The Miseducation of Buffy Summers by Verity
Chapter Four
Summary: Sunnydale, CA, 1997: Buffy Summers lives at 1630 Revello Drive with her family: a younger sister - Dawn, her mother - Joyce, an art historian, and her stepfather - Rupert, a professor at UC Sunnydale. Her life couldn't be more ordinary. Until her stepbrother William comes to spend the summer with them in the wake of his mother's death...
Written for taboo_spuffy on livejournal. Thanks to my loyal betas, automaticdoor, coyotegoth, and wickedwitch74!
Disclaimer: Everything that you recognize belongs to Joss. The rest belongs to me.
When Joyce had spirited Dawn out the door, she left Rupert and Will to clean up the breakfast dishes. Will scraped the plates and Rupert methodically loaded the dishwasher in relative silence, broken occasionally by the grating of metal on ceramic.
His father finally broke the silence. "I'm at loose ends until summer starts... Perhaps you can help me a bit around the house, when you're not revising."
Will turned to face him, one hand still in the sink. His father regarded him in turn, face unreadable. "You've a mind to keeping an eye on me, then?" He dropped the spatula into the basin, where it landed with a dull thud. "Don't trust me with your pretty house and your picture book family?"
"Will... Will!" He was already turning away, but Rupert put a hand on his shoulder to still him. "Will. You are my son. You are part of this family. It's just difficult... for all of us. Joyce understands, but the girls... they are young. They don't know-"
"What's to know?" Will said abruptly, shaking off his father's grip. "And it's Buffy who doesn't want me here. It's Buffy you'd rather have here than me. She's not even your-"
"Come again?" Rupert slammed the dishwasher closed.
Will sighed, his shoulders slumping. "I'd best be off. Have to arrange for transportation." The house felt stifling, in all its neat order, its bright clean spaces, its inhabitants. His father had gotten a second chance here, walling off all everything he'd left behind in England.
It was tiring, straddling two worlds. There was, after all, something else he'd rather be straddling.
"I'll give you eighteen for it. And not a penny more."
The lean man standing over the bike scratched his chin. "Two thousand. Just put in a new clutch last year, brakes have got plenty of life in 'em. Only ninety thousand miles on her, too."
The clutch was new, all right. And the brakes seemed fine, as well. But the tires were nearly bald, the suspension was off, and he'd need to break the bike down to see whether or not the water pump needed replacing. Not too bad, for an eleven-year-old bike. But Will shook his head. "Eighteen's my final offer."
"Nineteen fifty. Firm."
Will shook his head and looked over the lawn, which possessed wilted grass and a lone ceramic gnome, otherwise unremarkable. "No, thank you. I believe I'll keep looking."
He'd gone halfway down the drive and barely begun to pull the folded classifieds section from his pocket when the motorcycle's owner relented. "Eighteen fifty."
Will smiled before he turned around. "I think we have a deal."
When Will opened the front door to the house, he found his father seated on the couch, polishing his glasses.
"You saw the bike, I take it," Will said with some bemusement. Rupert coughed. "I did say that I needed some way to get about the place."
"Surely you can afford something a little more... " Rupert struggled for words.
"Dull?" Will hung up his helmet on the coat rack. "I suppose." He shrugged, not waiting for his father's reaction, and walked down the hall toward the study.
Where he found a red-haired girl peering intently at his computer and his stepsister hovering over her impatiently. He cleared his throat. The redhead started in her seat. "I'm sorry!" she yelped, her face already starting to match her hair. She looked up at Will, then immediately looked down. "I... uh, I... uh... wuh-"
"She just wanted to look at your computer. She really likes computers," Buffy finished for her, with the air of someone who tolerated this zeal with the patience of a martyr. She looked more composed than she had in the morning; her hair pulled off her face, makeup carefully applied.
"I see," Will said. He eyed the other girl, Willow, who was still staring at her feet. "It's an excess of money I've got, not an excess of interest. If you want to play around with that, suit yourself. I've other things I can do for the afternoon."
"Uh.. th..." Willow began, and Buffy started to open her mouth.
He held up a hand. "No need."
Will had worked his way down the list to checking the final drive oil by the time Buffy came out onto the back porch. He heard the door swing shut, but kept his back turned, removing the filler plug. The level seemed all right; the bike's previous owner had kept on the maintenance, for the most part.
"That was almost kind of nice. What are you getting out of it?"
He set the wrench down on the driveway. "I take it she's still playing with the thing, then."
A huff from the girl behind him. "Yes." Buffy paused for moment, then took up a different tack. "Mom is going to kill you for bringing that home."
"I doubt it." Will turned around and studied her face. "Might be a bit rough about the edges, but I got the same upbringing as our Rupert, pet. No harm in letting your friend muck about with that machine, or Dawnie, either. Nothing in it for me."
Buffy looked off toward the rosebushes, refusing to meet his gaze. "Why are you here?"
He'd prepared himself for this one, unlike the gut-puncher of the night before. "Why, every lad deserves a vacation now and then, Miss Buffy of the questions." Buffy rolled her eyes. "And I don't intend to spend my summer in the house where my mum kicked it. Are you done for now?"
She was.
They'd been awful good about it. His father hadn't asked him, on the drive up from L.A.: hadn't asked him how she died, or when, or why he'd spent the day of her funeral enroute to the United States. Not like it mattered. Angelus was there. Let him charm the old ladies and manage the estate; he'd take care of everything, like he always did. Will was just living up to his reputation as the black sheep of the family, and he found he didn't mind it too much.
He'd told the most to Dawn, who voiced the question while he pulled up MacPaint for her. "My mum had an accident," Will answered her quietly. "While I was away at school." That was true enough, and seemed to satisfy his sister, who was quickly engrossed in trying to draw with the mouse. Her mother had not asked him; indeed, she had not spoken to him much at all. Will supposed that she was waiting for him to come to her. Despite her remove, she, of all of them, made him feel the most welcome.
When Joyce pulled into the driveway and saw the motorcycle in the backyard, he saw her mouth tense into a tight line for a long minute before finally quirking up at one corner into a smile. She patted him on the shoulder as she went into the house and said, "If you need a workspace, there's certainly room in the garage."
"Thanks," he said, and looked past her, up at the house.
The curtains in the upper room were quickly pulled shut.
(next)