"Got a list of things we need?" Xander asked Willow as he and the girls joined them for breakfast at the picnic table on the deck.
"Nothing major," Willow said. "I think we've got everything we need for at least a year in most cases."
"We have that much beer?" Jayne asked, surprised.
Mal pinched the bridge of his nose, wondering why he had decided to get breakfast with the few people who had woken up early that day since Jayne was one of them.
"That's a good point," Faith said.
Willow just rolled her eyes.
"Faith, alcohol is bad for you," Buffy reminded her.
"No it's not," Faith said. "It's a good amount of calories in a convenient package with chemicals that helps the brain process death and trauma."
"She gets it," Jayne said approvingly.
"While not completely wrong, it's easy to overindulge and some people get worse, not better, from drinking," Joyce pointed out.
"Yeah, but I'm a Slayer," Faith said. "Alcohol is pretty much designed to keep me healthy. Well, as long as I take my multivitamins."
"That's not how that works," Buffy said.
"Actually it does," Giles said, causing numerous stares. "Slayers have an increased metabolism requiring more calories than someone their size normally requires and their heightened danger sense increases their stress levels which is best reduced by copious amounts of sex or alcohol."
"What?" Buffy asked in disbelief.
"It's in the first chapter of the Slayer's handbook," Giles said.
"Don't know about copious, but regular amounts of sex and booze really helps," Faith said. "I was just beginning to relax again before the boss made me cut back, saying it wasn't appropriate for a young woman."
"And no one ever told me?!" Buffy exclaimed in disbelief.
"First chapter," Giles reminded her, "and you did say you'd read the book at least once."
Buffy winced. "I may have… skimmed a bit."
Faith frowned. "I knew you were too high strung, but I figured you were just one of those who prefer to drink in private."
"So who's up for a beer run?" Xander asked cheerfully.
"Me!" Faith and Jayne chorused holding a hand up.
"Xander!" Buffy exclaimed.
"You can't fuck Angel or he loses his soul," Xander reminded her, "thus alcohol. By the way, is there any way to curse Angel again to cover for that little loophole in his curse?"
"How do you mean?" Giles asked curiously.
"Well he loses his soul if he has a moment of perfect happiness, which equates to post nut clarity for some reason, so couldn't we just cause him not to be able to have a moment of perfect happiness?" Xander explained.
Giles sighed. "Why didn't we think of that before?"
"Because we generally try to break curses, not cast them?" Willow offered.
"Because only Xander would come up with a solution that involves cursing Angel," Cordelia added, amused.
"Both of those," Oz offered.
"I'll consult my books," Giles said, "while I'm not in the habit of cursing people except mentally, that is actually a pretty mild curse and should be easy to accomplish."
"What are you thinking of for the escape clause?" Wesley asked.
"Something simple so it doesn't take much power," Giles said. "Perhaps an object, so as long as he has it on his person, the curse applies."
"So… beer run?" Faith asked Xander.
"Yeah, the three of us could easily clear out a cooler or two," Xander said. "Gas station near the beach should be far enough away from town to avoid any mobs and have enough beer to keep us supplied for a couple of months."
"Let's steal another yacht," Jayne suggested with a grin.
"Why?" Wesley asked.
"Storage room and I want a bigger bed," Jayne replied. "Bunk on the tug is okay but nothing to write home about."
"Plus we get to steal a yacht," Faith said.
"Exactly," Jayne agreed with a grin.
"Works for me," Xander said. "It'll allow us to make less trips when we stock up on supplies."
"Speaking of curses," Oz said and fell silent, making everyone wait a few seconds before they realized that was all he was going to say.
"Fall into an unbreakable sleep when there is a full moon?" Faith suggested with a shrug, catching on to what he was asking quicker than everyone else.
"Would that work?!" Willow asked excitedly.
"It should," Giles said thoughtfully. "Mundane tranquilizers have been effective so I see no reason it wouldn't."
"I'd still suggest locking him up during a full moon just for safety's sake," Wesley said, "but it seems like a worthwhile endeavor."
"Thanks," Oz said, smiling slightly.
"Will you be safe going to the gas station?" Joyce asked.
"Yeah, we aren't going into town where the majority of the mobs are, just a dozen or so wandering stragglers which are much easier to deal with than vampires," Xander assured her. "You simply take out a leg so they fall over and then snap their necks. It takes all of five seconds per zombie and doesn't make enough noise to attract more of them."
