For personal enjoyment not for profit, if you recognize it, I don't own it, just bending and folding it.
Chapter 6
Faith held the cool can against the fading welt on her forearm, there were times she missed having slayer healing. She had caught herself pretty good this morning while she and Xander were practicing with their bows. After the two youths showed him their awards from camp, Uncle Rory had given them bows and a membership to the local archery range as a birthday present. After they both had gotten a boar on their hunting trip, he mentioned the possibility of trying to get an archery deer tag. Taking the can away, she popped it open and took a swallow of the cold liquid. She walked over to where Gina was talking with Willow and Marcie.
" - and Willow already tried talking me into joining, I just don't enjoy running just to run," Marcie was saying to Gina, a sophomore and the team Captain of the JV squad. There were a lot more kids than normal in Willow's back yard, but since it was the Sunday of Labor Day weekend and Willow's parents were hosting a barbecue and pool party for the cross country team and a few of their friends that wasn't surprising. Not that Willow's parents were there, they had made an appearance at the cross country meet the day before and cheered – politely and reservedly – for Willow who ran her first race on the JV team but had to leave this morning for a back to school speech at a college in Vermont. Aunt Jessica and Mrs. McNally were providing the adult supervision for the party. Xander had been right, the team was not very popular and on the girls side, they only had two alternates on the varsity and currently no alternates for the JV squad. Faith and Willow had both run in the JV girls race. On the boys side, the teams had a little more depth Xander had run in the boys race, but Jesse and one other boy were alternates for yesterday's race. Because of the small size of the squads, they practiced and travelled as one group, boys and girls, varsity and JV. Getting to know the girls on the team had been nice, Faith wouldn't call them all friends yet, but they were a social circle and a couple of the varsity girls had even invited the younger girls to hang out at the mall a couple times. They had even helped modify Willow's wardrobe a bit. She now had fewer of the preppy/parochial school style outfits that Xander had said were her norm the first time through and more casual but still nice combinations. Faith looked over and saw that Willow was wearing the bikini that they had bought on their last group outing when talk of this party started.
Gina smiled at the younger girl, "Understood, it's just part of my job as team captain to try to recruit so we have a full squad with alternates, I'm the same way about swimming, last year I played water polo and the swim coach spent most of spring semester trying to recruit me. I swim laps to condition, not because I enjoy swimming laps so racing just doesn't appeal to me." She turned to Faith, "What happened there?" She asked indicating the welt.
"Caught myself with a bow string this morning," Faith answered.
"Hail the amazon queen," Gina said with a giggle. "Athlete, you do martial arts, your aunt was saying the fish and pork were both yours, and now you mention you do archery."
Faith covered her left breast protectively. "I'm not cutting one of my boobs off, I don't have enough as is," she said with a laugh. "Hey, I was a city girl until I moved out here, the hunting and fishing is Uncle Rory's fault, it is fun though. Besides, I think the fish was actually Xander's catch." She looked around, "Also, even if I don't have any practical experience, I'm not ready to swear off men."
The other three giggled.
"So are you guys ready for school to start?" Gina asked. She looked at her two teammates, who nodded, "Remember coach wants us to wear our yellow team t-shirts on Tuesday and the red ones on Friday for the pep rally. Cross Country isn't really hyped as a sport, like football is, but especially with the varsity team winning the meet and you two having the best Frosh times, they will give us a minute out of the forty minute pep rally."
"I can feel the school spirit already," Marcie quipped.
"It's not too bad," Gina said. "Just the reality of high school."
Just the reality of high school.
The first week of school went about how Xander expected.
Different: Being part of the team. Sitting with them at lunch. The gaming group being part of his circle of friends with Willow, he, and Jesse. Being introduced at the pep rally. Getting used to his enhanced senses being assaulted by twelve hundred noisy smelly kids in close proximity.
The same: Cordie flouncing around in her cheer leader uniform. Larry being an ass and picking a fight with him - okay not the same.
It had happened again the first Friday coming out of history. Larry spent the class poking at him and making snide comments, asking if he was going to wear his daisy dukes uniform shorts to the pep rally. It was of course a different set of insults, but Xander remembered how it had gone before. As he stood up at the end of class, he made sure that all the pockets were closed on his backpack, two of his books had gotten damaged last time when his bag had gone flying. Not to mention the stake that was tucked into a built in sheath. He walked with the bag in his hand instead of putting it over his shoulder. Not having his bag to grab, Larry kicked Xander's heel trying to make him fall. Xander though was ready and Larry just barely clipped his foot.
