How To Kill Your Boyfriend In One Hard Lesson Chapter 8, an angel fanfic

Disclaimer: Don't own, etc., etc. Joss Whedon rules supreme and retains pretty much everything. Only written for personal enjoyment and because this plot bunny just wouldn't die, even after some serious staking…

Summary: Occurs after Brother, Unfortunately Mine. Rating 18 for sexual references. The sibling theme is not entirely played out …

HOW TO KILL YOUR (PSYCHO) BOYFRIEND IN ONE HARD LESSON

Chapter 8 – Slayer Certainty

For a moment the uncomfortable truth hung in the air; then Dawn Summers slowly stood up, tall and straight, from where she had been huddled against Spike. Her voice was quiet but firm as her chin tilted up; she met their eyes squarely: "Then Buffy will just have to deal. Spike is the only one who has always been there for me, even when my sister and everyone around her were treating me like just one more problem that they had to deal with - or get rid of."

"One disaster at a time." Angel answered quietly. "Psycho boyfriend first, pissed off Slayer and Co next."

"You got a picture of him, pet?" Spike asked Dawn, looking up at her determined posture with pride. She was all grown up now, his Niblet.

Fumbling in her purse, Dawn pulled out a large colour photograph that was a bit ragged around the edges and uncertainly held it out to Angel, who took it, looked at it, shook his head negatively and passed it to Wesley. Getting up off the couch, Spike took his turn as it passed around the group, but didn't recognise the species either.

The photograph had been taken at the Student bar on UC Sunnydale campus at some party. Clearly the place was now the usual hangout of local youth, though that made sense since the Bronze was at the bottom of the crater with the rest of Sunnydale. It showed Dawn was standing as part of a group of grinning young women and men with what appeared to be a band in the right corner. A tall man had his arm tight around Dawn's waist, hoisting a glass in the air and grinning at the camera. The man's skin was a slightly unnatural shade of orange-gold that not even too much fake tan could produce, and like the Groosalug and Lorne, his eyes were solidly coloured around the pupil, unlike human eyes. Whereas Lorne's eyes were red and Gru's purple, this guy's were also a sort of dull gold-orange. The fingers on his hands were a bit longer and appeared to be more bony than a human's, but other than those minor indicators, there was nothing about him that overtly declared him to be a non-human species, nor anything that yelled 'evil', except possibly his questionable dress sense.

"Harmony, take Dawn to the kitchen and get her something to eat," Angel ordered. "After that, Spike will take you to the Hyperion - stay with her. Lorne, you go with them. You know the Sanctuary spell that the Furies put on Caritas, lay the whammy on so that even if hell boy gets in he can't touch Dawn…"

"My pleasure," Lorne handed back the photograph as Dawn prepared to go with Harmony.

"I'll hit the books," Wesley told Angel. "Dawn, what did Stefan say his full name was?"

"Stefan might be an alias?" Dawn hadn't thought of that.

Wesley's expression was bleak. "Leopards rarely change their spots. The unpleasant thought occurs that Stefan may have done this sort of thing before."

"And many non-human species have lifecycles that vary hugely from that humans, yours truly being l'example du jour." Lorne pointed out even as he nodded agreement of the Englishman's assessment. "'Stefan' could've feasibly looked all of 20 years old for the past half-century. Hate to say it, cupcake, but this Stefan's M.O. sounds nastily well-practised."

"Stefan Ulrich Ologugoff." Dawn recited. "He said his grandparents were Ukrainian. He told me when I asked what the U. stood for. S-t-ef-a-n, U-l-r-i-c-h, O-l-o-g-u-"

"G-o-f-f." Finished Wesley grimly.

"Uh-oh, I know that face," Gunn groaned.

"Stefan and Ulrich are real names. 'Ologugoff' bears a close resemblance to a real Russian surname, but not quite," Wesley told them. "If you rearrange the surname and add the 'S' from Stefan and 'U' from Ulrich, you finish up with 'Gulffosouog'. It literally means 'small-horned ones'. It's the collective term for about ten or eleven demon sub-species that have created quite a little niche for themselves across the pan-dimensional realms in the mercenary-stroke-killers-for-hire line. Thugs, heavies, kill-their-own-spawner-for-a-buck types. They're born with little vestigial horns on their heads, similar to Lorne, but they just saw them off when they move into our dimension. As long as they hide their eyes, they look like nothing more than fat guys with bad tans."

"Speaking of tans," Fred put in, "do you have anything of Stefan's? Handkerchief he wiped his face with, anything that might have a few cells I can analyse? I might be able to narrow it down from ten or eleven to just two or three."

