The party of the first part (that's me) acknowledges that the parties of the second part (Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy Productions, Fox) own the characters and trademarks from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Alright, that's over, so let's party!
Spike was having an annoying evening. Sure, he'd had the brilliant idea of finding that little red-headed wannabe witch and putting the thumbscrews to her until she got Dru under a love spell, but he couldn't find the little bint! He'd checked the magic shop, the school, and then run out of ideas because he had no idea where she lived. Or anyone lived aside from Summers and Peaches, really.
"Best head over to the Slayer's place, see if I can track her down from there. Don't rightfully feel up to tangling with blondie right now, not until I sober up, leastways."
"Well, we ain't her, but you're still out of luck, Spike."
The bottle blond turned around to see a group of six vampires standing there, holding broken boards with nails in them and chains in a very menacing manner. He squinted at them for a second and then smiled.
"Gerry, how are you and the boys? Here to throw me a welcome back party? I'm flattered."
The lead vampire rolled his eyes. "It's Rick. We don't want you back here causing trouble, so you'll be getting a boot party. And you'll be flattened."
Spike furrowed his brow. "Wot?" Just before getting hit in the face with a length of chain.
Buffy never considered herself a great brain. She had Giles and Willow to do the deep thinking for her, and before she became a Slayer, she was, if she was totally honest, kind of vapid. But she understood body language quite well, both from her time as princess of Hemery High when gossip was a way of life, and also from being the Slayer, though that was a very different type of body language. She quickly realized what it meant when Xander couldn't stop his furtive glances at Faith, and Faith had toned down the flirting with Xander, but kept shooting bedroom eyes at him.
Buffy felt conflicted. On one hand, Xander was one of her best friends, someone who had been there for her regardless of the problems and the pain. He'd brought her back to life, stood by her with a broken arm and a rock, facing down the end of the world, and, most unbelievable for a teenaged male, turned her down when his love spell gone wrong had her doing her absolute best to seduce him. He definitely deserved joy, and Faith would be good for him. Faith also needed someone to help ground her, calm her crazy down without losing it, and Xander would be good for that. In all honesty, they were a good couple; at least as good as you could get with the insanity in their lives.
On the other hand, she'd always thought Xander was cute, in a puppy dog sort of way. But over the summer he'd put on some muscles, and his military training had given him…focus. He'd gone from being one of the girls, to being very much one of the boys. She'd never admit it, but the first time she'd seen him in a suit, she almost jumped him then and there. Not to mention she felt she owed him for the whole stripper pole thing.
She studiously ignored the fact that she'd come close to making out with Faith three times so far, which really puzzled her, since when she wasn't around the brunette, she didn't really think about her that much, unlike when she was falling for Angel. Some introspection may have given her some idea as to why she kept trying to get, um, physical with the Bostonian, but she was happily ignoring all of it.
Buffy huffed, and shook her head. There was really only one way to deal with these thoughts. She needed a good workout. A slightly cruel smile crossed her face as she though up the perfect target. Partner. She meant partner.
Two vampires were hoofing it as fast as they could, three were down on the ground unmoving, and Spike was pinning Gerry to the wall by his throat. Spike could feel his broken ribs aching in his chest, and couldn't see all that well due to his black eye and broken nose, but Gerry was so scared he'd have pissed himself if he could have.
Spike looked back at the fleeing figures and spit to the side, forcing his broken tooth out of his mouth. "Bunch of plonkers. I may have had a bad run lately, but I'm bloody William the Bloody! Not some tuppence joey you can push around for a lark."
Twisting his wrists he snapped Gerry's neck, and rolled the four broken vampires for cash and whatnot before finishing them off and staggering to the street to looking around. It was still evening, rather than full on night, but this street seemed relatively quiet.
There. A middle-aged woman with her toy poodle. She was walking along without a care before pale hands grabbed her and pulled, shoving her up against the wall as Spike bit down on her throat. She tried to scream, but the pressure on her vocal chords was too much, and she silently succumbed.
Spike straightened up, wiping the blood off his face and grimacing as he fixed his nose, feeling much better after a drink. He cracked his jaw and then whirled around and punted the yappy little thing for distance to shut it up.
"Much better. Now, If I were a Slayer's annoying brainy sidekick, where would I be?" He smacked his forehead with a wince. "Ah, shit! Ow! Right, Peaches said they hung out at their school library. Bunch of goodie-goodies. Well, off to borrow a bookworm."
Faith frowned as she heard the doorbell, not expecting anyone. Sure, she was gonna' patrol later on, but she had hours to kill, and the Discovery Channel was doing a thing on muscle cars. Flipping off the tube, she got up and wandered over to the door before throwing it open.
"Hey, B! Wasn't expecting you tonight. Sup?"
Buffy shot Faith a brittle smile as she walked in. "Well, I was having a hard time focusing on homework, so I decided that some sparring would be just what the doctor ordered to clear my head. Wanna be my workout partner?"
Faith cocked her head to the side and gave the blond a look. Though she had the right perky tone, there was something in Buffy's eyes that made her think something was off.
"Sure thing B. I could use a warm-up before headin' out on patrol." Faith turned her back to the other Slayer and peeled off her shirt as she headed to the gym, leaving her in her sports bra and yoga pants.
Buffy dropped her jacket to the floor and stepped out of her shoes, trying to ignore the churning feeling in her belly that always seemed to show up nowdays when she was around Faith. "Sure, just a nice, light, warm-up!"
Buffy pushed off and leapt forward on her last syllable, barreling into the younger Slayer and throwing a hook to her belly. But Faith wasn't caught by surprise and used the punch to break away and set up a counter. The two of them quickly fell into an aggressive rhythm, throwing punishing blows, but keeping solid defenses.