"Hold this," Xander said handing his bag to Jesse.
"Getting your boyfriend to carry your books, Harris?"
"What is your fucking problem Larry?" Xander asked turning to face the football player.
"You, you little loser," Larry said pushing Xander.
Xander went with the shove not letting it push him off balance. "Piss off."
"Fuck you Harris," Larry swung a big haymaker at Xander, which Xander promptly grabbed and used the lineman's momentum to shove him into the bank of lockers with a loud crash.
"Mr. Blaisdal, Mr Harris, come with me," Mrs. Hewett, the girls cross country coach, said from the classroom they had just left. Xander retrieved his bag from Jesse and followed along. Larry was still muttering at him until Mrs. Hewett said, "Xander, good job trying to avoid a fight."
She lead them into the athletic director's office.
"Dave, can you call Mathews?"
The AD picked up the phone and after a quick exchange he hung up. Coach Hewett was filling out what Xander recognized as referrals. Shortly they were joined by the freshman football coach.
"Mathews, one of your athletes thought it would be a good idea to spend my class harassing another student and when that didn't get the reaction he wanted, he tried to start a fight." She went on to explain what had occurred and handed the papers to the AD.
Mr. VanAtten looked at the papers and nodded. "Mr Harris, Mr Blaisdal, let me explain to you how we handle things. If we were to take this to Mr Flutie's office, Mr Blaisdal, you would be suspended from the team for the next two games, if you had landed a punch, it would be more. I have here two detention slips for disrupting class and harassing another student and a recommendation for a suspension for striking another student. Mr Harris, here is a detention slip for using profanity in the hall, I will pass this on to your coaches. Your coaches will deal with this internally. Don't make us make this an official matter. Dismissed."
As Xander was leaving he heard coach Mathews telling Larry that he needed to get his shit together.
Even more shocking was meeting the school librarian. The second week of school Xander's honors English class had an introduction to the library. The librarian introduced himself as Edward Post, a recent arrival from the British Museum. Faith, who was also in the class, raised an eyebrow looking at Xander. Xander wracked his brain and remembered that yes had been the librarian the first go around. He shook his head and mouthed, "later."
At the end of their talk, one of their classmates asked why a PhD from the UK would be in Sunnydale.
"There has actually been a program in place for the last fifty years," Mr Post explained. "I don't know if you are aware of how fascinating the history of this area is, but with the overlapping of several native tribes, Russian explorers, and Spanish colonies, there is much of interest. One of my colleagues who is now retired actually started it out of personal interest but I am also attached to UC Sunnydale's anthropology department." The Brit droned on, but whatever his official cover was Xander was certain he was a Watcher and if he was any relation to good old Gwen, Xander wasn't going to trust him.
The reality of Sunnydale high school was a totally outside of Faith's experience, with her mom moving periodically and the problems she had, she hadn't had a lot of friends her first trip through high school. She had only been in one honors class not four. She hadn't been on a team and the only older girls that had tried to be mentors definitely weren't giving good advice. Okay so maybe that meant that her clothes and hair style tended towards athlete norm than rocker/stoner chick, but that wasn't a bad thing.
She and Xander had opted for German as it was a language neither one of them spoke. They planned to take achievement tests in French and Spanish and although they hadn't done more than speak it to each other, they had kept their skills in languages on the noncritical list of things to do.
The computer class was simple, especially since Willow was teaching them both all kinds of tricks that they used a lot of their experience from the future to pick up quickly – they'd never be the hacker that Willow could become, but they would definitely be just behind her in the class rankings.
Hearing from Xander how his run in went with Larry showed that at least initially, their planning was paying off.
Meeting the Librarian the second week of school freaked her out. Hearing the name Post and seeing a family resemblance to Gwen gave her a cold feeling until Xander had a chance to tell her tell her that he remembered the librarian before Giles, although he hadn't remembered much of anything about him. They were both convinced he was a watcher but were not ready to approach him.
With school, they cut down on their hours at uncle Rory's and gave up all but a few yards until after cross country season. After the first few weeks, they got into a good routine, Faith was happy.