"Way ahead of you, "Dawn chortled, "and Willow says I don't pay attention to the science!" Reaching into her purse again, she pulled out one of those re-sealable small, clear plastic bags, inside which was a cheap plastic disposable razor.

"Ooh, clever girl." Fred took the bag.

"I asked to use his bathroom, and swapped his razor for mine." Dawn explained with a grin.

"What would you have done if he used an electric shaver?" Gunn asked.

"His toothbrush had replaceable heads." Dawn countered.

"I'll go hit the books too." Gunn decided, "See if I can make things all nice and legal for when we whack this son of Norman B."

As Dawn allowed Harmony to lead her from the office, she had to blink back tears of gratitude. She had gone to find Spike and the whole lot of them had just dropped everything to pitch in. Harmony took hold of her wrist and tugged her along, babbling excitedly to distract Dawn so the girl didn't notice Angel jerk his head back, silently telling Lorne to stay.

"How long do you think before Buffy figures it out and the entire Scooby Gang turn up on our doorstep?" Angel asked gloomily.

Lorne shrugged. "Four days, maximum. Realistically, I think you got two." The green demon waggled his forefinger at Angel and then Spike, who had remained as Gunn, Fred and Wesley left to do their thing. "I've been reading those Watcher Diaries on the web too, kiddies, and the key word here is: loss. Buffy lost you to Los Angeles and then she lost her mom to the vicious vagaries of Just Life. Next she lost Riley to the Initiative – again – 'cause the boy just couldn't deal with Girl Power, and she lost Spike to the First Evil when he saved the world and got toasted extra crispy – no offence."

"Dawn is the centre of Buffy's world," Spike acknowledged, "and because of that she's hyper-sensitive to everything in Dawn's life. There will be hell to pay – and I'm not speaking metaphorically here - when Buffy realises Dawn's done a bunk and come down here. Buffy's going to be angry, hurt and seething with jealousy."

"Jealousy?" Angel frowned at the Spike's phraseology, but didn't doubt his grandson – he had long ago learned that when Spike spoke without baiting or name calling, it was time to set back and listen to what usually turned out to be sound sense; that had clued him to those instances when the usually jovial Lorne sounded forth without interspersing his words with references to assorted confectionary – like right now.

"Oh yeah, take it from this big green monster," Lorne told him. "No matter how old we get, there's always a little bit of us that still wants to be the most important person in the life of our child. Buffy is the closest thing Dawn has to a mother, and big sis will be in an almighty snit over the fact that Dawn's first port in a storm wasn't her." The green empath demon growled, "You know - what really makes me so pissed at those ancient Shadowmen we-know-all idiots is that they knew they were creating a long line of little girls who wouldn't live to grow up, and they didn't care. I looked up the stats, boys. Buffy Summers is the first Slayer in about forever to live to twenty-five, and one of only four in the last three centuries that made it past twenty-one. Buffy Summers has lived flipping the bird at the fact that statistically, she shouldn't have made it past eighteen, and she's determined beyond paranoia to give Dawn the freedom and happiness that her teenage years should have consisted of, but didn't."

"She'll be furious with herself for not spotting Stefan-the-scumbag from two miles distant, and me and Spike are going to be her whipping boys for all the anger she can't vent on Dawn." Angel translated. "What joy."

"Sometimes being the good guys really sucks." commiserated Spike as he left with Lorne to go hurry Dawn along; he wanted her safely in the hotel with that big Sanctuary spell humming.

Gunn hurried off towards his office, his thoughts on his own sister Alannah, whom he had failed to save. Dawn had that same springy step, bright gaze and can-do outlook of his baby sister. Damn, he missed her.

Wesley reached out a hand and carefully tugged Fred around a support pillar as the Texan held the plastic bag up and examined it with totally focussed interest. "I think there may even be a little blood on this. Go, Dawn!"

"Indeed, a true chip of the Buffy block." Wesley grinned at her enthusiasm, unfazed when she blobbed her tongue out at him. "I'll see what I can find – what Dawn's given us should be enough for us to make a positive ID."

"Between my science and your creepy source books, we'll have it wrapped up in no time." Fred assured him cheerily. "I don't know if this'll help, but there is one thing you might need to know…"

"What?" Wesley asked in concern.

"I'm not wearing any underwear." She turned and walked into the lab, desperately trying to hold back her giggles as he stood staring after her, slack-jawed.

Continued in Chapter 9…