"Plus they'll have a Slayer along," Faith said.
"Two Slayers," Buffy said firmly.
"Yeah… no," Xander said. "You two will get competitive when you should be sneaky. The Slayer spirit has some sort of alpha thing going on and the two of you will end up playing whack a zombie to see who gets more kills."
"We wouldn't," Buffy defended herself with a wince, thinking it actually sounded likely.
"You totally would," Xander said. "Killing zombies is easy and even fun…"
"What are you thinking?" Willow asked, noticing Xander had a thoughtful look on his face.
"Slayers have needs, one of which is putting down the undead," he admitted. "So… it might be a good idea to let them stretch their legs and get some kills in."
"That does have some truth to it," Giles admitted, Wesley nodding in agreement.
"You make a lot of decisions," Cordelia noted.
*click*
Cordelia rolled her eyes. "I'm not saying he's wrong to do so, I'm just noting Xander is acting as a leader when he didn't before."
"He didn't before?" Dawn asked as she put away her tranq gun.
"He mostly made ludicrous suggestions and bad jokes, trying to get everyone to relax and figure out what to do," Cordelia said, "he wasn't really giving anyone marching orders."
"This stuff is all really obvious and low stress as long as we avoid doing anything stupid," Xander replied. "If anyone had a better plan I'll be glad to follow it, but it's not hard to out think zombies."
"That's a good point," Cordelia admitted. "It's really all 'know your enemy' and 'don't do anything stupid'."
"It really is," Buffy agreed, "plus Xander thought all this through in advance while he should have been doing homework."
Xander grinned. "What can I say, it's my favorite apocalypse scenario, one we could survive and doesn't involve a lot of running."
"It is a nice change," Giles agreed.
"So the four of us stealing a yacht and… How do we get everything aboard?" Buffy asked.
"I've got a zodiac," Jayne reminded her. "It sits eight, so plenty of storage room and we can ferry supplies from shore to the yacht."
"And I'll wait on the yacht," Dawn offered.
"Which is probably a good idea," Faith said. "You can man the radio and scan the beaches for us."
"I'll help," Cordelia said. "I know my way around a yacht, plus I know which one to grab."
"You're part of the yacht club so you know who has what and where it's docked," Faith guessed.
"Bingo," Cordelia agreed. "If we're grabbing one we should grab one that is well maintained and kept fueled up, to prevent problems."
"Well, looks like we've got a solid plan," Xander said. "Let's gear up and get moving. Buffy, I'd suggest grabbing a quarter staff if Giles has one."
"First floor where I've started setting up my study," Giles said, waving towards the superstructure on the rear of the barge.
"Ohh," Buffy said, eyes lighting up before jumping to her feet.
"Probably a better weapon than the fire axe I'm using," Faith admitted. "Better reach, less splash."
"We'll have to see about getting you something similar," Xander said, "when we have the chance."
"What are you going to use?" Dawn asked.
"Left my weighted pipe with my bike on the beach and a zombie ruined my bat by taking a bite out of it, so… I'll just grab something similar when I spot it. I'll probably use a fire axe like Faith, most ships carry one for emergencies."
"Too bad we don't have silencers," Dawn said, "it'd make things loads easier."
"Silencers aren't silent," Xander and Jayne chorused and then laughed.
"It's easy to make a silencer," Jayne said, "just need some cotton balls and a can."
"Or a plastic coke bottle," Xander added.
"Problem is they're still loud as hell," Jayne said. "It's only in the movies where they make a quiet ping noise."
"I'd have used them to snipe vampires if they worked," Xander said.
"Guns are rather ineffective on vampires," Giles pointed out.
"Darla put Angel down for a couple of minutes with a pair of handguns," Xander reminded him, "and that was without aiming for the head or using tracer rounds."
"Army guy?" Faith guessed.
Xander nodded. "Vampires don't often face modern weapons and while they recover fast, compared to humans, it still puts them down with just body shots."
"Had a friend in the service?" Jayne asked with a smile.
"Got possessed by a US Army private," Xander replied. "Good guy, but kept getting busted in rank for running a still."
"Tough luck," Jayne said. "We built the still into other pieces of equipment to hide it in my unit."
"Huh, wish I… he'd thought of that," Xander said. "I can think of several places where no one would ever have thought to look, too."
