The Road Home
Summary: AU; everyone's human. Buffy Summers dodges family and friends to escape her wedding and make it back home, single. But when she returns to L.A., she finds herself stuck with a grumpy, homeless roommate without who, she soon finds, home wouldn't be home at all.
Disclaimer: 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' and all associated with it belongs to Mutant Enemy, Fox, Joss Whedon etc. I own squat.
A/N: Hate me, if you shall, but let me know what you think.

27. Strings

Nearly empty, now, the bar was silent and a pin could be heard dropping. People were either sleeping on the floors and couches, or they had passed out, or they were speaking softly in whispers out of some respect for the ones who slumbered. It was nearly dawn and the Friday night, 24-hour party had crashed.

On the Dead Poet's corner, Tara and Willow lay sleeping, exhausted from all the dancing and drinking. As people woke up, Faith waved at them cheerily from her place at the bar, signalling goodbye. Sheepishly, heads bowed, they started leaving.

"So, where were we?" Faith turned back to Buffy after waving at another man who seemed to have taken a liking to her.

Buffy sipped her coffee and commented, "You know, he probably won't be so interested if you, well... dressed a little less provocatively." She waved a slender hand, gesturing at her ensemble of denim shorts that ended at least two inches above where they should and her black silk bustier.

Faith rolled her eyes. "Look at the pot calling the kettle black," She teased Buffy for her pink halter which was held together by a beaded string.

Buffy grinned and said, "Yeah, well. It's like that everywhere."

Faith sighed and leaned her side over the counter. "I can't believe I talked to you all night long, B. Either you're talkative or you bring that out in others."

"I have that face, you know. The kind that makes everyone want to open up and speak to me." Buffy sipped loudly, earning a scowl from Faith. "Lucky you own this place or you'd be fired, eh, for denying them drinks."

Faith shrugged. "I guess." She traced circles on her thigh with a long, gold-painted nail. She sighed, suddenly, and asked Buffy, "Well, what're you going to do?"

Buffy turned grim at once. Her cup safe between her hands, her hands on her lap, she bit her lip. "I don't know. I-I guess he'll make the first move, so if he wants to talk..."

"You'll talk?"

Buffy thought about that. Was she really so angry with Will? Or was she more upset that he didn't trust her and was angry at her? It was too easy. "Yeah, I'll talk back."

Faith smiled. "Good girl, B. How's the Aspirin helping?"

Buffy's hand flew to her forehead where she touched her throbbing temples. "Still hurts, but the coffee helps."

Faith nodded. "You drank a lot last night." She commented, reaching over the counter to grab a couple of chocolates. "I didn't think you could hold that much."

Buffy smiled, oddly proud of herself. "Neither did I." She took the proffered candy and added, as an afterthought, "Of course, it helped that I threw up around two."

Faith laughed. "Yeah, it must have. But you still held your own, girl. Very cool."

Buffy tried to laugh but the reminder of her headache seemed like a self-fulfilling prophecy: with a vengeance, her head started hurting again.

She put her head down with a groan. Faith, tsking sympathetically, put her rough, hard hands through Buffy's golden hair and started massaging her head. Buffy let out another moan, this one of pleasure and gratitude. Faith looked around the bar with dark eyes and noticed the stirrings on the couch.

"Looks like the lovebirds are waking up." She said.

Buffy put her head up instantly. "Oh god," She muttered, looking in the direction of the Dead Poet's corner, "Tara's never partied this hard. She's going to have a fit!"

Rolling her eyes, Faith brought Buffy's head down again. "Relax, B!" She said cheerfully, making Buffy wince, "You've got plenty to worry about when you get home. Right now, just relax and take it easy... boy, you're so tense and uptight all the time!"

Buffy mumbled something into the hard countertop, too lost in the feeling of Faith's talented hands pressing against her scalp. She closed her eyes and when she opened them again, she realized she must have fallen asleep because the bar was virtually empty, now, just a couple of bouncers drinking their coffee and Willow and Tara beside her, chattering away to Faith. Or rather, being chattered away.

"So I told him, 'Dude, I've got mad skills!' and he looks at me and goes, 'We'll have to see' and so we fell into another round, right there in the hay! You know, girls," Faith leaned forwards confidentially, "if you met this guy, believe me, you'd turn straight immediately. I mean, he has a huge—"

"Ahem!"

