Chapter Nine(aka the author is exhausted and can't be bothered to come up with a witty title)
"H-here."
Tara set down a plate full of sandwiches onto the book littered living room table where the Scoobies had congregated, right next to a still unconscious Faith. Artie was still next door with Joyce and Dawn, under the guise of studying, and Buffy and Tara were all too willing to keep her there till whatever this was blew over.
"Giles is on his way," Xander said, reaching out to grab a sandwich. He paused and looked at the young Watcher tentatively before she smiled gently, and he took it. The few times his family sat down to eat together, he had to wait for his father's permission, or suffer the consequences. His eye twitched.
"Hmmmmm."
Buffy ignored the food. "So do we look at the demon-y books, right? I mean it had to be a demon. The question is do we look it up by species, or something?" She normally wasn't research-girl. She was usually 'poke it with various pointy things til it stops moving' girl, but whatever this was had Faith on the ground screaming for her mother.
"Hm? Hmmmmm!"
And Faith never screamed.
"Hrrrrnnnnnmmmm."
Not even when she was being electrocuted.
"Okay," she slammed her hands down on the table and whipped her head to the side like a sassy woman from a Tyler Perry movie. Normally she was a very tolerant person but, "Willow, how the hell can you be humming at a time like this?"
The redhead blinked and cocked her head in a birdlike manner, the image all the more hilarious due to her bulging cheeks. "Hrm?"
Xander roared with laughter. "Nummy sounds!"
Buffy quirked her brow, and Tara poked her head back into the living room, arms filled with books. She looked curious too.
"Xander don't you dare," Willow warned.
"She's done it since we were kids," he ducked to avoid the redhead's swat, eye twitching. "She gets a hold of something really tasty and she just hums." He looked at Buffy incredulously. "How have you not heard it before?"
"I never noticed."
"This is so embarrassing," the redhead groaned.
"I think it's cute," Tara said sweetly. She nudged Willow's shoulder affectionately with her hip as she set the books down. "Glad to know someone likes my food."
Willow smiled a smile of happiness and bit down into her sandwich again. 'Hrmm, grilled chicken, tomato, lettuce, and ranch.' She picked up one heavy, leather bound tome and paused. She looked at the rest of the pile.
"Hey, Giles has these books too!"
"Standard Watcher fare," Tara plopped down cross-legged next to Willow, and the redhead managed to sneak a sniff of her hair. "I-Is that gonna be a problem."
"No, it means that since I know these books," she flipped a few pages. "I know where everything is." She turned to Tara and gave her the ever so smug, 'Willow knows what she's doing so calm yo' tits, baby' face. Or at least that's what it looked like to Tara.
She blushed under that gaze, straightening them and re-crossing them. "O-oh. That's good then."
Faith's Slayer nose twitched and she shot up in the couch.
"Someone's wet!" she shouted. She peered blearily around the room, suddenly realizing where she was and what she was saying. "Someone's went! Went. Everyone's here but baby-Slayer."
Hey, she may be a pervert but she didn't completely lack tact. Faith was classy like that.
'Thanks for the save,' both Willow and Tara silently mouthed at her, oblivious to the other. Faith just smiled and nodded her head. Or tried to.
"Shit!" Her hand flew to the back of her head. "What the fuck?"
"I dunno," Buffy admitted. "We heard you screaming for your mom and we came over and you were on the ground."
Faith's muscles tensed at the mention of her mother, something only Tara and Xander noticed. Then, she laughed. "I guess I underestimated those imps, eh?"
DING-DONG!
"Giles is here," Tara stood, and Willow admired the long legs from her position on the floor. Striding across the living room to the door in that Watcher-stride she only ever seemed to do in the presence of the older Watcher, Willow took time to admire other parts, too.
Rather blatantly, if Faith's snorting and Buffy and Xander's averted gazes meant anything.
"Giles, thank heavens you've arri-" the sandy haired Watcher paused.
Rupert stood there, books in hand and looking rather dour, flanked by two young women. "They intercepted me as I was making my way up the drive."
Immediately, Faith and Buffy shot up, Slayer senses going haywire.
Demons.
"Get down you two!" Buffy commanded as Faith whipped the empty sandwich plate towards them. The two Watchers dropped down in unison, training kicking in. In their line of work, if someone told you to duck, you ducked.
The plate flew in an arc, Faith's Slayer strength going to the throw, hitting the skinny one in the jaw and the dark haired one in the face. It bounced off with a satisfying sound and somehow landed back onto Faith's lap.
She threw her hands in the air in an uncharacteristic display of delight. "I'm Xena!"
The dark haired woman groaned in pain, but the skinny one was on her feet already.
"Bitch," she hissed, face completely raw. And then she launched herself at the Slayer.
At the Summers Residence
Artie twitched, and looked up from Dawn's geography homework. "You hear that?"
The youngest Summers girl looked up from her magazine. "Nope."
Though that may have had more to do with the music they were blasting, rather than lack of any noises. The upbeat tunes of the latest Top 40 drowned out any outside sounds, even with all the windows wide open so all possible escapes possible.
Hey, there was a reason why Tara got two upstairs rooms and Artie got the master, dammit!
"Nah, I'm pretty sure I heard something," she said, leaning towards the window.
"Girls," Joyce said, poking her head into the room. "I made hazelnut brownies."
Okay. No noise it was.
Now if only that icky feeling would go away.
Back to What Willow has already dubbed The Lair of Deliciously Hot Watcher-Witch
Tara leapt to her feet. "I just moved in!"
Anyanka threw herself and Buffy, and Faith hopped up and seized the demon, throwing both her and Buffy to the ground.