"Water reclamation, maybe the water heater itself," Willow said as she considered things, unable to not pick at solutions to the problem.
"Motorpool, radiator," Oz offered.
Xander got up. "We should get moving, we don't want to be out too late."
After the group had left Joyce turned to Giles. "Beer is good for a Slayer?"
The Watcher nodded. "They have an enhanced resistance to poisons which applies to alcohol, if they get buzzed by anything less than hard liquor it's simply a placebo effect as they expect it to work that way."
Joyce giggled, recalling her own misspent youth and a number of low alcohol drinks. "I'm surprised the mayor didn't include any."
"The mayor seems to have concentrated on practical supplies, so while there is a certain amount of high quality alcohol he didn't include anything that could be considered recreational," Giles explained. "He had different priorities in the supply he chose."
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
"Half a dozen," Buffy guessed as she scanned the dock they were slowly paddling to, doing their best to keep the noise down by shutting off the engine a quarter of a mile ago.
"The medium sized one over there," Cordelia said, pointing to a different dock. "It's the Fisher King."
"Why that one?" Buffy asked as she and Faith paddled, Jayne turning the rudder.
"Owner, Russels, an old guy, paid to make sure it was well maintained and stocked," Cordelia replied. "He loved deep sea fishing and passed away about six months ago. His son David never liked it but hadn't gotten around to getting rid of it. The old man used a remote to raise and lower the gangplank because a stray cat got onboard once and he was majorly allergic so we don't need to worry about any zombies being onboard."
"How much do you know about all these boats?" Dawn asked.
"A lot," Cordelia said with a sigh. "Every member of the Yacht Club was part of the Country Club and everyone gossiped."
"Does it have a cozy bed?" Jayne asked.
"Very," Cordelia said with a grin. "Old man Russel would hire a young woman or three to go out fishing, some of which were part time maids at the club. He was a randy old fart, it was a bit of a scandal the first dozen times, but after a year or so it just became one of those things everyone ignored. For the last year and a half he'd just have them fish and listen to his stories, that's how everyone knew he was on his way out."
"Sounds like a man I'd like," Jayne said with approval.
"He was charming," Cordelia said, "at least from what I heard. I wasn't about to hang around with a randy old goat."
Dawn nudged Xander. "Wanna take a yacht out with a couple of young girls and do some deep sea fishing?"
"But we're already living at sea," Buffy said, sounding every bit an air headed valley girl.
"Flirting," Faith told her.
"Oh," Buffy said, wide eyed.
"I'm not much for fishing, but I've always wanted to try my hand at pearl diving," Xander said.
"He means cunnilingus," Faith stage whispered to Buffy.
Dawn and Xander just stared at the Slayers in disbelief for a moment before the two Slayers burst out laughing, obviously having been messing with them.
Cordelia sighed. "Xander was being serious about the pearl diving, though he was also probably making a sex pun."
"I was just about to say it was probably both," Jayne said.
"I'd be embarrassed, but I know how my sister is," Dawn told Xander.
"They're only being so cheerful and agreeable because they're going to commit a great deal of violence soon," Xander told Dawn, "which means we really should make regular trips to thin out the zombies on the edges and keep their spirits up."
Buffy sighed. "I was sure we could embarrass him but he knows me too well."
"I thought I'd at least get a blush from my sister," Faith added, "but I guess I have teased her a bit much over the years."
"After the speedo incident he lost all modesty," Cordelia offered.
"Speedo incident?" Dawn asked Xander curiously.
"I had to join the swim team to help figure out what was eating members of the team," Xander explained. "They made me wear a speedo… in front of everyone."
"A grape smuggler?" Faith asked. "It's a bit embarrassing but it shouldn't be that bad."
"He'd been fighting vampires long enough to cut an impressive figure by that point," Buffy admitted. "Plus… that speedo was under some serious pressure. You could tell what religion he was."
"They probably meant it as hazing but they deliberately gave me a speedo one size too small," Xander explained.
"Oh," Dawn said. "Yeah, that's worse than nude."
"Hard to find nudity embarrassing compared to that," Xander said, "and I make bad jokes all the time and I'm a big believer in don't dish it if you can't take it."
"Point," Buffy said.
"We're here," Jayne said, as they drifted close to the back of the Fisher King.
Typing By: Abyssal Angel
Beta By: Abyssal Angel, Mist of Shadows, and Godogma.