Disclaimer: JK, Joss Whedon, WB, ME, etc.

Summary: Part of the 'Unwell' series. Percy and Wesley must face their worst fear: their own parents.

Special thanks to everyone who reviewed my fics, especially to Muses9 (you don't have to wait anymore, here it is!) and Mikhyel (definately NOT a threesome, sorry, but I don't write those). I hope you like this new installment of the series.


Lies My Parents Told Me

Chapter One:

'GET DOWN!'

Faith didn't need to say it twice: Percy ducked behind a table, and he saw the Slayers-in-training doing the same.

A whistle was heard, and the axe crossed the air, chopping off one of the vampires' heads at once. That caught their attention: They turned to face Faith, stunned looks on their faces.

The dark Slayer gave them a sly smile:

'Are we ready to negotiate now?'

The vampires exchanged dark glances, then turned to face her again, this time showing their demoniac visage. Faith shrugged.

'Guessed so' She pulled out a stake. 'Girls, let's kick some demon ass'.

The girls jumped on their feet and pulled out their stakes as if they were one. Brave resolve shone on their faces, in spite of being outnumbered two to one. The vampires, aware of this fact, had smug looks in their eyes. Percy looked at Faith and her team, then he looked at the demons again. Poor devils.

As the battle took place around him, Percy crept out from his hidey-hole. He had a different mission to accomplish.

He crept on his stomach all the way to the opposite side of the room, trying to move as close to the wall as possible, and avoiding both vampires and slayers. He got to his destination and rose slowly to his feet, hoping none of the demons would notice his movements. He gave a quick glance at the iron door in front of him, and grabbed the knob. Before anyone noticed what he was doing, he opened it and slid inside.

He found himself in a smaller, darker room, and almost at once his nostrils were filled with dust. Repressing the urge to sneeze, he tried to adapt his eyes to the surrounding blackness, as he took tentative steps towards the centre of the room.

As soon as his eyes managed to see again (doing the Lumus spell would only help to give away his position), he distinguished a table. He walked towards it and saw a piece of parchment on it. This time he did risk using the Lumus spell to check whether this parchment was the one he was looking for.

He smiled in the dark when he saw a list of many of the vampires and demons that had allied with the Dark Lord, and it also showed magically how to reach the places they used to meet with the Death Eaters. This was worth all the trouble they had gone through to find out its location.

But first, he had to take care of a few things. He proceeded to cast a series of spells on the parchment, to see whether it was magically protected or whether it had an anti-burglars curse. He was glad he'd read all those books about curse-breaking of Bill.

To his surprise, the list wasn't protected. Then he remembered that vampires usually weren't very fond of magic, and that apart from their supernatural abilities they didn't have one single drop of magic blood in their veins. Hell, even a house-elf would beat them at a magic contest.

He stretched out a hand to take it, when he heard a hiss right behind him:

'Not so fast, fella'.

Before Percy could react, he felt the full impact of a powerful fist against his ribs, and he fell to the ground, gasping for air. Laughter rang in his ears, as Percy tried to catch his breath and get a grip on his wand.

'Look at this, boys! We got a witch here!'

A witch, Percy thought. Are you bloody blind? While the vampire kept laughing at him, and to this point at least two other vampires were laughing with him, Percy rolled over and pointed his wand at him.

'Incendio!' he shouted, and the vampire was set on fire. Shocked, the vampire saw how the orange flames were turning his body into ashes, until there was nothing left.

'What the sodding hell...?'

Percy realised that in this case darkness would only benefit them, so he shouted:

'Lumus Maxima!'

At once, the room was filled with a bright white light, which dazzled the vampires for a moment. Percy turned the table over, to use it as a shield, as he threw curses to the nearest vampire.

The problem was that vampires, like giants, were immune to many spells and hexes, so most of his attempts were futile. Finally he managed to slow down the vampire long enough to throw at him another fire spell.

He inhaled, relaxed, until he felt how a tight grip closed around his neck and made him to turn round. Too late he remembered there still was one vampire left.

