drifted off when she looked to where he was staring. Directly at where the stake had pierced his upper arm. 'My stake,' she corrected herself.

"God... I'm sorry... I didn't mean to. I was trying to avoid stabbing you with it." She began, climbing off him.

The others quickly rushed around, Willow carefully removing the stake and applying pressure to the wound.

"You sure that's the right thing to do?" Cordelia asked, while the Slayer gently lifted him to his feet.

"You wanna go to emergency with that still in him? What could it be explained as..?" Willow told them.

"I'll be fine... just a few stitches and I'll be fine." Xander said through clenched teeth.

"It's better to be staked than to be deaded." Jesse commented, trying to lighten the mood.

"Deaded?" Willow asked with arched eyebrows.

Jesse shrugged, "It was that or eated..."

Willow shook her head, turning her attention back to the wound.

"You sure you're okay?" Buffy asked concerned.

"Add lots of painkillers to that list." Xander commented, as they began walking towards the hospital.

"So... climbing a tree and fell on a fence post?" Faith suggested.

"Isn't he a bit old for climbing trees?" Willow asked.

"It was a dare... or a challenge... to prove he wasn't scared of heights..." Faith drifted off. "We were trying to sneak into the school..?"

"That makes Snyder ask questions." Jesse reminded her.

"We've got a mile or so... we'll think of something." Faith muttered, deep in thought.

Another part of the cemetary

"I can't believe you sacrificed ten vampires." Trick complained as they watched the group leave the grounds.

Jonathan put down his video camera. "They were fledglings, they would never be anything more than minions at best."

"Ten is a lot of vampires." Trick continued to argue.

"There were more like fifteen... just some didn't stay to get in the fight." Jonathan hit rewind and watched the picture search back to the beginning.

"And where are they..?"

"The Bronze..? The University..? Who cares..?" Jonathan shrugged.

"We're trying to build a gang here... and what are you doing..?"

"It's called Surveillance. Spike told me to always know your enemy." Jonathan lectured.

"At the cost of ten minions?"

"At any cost."

Trick looked doubtful, "I'm not sure about this."

Jonathan pressed play, and started watching the video he'd just made while replying. "Look at it this way... whose idea was it to turn all these guys and bury them in sections of the cemetary near one another? And using old graves to bury them in... unless they're actually checking the earth to see if it's been recently dug, then most of those people get overlooked. The tombstone isn't new, they don't expect the corpse to be fresh... which means?"

Trick thought it through, "Unless they're paying attention they wouldn't expect vampires to rise out of it... genius."

"So if we're burying them ourselves, where we choose to... Then this helps us in our attempt to hide our numbers... which is what you wanted. The number of vampire attacks go down... the number of missing people go up."

"And the Slayers can't be sure about anything anymore... Man. I like this plan."

Jonathan mock bowed. "Hoped you would, thought it up myself. Now, let's go call out the electric company... it seems there's no power to my house."

"Let's go do just that." Trick replied.

The next morning

Joyce awoke when her alarm went off. 'Didn't hear the girls last night.' she thought, a little worried. Getting dressed she made her way onto the landing. Pausing at their doors to see if she could hear anything. Unsure she made her way downstairs, 'I'll make breakfast and shout them to see if they're in.'

At the bottom of the stairs she could hear snoring from the living room, 'Maybe they fell asleep watching television,' she thought but dismissed it because she normally heard that. Curious she opened the door to the room.

Where she found Xander asleep on the sofa. Dressed only in a pair of jeans and sporting some bandages on his upper left arm. 'Maybe I should wake him. Tell him it's okay if he sleeps in Buffy's room.' She decided against it though, realising how embarrassed he would be. 'And I think I've caused him enough embarrassment already.' She figured, leaving the room quietly. 'I'm amazed he can even look me in the eye. Mind you, I have troubles remembering to look him in the eye,' she giggled to herself quietly.

She started getting food to prepare out of the fridge. 'Breakfast for four then.'

Twenty minutes later

The four of them sat around the breakfast table.

Joyce had practically given up trying to get Buffy to eat. 'Lord knows, I understand that girls don't want to lose their figure, but she's going to be skin and bone if she keeps this up.' Smiling, she looked over to where Faith and Xander were trying to devour everything in front of them.

'Why can't she eat more like Faith... I mean no-one can say that girl is overweight.' Joyce wondered, 'It could be that she is eating like a normal girl her age, but as Faith always says, with the Slayer metabolism she really doesn't need to worry about calories. And Xander... well, Xander's a growing boy... and they always try to eat you out of house and home.'

She returned her attention to where Xander was teasing Faith. "So... did you hear? Faith is going on a blind date."

Joyce smiled at turned to the other Slayer. "Is this true? What's his name?"

Faith waited til she finished chewing before responding. "You are so dead Harris. Yes... so I have a date... it's not that big a deal you know."