"Tell them I just moved in!" she said piteously, looking at Hallie and Giles as if they could do something about this.
The living room table groaned as two Slayers piledrived the demon on it. Xander backed away, but kept his gaze on the ensuing catfight.
"C'mon, I just bought that!"
"I'm actually really sorry," the dark haired demon said sincerely. "We came to help."
"You friend is…spirited," Giles noted. Willow let out a frightened squawk as all three rolled off the table and onto her.
Oh.
Hell.
Naw.
"Separate!" Tara's intonement sent Faith on her rear right at Giles' feet, Anyanka to the couch, and Buffy shrieking as she slid sideways into the kitchen like a human Swiffer mop.
"Explain, now!"
Buffy crawled back to the living room gulped. Her mother used that one whenever she and Dawn roughhoused as kids and broke something. But Tara wasn't a mother hen like Joyce, oh no. She was Alpha-bitch in her own territory, ready to bite the shit out of any misbehaving pups.
Willow was in girly-awe.
The skinny one stood up straight, smoothing her clothes and returning her face to normal. "Strong witch. I like you. I'm Anyanka, and that's Halfrek. We're vengeance demons."
"Anya deals with scorned women," Halfrek said. "I'm into more kid friendly business."
Xander's eye twitched. "Whatever Cordelia said, it was a mutual breakup!"
"Oh please," Anyanka brushed him aside.
Faith stood, staying between the Watchers and Hallie, and Buffy did the same, keeping Xander and Willow behind her. "Talk."
"Holes are being ripped open in the multi-verse, and things are slipping though."
Faith interrupted. "Wait, like in Doctor Who?" Giles grinned and Tara turned and actually hi-fived her.
"Something is in this universe that shouldn't be here," the demon continued, ignoring Faith's outburst. "I need you to track it down, and Anya will send it back."
"Ooh! Ooh!" Buffy yelped. "Green mist! When we got Faith, there was green mist."
"Green is usually a sign of inter-dimensional antics. Most who travel via dimensional port-hole will usually give off a green glow," Anya said. "Also portals and dimensional Keys, though the chances of you dealing with one of those is ridiculously low."
"What's the catch?" Willow asked warily, trying not to read too much into the quiet little outbursts of 'Exterminate' coming from Faith and Tara.
"Whatever it is, it's interfering with Hal's work," Anya said. "And that's bad business."
"What she means is," the dark haired demon said. "Is that I work with mistreated kids. I avenge the abused, stuff like that. Whatever this is, it's forcing them to have flashbacks."
"Not just mentally, either," Anya said excitedly. "They're reliving physical pain."
Everyone stared, Tara, Faith, and Xander suddenly uncomfortable.
"What? I'm a vengeance demon. Making someone relive the same pain? Genius."
"-and I'm pretty sure none of you want that? Especially you three," she gestured to Tara, Faith, and Xander. "By the looks of things, you've already experienced the effects?"
"Oh dear lord," Giles snarled, suddenly realizing what this was doing to his kids.
Faith's collapse. Her mother and her boyfriends used to kick her around when drunk enough.
Xander's uncharacteristically shy moments, and his eye twitch. His father was a drunken lout, after all.
And Tara, her headache? But that had to mean…
Willow gasped, eyes watering as the implications sunk in, confirmed when the other witch averted her gaze.
"You're an adult now and you escaped early enough," Halfrek said to a silent Tara. "But it was pretty bad when it was happening, wasn't it." She turned to Faith. "You got out of it recently. But it's all still fresh-"
"Shut up," the Slayer snarled, and Buffy almost stepped forward to restrain her.
Almost.
The vengeance demon danced out of her grasp and turned to Xander, who had now placed a hand over his twitching eye. "You're almost a man…you don't have to put up with this much longer."
Buffy whimpered. She knew about Faith, yeah, but Xander? He was so happy! One glance in Willow's direction let Buffy know she was the last in their little trio to know.
Halfrek paused. "Where's the little one?"
"Stay away from Art," Tara snarled. Buffy and Willow blanched. Artie too?
"Don't worry your little Watcher head," the demon said sweetly. "She's a Slayer now, so I won't be doing any business with little Miss Frost anytime soon." She turned to address the whole room. "So you'll do it?"
Buffy, Willow, and Giles turned to the other three. In reality, this was their decision, though it was obvious none of them wanted to be reliving the childhood pain again anytime soon.
"We're not gonna do this for you," Tara said after a moment of silence. The demons' jaws dropped.
"Wh-how can you not?"
"You didn't let her finish," Xander said. He stood up straight, and his voice was low.
"She said we weren't gonna do this for you," Faith growled. "We're gonna do this for ourselves."
Hallie grinned. "Thank you. I-"
"Yeah, yeah. Buffy and Faith, run next door and tell Joyce to keep Art there and arm up with whatever weapons you got. Xander and Mister Giles, I need you to look up any sort of demon that could do what Halfrek described. Willow," she paused and smiled flirtatiously. "Willow, you're with me. We're gonna look up any spells that will prevent us from freaking out again." The redhead practically jumped up.
"And us?"
Tara turned to the two demons, arm slung casually over Willow's shoulders. "We'll contact you when we need you. Now get the hell out of my house."
Halfrek huffed and teleported out. Anyanka followed soon after, but not before she cleaned the living room with a snap of her fingers and fixing Xander with a shark-like smile, winking out of the house.
They soon broke into three pairs, the Slayers running out the door, Willow and Tara darting upstairs, and Xander and Giles standing in the living room. Xander turned to the older man.
"Remember when you used to boss us around?"