'So, whaddaya gonna do now, witch? Seems to me you can't pronounce more spells'

And he was bloody well right. As the vampire's grip tightened around his neck, Percy felt how oxygen was abandoning his lungs. He tried to whisper something, anything, but the grip was too tight and his trachea refused to cooperate. His left hand grabbed the vampire's in a futile attempt to force it to release him, but all he managed was to scratch his skin with his nails.

He could heard the vampire's laughter, but it sounded very distant, and horrified he realised he was slipping into unconciousness. His sight was fading, and his brain was quite dizzy.

C'mon, Percy. You can't die like this...

He began to swirl his arms helplessly...and then, in a sudden, he realised that the vampire hadn't taken away his most powerful weapon.

With a brisk move of his right hand, he crossed the vampire's chest with his wand...and crashed into the ground when it turned into ashes.

He stayed curled in the floor for a few minutes, taking deep breaths to recover all the lost oxygen. Relieved, he felt how the air returned painfully to his lungs and the blood pounded its way back to his brain.

How come no one taught me that in Defense Against Dark Arts?, Percy thought as he got on his feet again, still gasping for air. He would have liked to lie still for a few more minutes, but he was running out of time. He hastened to summon the parchment, and after casting a protecting charm on it he put it in his inner pocket.

As soon as he did so, the door swung open and Percy turned round, ready to face an army of vampires...but it was just Faith and the girls.

They were covered in dirt and vampire's dust, not to mention the minnor cuts and injuries some of them showed, but on the whole they looked fine. Actually, they looked exhilarated. Percy shook his head. He'd never get the exciting thing about fighting vampires. He, for instance, all wanted to do right now was to curl up in his bed. Instead, he'd have to report to Wesley and take care of some of the slayers' injuries.

How fun.

Wesley stared dully at the envelope on his desk. He'd recognized the flourished handwriting at once and as for the address on it, he'd lived in there long enough to remember it by heart.

He'd received it half an hour ago... but hadn't put up the courage to open it yet. Come on, Pryce. There won't be a bomb in it.

Finally, he ripped the envelope open, letting two sheets of paper to fall. He grabbed them, and was shocked to find his hands barely shaking. Annoyed with himself, he tried to calm down before reading its contents.

His eyes widened as his gaze scanned through the sheets of paper, and when he finished reading the letter he was utterly surprised. He couldn't ponder on the contents of the letter for long, though: his office's door swung open and Faith came in.

'Mission accomplished, partner'.

She carelessly dropped the precious parchment on desk, sank onto the chair and put her feet on the desk.

Wesley put aside his own problems and began questioning about the mission, and Faith, for once, obliged. When she finished her report and was ready to leave, she added:

'Oh, Giles's looking for ya. Seems like a couple of those mojo weirdos came'.

Wesley refrained the urge to roll his eyes.

'Faith, they aren't weirdos, they are just like Percy and Oliver' At this words, Faith shrugged.

'Whatever. You not gonna give 'em our list, are ya?'

'No, just a copy'.

Faith nodded, satisfied, and walked out. Wesley closed his eyes for a second and rubbed his forehead. He'd completely forgotten about the visit of the two members of the Order of the Phoenix that were supposed to come that day.

He rose from his chair grabbing the parchment, and hurried to leave the office. The letter, and its contents, were temporary forgotten on his desktop.

Back at the headquarters, Percy was taking care of a large, nasty looking cut that crossed Vi's left arm, while Andrew demanded for details of the mission. When Percy told what he'd done to the two vampires, both of them gasped.

'Whoa, Percy! That wasn't bad at all' Vi said. 'You know, for not having super powers and all...'

Percy's lips curved in an amused smile.

'Vi, I do have super powers. They're different from yours, that's all'.

Andrew's amazement was much more evident.

'Three vamps all at once! Percy, that's fantastic!'

Percy felt himself blushing.

'Really, it wasn't that great...'