"I'm guessin' that this ain't about blowin' off steam. It's more about X, right?" Faith grunted as she blocked a brutal body shot that Buffy followed with a snap-kick to the shin, forcing the brunette back.
"Xander! Can make! His own! Choices!" Buffy punctuated each phrase with a heavy punch, before ducking under Faith's jab and circling back to find an opening. "Just like I can express frustration at them."
"Hey, B, I ain't sayin' he's not fine, but you had your chance." Faith lashed out with a side-kick that connected solidly, pushing her opponent back and spinning her around.
Buffy's eyes turned red and she pounced on the usurper, hands clawing for her throat.
Faith's eyes turned red as she grabbed the imposter's wrists, throwing her to the side and spearing her hand towards the imposter's eyes.
Buffy twisted and hooked her legs around the usurper's, taking them both to the ground and trying to pin her so she could tear out her throat.
Faith wrestled with the imposter, grabbing her hands so neither of them could claw at each other. She tried to get her legs between them to flip the imposter, but found them tangled together. As the imposter tried to bite her jugular, she responded with a head-butt, splitting them apart.
Buffy rolled away and scooted back to the wall, holding her head with one hand and getting into a crouching guard with the other. Across from her, Faith was doing the same.
"The FUCK was that? All of the sudden this went from a spar to trying to kill each other?"
"I-I don't know, Faith. It was like I, I was suddenly made of rage. Like I had to…" Buffy trailed off, looking pale and sick. "I'm going to go outside and call Giles. This isn't the first time we've had weird thing happen when we get close to each other."
"Sucking face and ripping someone's throat out is NOT the same thing! But you're right. I'll call Elliott."
The two young women separated and went to place their calls.
Twenty minutes later a pair of cars pulled up and Xander, Giles and Marston piled out. Giles immediately went over to the blond standing outside, while Marston and Xander rushed inside.
"Buffy! A-are you alright?" Buffy gave a wan smile at Giles' question.
"I'm OK, Giles, just shook up. And scared of what's happening to me. I finally started to feel normal again, I have friends, and family, and now I'm losing control and it terrifies me!" Buffy started off calm, and became progressively more shrill and anxious as she continued.
Giles hesitated for a moment and then wrapped his arms around her, comforting her. "It's alright, Buffy, we'll get to the bottom of this, don't fret."
Buffy smiled into his tweet coat. "I'm not fretting. Whatever that is."
"No, but you are standing outside without any shoes on."
The two of them walked into the kitchen and sat at the other end of the long table. Marston was next to Faith, with a comforting hand on her arm, and Xander was sitting half-way in between them.
"I believe we've all had the briefing on what has occurred, including the, ah, incidents before now?" Marston asked with his customary tone.
Giles coughed and cleaned his glasses. "Yes I-I believe we're caught up, thank you. Unfortunately, I suspect that this might be a relic of having two Slayers at once, and therefore unprecedented."
"I just want to say, up front, I never tried to kiss Kendra."
Xander's blush, which was already a nice tomato hue, deepened, and he coughed, trying to clear the image from his mind so he could focus.
Marston seemed to find this funny, rather than embarrassing, unlike the other two men in the room. "True, but Kendra spent less than four days in Sunnydale all told, and no more than what? Six, ten hours near you? Faith has been here for weeks, and has gone to class with you, patrolled with you, and even socialized with you regularly. You've spent dozens, if not hundreds of hours together, so it may be a question of exposure. You two have been almost as close as sisters lately, so it must be something, supernatural, for lack of a more precise term."
"Huh." Xander said as he put his chin in his hand.
Everyone sat there for a long moment before realizing he wasn't saying anything else.
"Yes, Xander? Have you thought of something?"
"Hm? Oh, sorry Giles, it just reminded me of a conversation I overheard between Oz and Willow a few weeks back. Oz was working on a song, and mentioned these two being supernatural sisters, but Willow corrected him, saying it was more like mother and daughter, because the Slayer spirit is passed on to the next Slayer. He asked how Buffy still had her powers if it was passed on, and she paused, and just sat there, staring at him. Then she threw herself back into the books, and I was distracted by something. I hadn't thought of it until now."
In the library, Willow was hard at work as usual. Ever since Oz had asked her that question about Buffy still having her powers, she'd been searching for an answer. She was embarrassed about the question, since it was obvious Buffy was fine, but she needed to know. She didn't feel it was important enough to bother Giles or Mr. Marston, but she still wanted to know.
Oz was sitting nearby, strumming away as he worked on another new song. She'd heard some of his work, which was much better than what the Dingoes performed, and asked why they never played his stuff. He told her that he wanted someone with talent to front his songs, and when he found a good vocalist, he'd start performing them. She had a hard time disagreeing. Devon was more a fan of the groupies, then the music.
She was interrupted from her thoughts by the doors opening and a voice saying "Brilliant! Play Anarchy in the UK!"
Willow turned in horror as a somewhat battered Spike strolled into the library. Oz was up like a flash, swinging his bass at the vampire. Spike caught it and launched the musician back with a boot to the stomach.
"Sorry mate, I can't stand The Who. Tommy was rubbish." Spike followed the kick with a left cross that flung the musician into the cage and knocked him out.
Willow scrambled through her bag, looking for a cross before feeling her boyfriend's bass under her chin. It lifted her up until she was standing, facing Spike.
"Come on love. Give us a kiss." Spike smiled at her, before delivering a head-butt that made her eyes roll back and the world float away…
AN: it's been a month! And here's another chapter! I honestly do think that Spike is pathetic, and easy to mock, but that doesn't mean he's not dangerous.
If you couldn't figure out my references, or what the hell I'm talking about, mention it in a review. If enough people ask, I'll post a translation down here.
Oh, and you have all figured out who Elliott Marston looks like, right? If not, mention that and I'll tell you next chapter.