Weeks passed, Xander was surprised at how busy he was but he was actually having fun, he knew in the back of his mind that reality would intrude sooner or later. Which wasn't to say that he and Faith were ignoring what they knew was coming, getting paid to work on yards gave them a reason to purchase a couple of machetes and put together some other weapons some of which would be easy to explain, a fire hardened stake worked pretty well for digging out weeds, others would be much more difficult. His mother's schedule allowed them time to spar seriously and work on things that weren't high school freshman typical, lock picking computer hacking skills, okay so maybe those weren't that weird for some high school freshmen, but definitely easier without having to duck parental supervision.
Sooner ended up being the middle of October, He and Faith went to the home football game with their friends and then to the Bronze afterwards, something Xander and Jesse had done a couple of times freshmen year the first time around. The club wasn't crowded, the football team was having a party at one of the rich kid's houses tonight to which their group wasn't invited.
"X," Faith whispered to him, "check out the guy in the denim jacket at the bar, I mean he looks like a 90210 high school student but a little out of place."
"So, perv or sucker," Xander asked looking at the guy in question, "and is he alone?"
"I don't see anyone else that obviously looks out of place."
"Okay, let's go check him out, if he's room temperature, you lead him out of public."
"Got it," Faith said tucking her crucifix around to the back of her neck so it was hidden under her hair.
Xander's heart sped up a little as he crossed the club coming to stand next to the possible vampire at the bar, he said to the bartender, "Coke and a glass of water no ice." While he was waiting for his drinks, he took a deep breath and smelled earth and stale blood. He caught Faith's eye and nodded.
She stepped up next to him as the bartender set the glasses on the counter and he paid for them.
"Too cheap to buy two drinks?" She huffed and turned to the vamp. "You wanna dance?"
"Hey!" Xander objected. But watched as Faith walked off with the demon. He picked up the coke and the water glass but dumped the water in the sink behind the bar. The bartender gave him a look but shrugged and went back to work. Xander made his way over to the table they'd been standing around.
"Who's Faith dancing with?" Jesse asked watching Willow group dance with Marcie and two of the girls on the CC team.
"Some guy," Xander said, "I've never seen him before so I'll keep an eye out for her," he continued as he emptied one of the bottles of holy water he carried into the empty water cup, he drank his coke and watched until the song ended. "I'll be back, watch my drink" he said to Jesse as he watched Faith head towards the restrooms with the Vampire following a few steps behind. He had less distance to cover so he timed it to enter the hallway just after the two. Luckily there was no one else in the hallway leading to the bathrooms so he quickened his pace.
"Faith, I'm sorry," he said causing the both the vampire and Faith to turn, the vampire now had his back to Faith. Xander knew what he was about to do would probably end in a fight whether or not this guy was really undead.
"Dude, fuck off, the lady wanted to dance with me," The Vampire exclaimed but didn't have a chance to say anymore as Xander pitched the holy water in the cup straight into his face. Any doubt was removed when the creature reacted like he'd been struck with acid, burns appearing instantly over his eyes, nose, and mouth as his face transformed with a pained hiss.
Faith didn't say anything, she was fully prepared for this, driving her punch stake between his ribs and into his heart from behind with a quick jab and withdraw motion. The Vampire dusted. Xander dropped the cup and pulled a second squeeze bottle of holy water out of his pocket, Faith and Xander looked around both ready in case the Vampire had friends, they weren't disappointed when a young woman dressed in out of date clothes came around the corner.
"Where's Brad?"
"Blond guy, denim jacket?" at the brunette's nod, "He's in the can."
"Okay –" she said but then vamped out and swung at Xander who was closer. He ducked deflecting the blow and drew his stake as Faith connected with the stun gun she'd pulled from her pocket, momentarily stopping the girl. Faith grabbed the vampire's purse strap using it to spin her around. Xander slammed his stake into the vampire and watched her crumble to dust that quickly disappated.
No threats jumped out at them so Faith ducked into the bathroom to discard the female's purse.
"What the fuck was that?" Xander looked up to see Jesse standing in the hallway.
"Jesse."
"Xander, what the hell was that?" his friend said with a note of panic.
"Jesse, calm down, I'll explain."
"Calm down – I just saw a woman explode."
"Jesse, come over to my house when we leave here and I will explain everything."
"Okay, I'll listen – Chad sent me to find you guys, he says it's time to go."
Faith came out of the bathroom, "Jesse?" she said seeing their friend.
"He came to find us, Chad wants to get going." Xander explained.
And just like that reality changed.