'Oh, yes, it was!' Andrew looked at him in awe. 'Now you're all a Blade...'

Both Vi and Percy blinked, and the latter was glad that he hadn't been the only one who hadn't got Andrew's reference. The blonde man waved his hand impatiently.

'Demon hunter. Anyway, Percy, that's amazing. They could have snapped you in two, you know'.

Without realising it, Percy touched the spot were the vampire had tried to strangle him. Really, Andrew? I wouln't have noticed.

'Ouch, Percy, careful with that! It hurts, you know'.

The wizard stopped pouring Healing Potion on Vi's cut and stared at her. 'You know, no one would say you've faced an Apocalypsys from the way you're whimpering now' he teased. She gave him a playful punch with her sane arm.

'I'm not whimpering!'

'Whinning, then'.

'I'm not!'

Percy laughed softly, and then his gaze met Andrew's. He was staring at them with a slight frown on his face. Percy suddenly remembered all the nonsense Oliver had been saying the previous day, about Vi having a crush on him. Oh, great. Now Andrew would start with that too.

His friend, however, opted to change the subject.

'So, how did the rehearsal go?'

It took Percy a moment to reaslise what he was talking about.

'Oh, it was great, really. We might play in a club next Saturday'.

The previous night Percy had had his first rehearsal with Naoise Donnovan's band, "Leprechaun's Gold" (hey, he hadn't came up with the name). There Percy had met the other members of the band: Riley, the singer, Laoise, Naoise's younger sister (definately their parents had a weird sense of humor), who played the harp, and a bloke called Black Eye from some unknown reason, who was the drummer. Naoise was the bass player.

After he'd played, the other members of the band had been glad to accept him in. It seemed that their last guitar player had been a disaster.

'But with you, we might play in a real club this time', Riley had said, while Laoise nodded heartily behind him. Percy's ears had turned red, but soon he'd felt at ease as he started playing with the band. They performed covers of old songs of the seventies and the eighties, so Percy didn't feel like a fish out of water when he admitted he liked The Hobgoblins.

That'll show you, Oliver Wood!, he'd thought as he talked with Riley about The Hobgoblins' latest record...which was at least sixteen years old. Later on Laoise and Naoise had joined the conversation. Somewhat to his disappointment, Naoise wasn't a huge fan of the Hobgoblins. She said she preferred The Alchemist's, which was a band of the eighties Percy had never liked that much. Too bad.

On the other hand, Black Eye didn't seem to be very talkative. He'd barely spoken ten words in Percy's pressence.

'Don't worry', Laoise had told him. 'He's always like that'.

On the whole, he considered the rehearsal had gone quite well. The band members had seemed nice enough and, who knew, they might be in the radio some day.

In a bizarre, alternate universe, of course.

Ten minutes later, Vi had reunited with her fellow slayers, while Andrew had begun a tedious translation. Percy, on the other hand, had just noticed they had no Healing Potion left. He'd have to go to Wesley's office to pick up the ingredients and prepare some more.

When he walked down the stairs, he saw Wesley and Giles talking to some people in front of his office, but he couldn't see their faces. He waited a moment, unsure of what to do, but Giles, who'd noticed his pressence, approached him.

'Percy, there you are' he said. Puzzled, Percy looked at him, wondering what Giles might need from him. 'Look, these two people are from the Order of the Phoenix and they've came here to lend us a hand...'

Percy winced. The Order of the Phoenix? Ok, he was aware that Giles knew Dumbledore and all, and that in a couple of times Hogwarts' headmaster had helped them, but he certainly wasn't expecting this. Especially when he saw who they were.

'Nice to see you again, Percy'.

He stared in disbelief at the brown-haired man with shabby clothes.

'Professor Lupin?'

But that wasn't all. Because standing right next to Professor Lupin, there was a wizard Percy knew all too well. A wizard who was staring at him with even more disbelief than Percy was. Then he managed to compose and a forced smile curved his lips.

'Hello, son. It's been a while'.