Faith looked at Buffy. "B! You're up! I was telling them the story about Wood!"

Buffy looked at Tara and Willow's ashen faces. Suppressing a smile, she said, "I think that's alright, Faith. We'll leave, now."

Tara and Willow got up too quickly for it to be an eagerness to get home. As they rushed to the couch to get their bags, Faith pulled Buffy aside. "How'd I do?" She asked in a quiet voice.

Buffy looked at Tara and Willow. She half-grinned and said, "Very well. Do you have the time?"

She looked at her watch. "Almost ten."

Buffy's eyes widened. "Oh, my! I gotta get home!"

As Faith hooked her thumbs through the belt hoops of her jeans, leaning back against the counter, Buffy rushed to get her coat and purse from wherever they were. Willow and Tara, near the stairs, were helping each other walk. As Faith lit up, Buffy approached, glancing at the girls.

"They're too far gone," She remarked.

Faith nodded, offering Buffy a cigarette. To Faith's surprise, and even more so Buffy's, she accepted and lit up by the flame of Faith's Zippo. "Lord, B, I corrupted you in one night!"

Buffy took a deep drag and coughed a little. "Haven't done this since freshman year in college."

"Long time."

Buffy suddenly fidgeted with her hands. "Faith..." She looked up at her new friend, eyes pleading for reassurance, "It'll be okay, right?"

Faith knew from experience that it might not be. But Buffy, at the point, needed comfort, even if it was a lie. She breathed out a ring of blue smoke and scoffed, "Well, of course. What a question to ask, B."

Buffy eased. Looking back at the couple, she said, "I don't know how we'll get home. I'm better off than those two, but I don't think I can stand the sun."

"Easy squeezy." She looked around and caught one of the bouncer's eye. Motioning him over, she said in an undertone to Buffy, "He'll drive you, but watch out for him. He comes on a little hard." Then, louder so he could hear her, "Parker, this is Buffy. You need to drop her and those two," She motioned towards the girls, "wherever they have to go. They've got a car, drive them home and then hop along to your little bunny hole. Got it?"

Parker, who so far hadn't taken his eyes off Buffy, grinned. Buffy cringed- he looked like a wolf with yellow teeth. "No problems, boss-woman."

Faith gave him a kick in the shin to direct his attention away from Buffy. Glaring at him reproachfully, she said, "Watch it, boy. I gave you this job only because—

"You're running short, yeah, yeah, I know." He rolled his eyes and gave Buffy a helpless shrug. "Can we go, now?"

Faith, with a secret look with Buffy, nodded. After a quick hug, Buffy snapped on her sunglasses and moved to help out Willow and Tara.

Will sat on the steps, one of Buffy's sweater in his hand. He had slept fitfully that way in the night, tossing and turning while the sweater rested next to him or clenched in his fingers. Half a day away from Buffy had cleared his mind and pushed down all the trivial doubts that had risen in his head.

Two days seemed unbearable.

He looked at the soft cashmere as though it held all his answers. He loved Buffy; perhaps he had from that first day when she hit him with a tennis racket. She was an amazing person and the open way that she had welcomed and accepted him into her life, after the initial discontent of course, was remarkable. He loved her for her uncertainty and her decisiveness; he loved her innocence and seduction; he loved her, which was all that mattered.

But did she really love him?

Of course, she had said the words first. But after that, he had echoed them often while she had been content to show it through her actions. Words made her uncomfortable, he knew that. But still, she knew that he was a verbal person—why didn't she accept that?

And then there was this whole Angel affair. She insisted she was over him, but why did she have pictures of them in her drawer, hidden? The way she had treated his cousin, too, had been completely unfair and wrong of her. Perhaps it was her inexperience — Angel had been her first boyfriend and her longest relationship. They shared a bond he knew he couldn't: the binding ties of first love. His own, too, were somewhere else: with Cecily Addams. Of course, that had been a miserable situation, but she still held a place in his heart that nobody could take. His first few poems were about her, however bad they were, and not about Dru, nor Buffy.

Will didn't know what to make of the whole matter. All he knew was that he wanted Buffy back in his arms, right then and there.

As though someone had been listening to his thoughts and had granted him a wish, the familiar purr of Willow's car reverberated through and he rushed to the windows, pulling her soft sweater along with him.