Buffy just grinned at the good natured teasing. "It's been a while."

"Tell me about it." Faith responded.

Everyone else around the table blushed, "Not what I meant." Buffy added, refusing to even make eye contact with her mother.

Joyce smiled. "Just remember the house rules."

Faith smirked back. "No boys in your room unless its a serious relationship... or you think you can get away with it."

Joyce caught the look of embarrassment that crept on both Buffy and Xander's face. 'Maybe he didn't spend the whole night on the sofa then.' She decided to let them be, 'well if they want to sneak around, it's not my fault they won't just ask... don't think I'd have that problem if it was Faith with the serious boyfriend.' She mused before adding, 'Think it'd be more of a miracle if Faith ever admitted she was in a serious relationship, the sex part of it she wouldn't be bothered by.' She thought sadly to herself, feeling bad that a girl of such a young age would be experienced in the physical aspects but not the emotional ones.

Sunnydale High
The library
Lunchtime

Cordelia entered the library to see Xander sitting at the table, and Buffy talking to Giles next to his office. "Xander!!" Cordelia shouted, this being the first time today that she'd seen him. "How are you?"

"Not too bad." He replied truthfully from his seat at the table.

"I'm really sorry about last night." She said sincerely.

"Hey no biggie... you stopped me from being a snack, remember?"

"Yeah..." She replied, unsure of herself. "But there were two Slayers on hand who could have done a much safer job."

Buffy approached Cordelia from behind, resting her hand lightly on her back as support. "But we still had some vampires to deal with... you did the right thing... a little clumsily," she added with a touch of humour, "but still it was the right thing."

"My first vampire too... glad it was saving someone I ca... am friends with." She drifted off.

"So that was your first vampire?" Xander asked, tactfully sticking to the safer topic.

"Yep... not a bad job if I do say so myself."

"I'll give you seven for the execution, but zero for the dismount." Xander joked, causing both girls to smile.

"I remember my first vampire." Buffy commented. "Merrick took me to an old cemetary... at that point I still didn't believe in vampires. I didn't know how to use my powers at all. Missed the heart and everything."

"But look how far she's come since." Xander lightly punched her arm with his good one. Buffy just stared at him.

"So Mr. Bigshot... why don't you tell her about your first vampire staking... and how successful that is." Buffy teased back.

"Har har."

"You don't need to. Really." Cordelia informed them.

"It was a little embarrassing, it's no big deal." Xander said.

"Xander... you don't need to cover up when you're with me... us." She quickly corrected herself, noticing Buffy's reaction to the comment.

"I know it hurt you." Cordelia continued on.

"It got a few lucky punches in but I wouldn't say..." Xander responded.

"I didn't mean like that... I meant what it meant to you. Having to stake him."

Xander just looked lost. "It didn't mean that much... it was a vampire. It attacked Buffy when she was ill. It had to die. I mean, we hadn't started seeing each other or anything... but I still thought she was sexy. And even if I hadn't fancied her, I still would have rescued her because..." Xander mumbled to himself.

"He's cute when he gets flustered." Buffy said, then realised who she was saying it to. 'God, I really hope her and Scott hit it off. Hey hope, Scott. Scott Hope.' She thought smiling at her own joke, the others just looked at the peculiar look on her face and continued on regardless.

"Eh?" Cordelia said.

Buffy tried to counter her previous drifting off into her own inner monologue, by telling as much of the story in one breath as she could. "It was a witch, with a cheerleader fixation to rival Xander's. She put the whammy on me and made me ill. Giles, Willow and Jesse went to see her mom, who turned out to be her, the girl, Amy, that we thought was desperate to be a cheerleader, but really wasn't. Her mom was, but in Amy's body. Me and Xander were supposed to be tailing Amy, who was her mom, but we didn't know that, cos we weren't with the others when they found out. Anyway while we were tailing Amy a vampire recognised and attacked me, which I thought was cheating cos I'd only been here for just over a week, and what are they doing recognising me in that short a time."

Xander interrupted. "And to cut an extremely long story short; she was ill, I staked the vampire. If you managed to follow all that."

'Oh God...' Buffy thought to herself, 'I'm channeling Willow, when the teachers ask her questions about her personal life.'

Thankfully though Cordelia had remembered her own version of events. "When I was blind. The cheerleader tryouts in your first year here."

"Yes." Buffy said.

"I remember now... Xander told me about Amy being a witch the following year after he hired her to cast a spell on me."

"Xander..." Buffy warned, wondering if he'd ever had a spell cast on her.

Cordelia looked confused, "But that wasn't your first vampire, you'd staked a vampire long before that... and you hate vampires. After you had to stake... Jesse."

Faith, Jesse and Willow had chosen that exact moment to walk in. "Erm... excuse me. Who staked me?"

End chapter thirteen