Soon they were all piled into Chad's SUV, when they got to Xander's house after hugs and high fives respectively from their friends he, Faith, and Jesse got out of the car and headed into the house. Xander's mom was at work so Jesse first called his house to let them know he was staying over and then Xander called the hospital to let his mom know that Jesse was staying. Once finished, they got drinks and sat down in the living room putting MTV on in the back ground.
"What was that?" Jesse asked.
"That was a vampire."
"Bullshit."
"Okay what did it look like to you?" Xander asked
"There was a girl who tried to take a swing at you and then a crackling noise and poof she was gone," Jesse said. "Now tell me what the hell that was."
"I did," Xander said. "That was a Vampire,"Xander said, "That was a blood sucking demon."
"How do you expect me to believe it?" Jesse asked eyes a bit wide.
"Let's talk about some more believable facts first," Faith answered.
Jesse nodded.
"First of all, last year, the state of Massachusetts with a population of about six million people had 31 deaths attributed to wild animals half of them dogs. So that's fifteen deaths by dog in a population of six million, lots of Mass is rural, more space for wild animals. Since I've been here, I've heard of four deaths due to attacks by wild dogs. Sunnydale has a population of approximately thirty-five thousand. Do those numbers make any sense?" Faith knew that Mrs. McNally worked at the hospital with Aunt Jessica so he had probably heard the same things.
"No, those numbers are way out of line." Jesse said
"Okay, we've been in school for a month and a half, have you noticed anything you would call a gang presence like you see on the news and in movies? Or for that matter, see gangs at the mall or at the Bronze tonight?"
"No, there's plenty of assholes but no real groups of gang bangers."
"Okay so then do you want to explain why we've all heard the stories gang members on PCP that attack with barbecue forks and usually go for the neck?"
"I can't." Jesse said sounding kind of numb.
"Stay with us here Jesse," Xander said.
"California two years ago had an average high school graduation rate of eighty percent. Sunnydale has a graduation rate of seventy percent. We don't have a high poverty rate or high unemployment, so why is our dropout rate fifty percent higher than average when the average includes areas with much higher poverty and unemployment?" Faith asked.
"That doesn't make sense."
"One last thing," Xander said. "All our lives, out parents have said don't invite anyone into the house, no welcome mats or decoration that imply an invitation. So if you put it together with the animal attacks and barbecue fork attacks, what mythical creature cannot enter without an invitation and would leave two wounds on the neck."
Jesse just sat and stared at the tv through another video. "Vampires," he said quietly.
"Jesse, you can ignore this if you want to," Faith offered. "We'll put on a movie, crack into Uncle Rory's beer in the basement fridge and have few drinks. I'll even flash you my tits and tomorrow morning, you can wake up with a headache and just decide that this was a weird and fucked up dream."
"But it isn't, it's real," said Jesse.
"Unfortunately."
"Okay, so how do you know about this stuff? Why did you have to tell us about it?" Jesse said looking at Faith.
Faith looked at him, "I told you about the witch that I knew back in Boston, the one that gave me my first charm." She held up her wrist to show off the magic charm that she and Willow had made. "She warned me to watch out for some of the dark stuff, not that I'd seen any of it in Boston. One of the first things Aunt Jessica told me was to be indoors after dark as much as possible and never invite anyone into the house which made sense in the neighborhood mom and I lived in, but once I got here and saw the white picket fences, seemed like overkill for this shiny small town. I've read some of it in the books that Willow and I got but I didn't know it was really there until tonight. Before tonight, it was just potential. I also think that it's kind of like Peter Pan, once you don't believe in it, your mind will rationalize it away which is why your Mom and Aunt Jessica can see and hear about what they do at the Hospital and rationalize it away. There's a saying, 'If you hear hoof beats don't expect to see a zebra when you turn around expect to see a horse'. So even if dog attacks and gangs on PCP doesn't make any sense it makes more sense than vampires."
"So what do we do?" Jesse asked.
"Well, I think if we start talking to our parents we would just end up in a padded room somewhere," Xander offered. "I'd say don't travel alone at night, wear a cross or other symbol of faith you believe in, when not in school carry one of these," he said handing across his stake, a kubotan with a pointed end. "Maybe a bottle of holy water. But really I think we should just generally run like hell towards groups of people if we see anyone we think isn't human."
"But you guys killed that one tonight."