As Will watched, Buffy, with dark glasses perched on tousled hair, squinted as she helped Tara and Willow into the house with a man he didn't know. Buffy disappeared into the house with the girls for a minute, probably to help them, and when she came out, she handed the guy a soda. They sat together on the porch seat, talking quietly. As Will watched, the man inconspicuously stretched into a yawn and, when he brought his arms down, one slipped around Buffy's shoulders.

A fierce, hot protectiveness rose in Will and before he could stop himself, he was bursting through the front door, moving in their direction.

Buffy rubbed her tired eyes. Besides her, Parker spoke of things she knew nothing of and could only nod along with. Fidgeting in her seat, Buffy tried to get a comfortable position, Parker squashed too close to her. She did not have nor the energy, nor the will to tell him to back off; impatiently did she wait for him to finish the soda so he could leave.

Buffy sighed when her purse fell to the floor after a rough fidgeting session. She bent to retrieve it and Parker used the opportunity to slip an arm around her. When she sat back up, she noticed the uncomfortable feel of his muscled arm against her slim shoulders.

That was enough. Looking up at him, Buffy asked, politely, "Parker, would you mind taking your hand off my back?"

He grinned and said, "Don't ya like it, doll?"

Buffy's lips narrowed. "It's 'Buffy', Parker, not 'doll'." She turned and moved to push his arm off her. "Off." She said, indignant, now.

He gave a laugh and pulled his arms off, raising both hands in a surrendering manner. "Okay, okay—my, you're a feisty one, aren't you? I should have—"

But Buffy never knew what Parker should have done for right then, Will ran up the porch steps and grabbed Parker by the collar of his shirt. Pulling him up to a standing position, Will snarled, "Never touch my girl."

Parker, eyes widening, looked to Buffy for help. But she was too stunned by Will's actions to do anything. Only when Will twisted the collar and pulled Parker closer, rose a fist and cocked it to hit his nose, only then did she realize what was happening and quickly, standing up, she threw herself between the two.

"Will! Neanderthal much!" She yelled at her boyfriend, her hands against his chest holding him off. "Back off, Will! He's okay!"

"No, he's fucking not okay!" Will roared, struggling against Buffy's lithe form to get a good aim. "Did you see the way he was slobbering over you, or were you too flattered to care!"

Buffy, eyes widening in anger, twisted against the two hard, male bodies and braced herself against Parker. Pushing with all the might in her lissom body, she pushed him and he broke free of Will's grip, staggering back and crashing onto the post of the porch. "Go!" Buffy yelled and he didn't need to be told twice. He ran, ran as though the hounds of hell were after him, and disappeared around the corner quicker than was humanly possible.

Will, having nobody to take out his anger on, turned to Buffy and growled, "What the fuck do you think you were doing!"

Buffy, arms folded, stood her ground. "I did nothing wrong, William." Her voice was cold, unaffected by his words and Will found that, again, a source of his anger.

Laughing harshly, he backed away from her and leaned against the post. "The fuck you didn't." He shook his head disgustedly. "You like men drooling all over you, don't you? One just isn't enough for you, eh?" He flipped out a cigarette and lit up, looking at the flame.

If he had looked up, he would have seen the hurt that crossed Buffy's face. But as it was to be, he looked up to se her looking at him contemptuously. "Well, maybe I do. What right do you have you to say anything about it?"

Her answer seemed to shock him. He watched her for a long minute, wanting her to cringe guiltily under his gaze, but she held her position, chin raised in defiance, eyes narrowed in dislike, lips drawn in anger. He swallowed, not allowing her to see the effect of her words on him. "You're right. I don't. The photos of you with Tall, Dark and Forehead, a.k.a. your fiancé, hidden in your drawer certainly prove that."

And throwing his cigarette down, giving her a shake of his head in disgust, he turned on his heel and marched off the porch, into the bright sun that hurt her eyes.

Looking after the lines of his rigid back as he flung himself into his car and screeched away, Buffy allowed herself to cry. For he hadn't seen the tremble of her body when she raised her chin, nor had he noticed that her eyes were narrowed to hide her tears. He hadn't even thought that her lips were drawn tightly so as to hide their tremble: he had seen what he wanted to see.

After one full day or dry eyes, Buffy allowed herself to sink to the hard floor and cry. But strangely, her eyes felt so wet, it was as though she had never actually stopped her tears.