"It was a vampire – not really alive – can we say geeked?" Xander asked using Shadowrun slang. "Or dusted? I'd really rather not use the term killed."
"Yeah, probably not a good idea to talk about you killing somebody."
"We got lucky," Xander said rolling the sleeve up on his shirt showing off a dark forming bruise on his forearm where he had blocked the blonde's swing, "she didn't look like she was that strong but even though I caught it just right, didn't take it head on, that's going to leave a hell of a bruise." He got up and went into the kitchen to grab a bag of ice. Returning to the living room he sat down putting ice on his arm.
"Okay but that thing was at the Bronze, shouldn't we warn people?"
Faith just shrugged.
"Yeah – you're right – what do we tell them? Everybody in this town already knows there are wild animals and random gang attacks," Jesse said with a sigh.
"So we form our packs to travel in and watch out for each other," Xander said. "But the truly screwed up thing is this doesn't really change anything, we just now know why our parents want us to be safe and some of what makes this town dangerous."
"Okay so we don't tell everybody, but what about Willow, or the rest of the team?"
"Let's talk to her tomorrow after the meet. Maybe we can tell the rest of the team that the guy Faith was dancing with was a real creep that tried to slip her drugs then hit Xander when he tried to step in."
Jesse got a mischievous look on his face, "Faith, I know I don't really have a choice in believing in vampires, but can I still see your tits?"
Faith just flipped him the bird and threw a pillow at him.
Saturday morning Jesse's dad picked them up to drop them off at school for a cross country meet. This was an away meet so they had a two hour bus ride.
When Xander took off his sweatshirt and their friends on the team saw Xander's bruise they asked questions.
"Galahad here decided to step in and try to protect me last night," Faith told them. "That guy I was dancing with before we left was trying to slip me a mickie and get me to duck out the fire exit with him, I was just telling him to piss off when Xander stepped in." Faith noticed that Willow looked relieved.
"Asshole took a swing at me with something," Xander said indicating his arm. "It was enough to make him take off though, and we're both alright so that's all that matters."
There were general noises of approval and statements that they would watch out for each other from the rest of the team.
When they were stretching before their race, Willow got Faith aside. "Is it wrong that I'm actually kind of glad that it was a creep that you guys ran into last night?"
Faith gave her an inquisitive look.
"Well, I kind of thought when we were leaving last night and Jesse looked freaked out after going to find you two that maybe he walked in on you making out or something." Willow said with an embarrassed blush.
"Nah, Xander's cute – and nice – and yeah objectively very dateable, but thanks to being family I live with – even if he's not really that close blood wise – he's off limits for me," Faith said. "Not that I'm all that ready for dating. But he's also pretty clueless, so if you want to go out with him, you will probably have to be the one to make the first move."
"Do you know if he likes me like that?" Willow asked.
"Boys don't talk about their feelings very well," Faith said switching into her next stretch. "But from what I've seen, he views you and Jesse as family, whether there is more than that, I don't know." She noticed Chad looking at her from where the boys were stretching, "Of course, if you figure out boys can you let me in on the secret?"
Willow snorted a laugh.
That evening after returning to Sunnydale, Willow came over to the Harris household
Willow understandably freaked out when they told her the truth but between the same evidence they had given Jesse and the fact that she had seen magic work from the books that she and Faith bought and those same books mentioned evil spirits, Faith pointing out the spell for revoking invitation finally pushed her over the edge of belief.
Both Jesse and Willow were on board with the general rule of be careful and avoiding. Xander Faith noticed that Monday morning Willow was wearing a new gold chain with a Star of David on it and she and Jesse both gratefully accepted squeeze bottles of holy water. The following week was an away game and the group once again ended up at the Bronze. This time it was Xander who spotted the RT, his new term for Vampires.
He said it was a matter of focusing their senses on the way vampires moved. Faith looked and noticed the alternating stillness and quick motions. When the vampire in question started leading a girl that neither of them knew towards the fire exit, Xander and Faith ducked away from their friends and followed. They caught up with them as the vampire was going to feed on the girl while standing behind her. Faith could smell the blood and didn't even give the vampire time for his yellow eyes to more than widen before he was dust. Xander hung back to make sure they didn't get blind sided if the vamp wasn't alone. The girl seemed to be very out of it, but wasn't bleeding so they just left her alone.
A.N.: other than the prolog scene, this is the first chapter I've switched POV in the middle of the chapter, I think it work within the context of transitioning from summer to school.