Sorry about the delay in chapters! i went to the Houston con this past weekend and that just put me SO behind! thank you to megan for looking this over for me.
chapter 25
Joyce was just preparing to grill Hank about the circumspect events that had occurred while Buffy had been under his care in Los Angeles, her mouth opened and posed to fire the rapid questions only to have her attention diverted when Spike abruptly turned on his heel and exited the room, heading towards the front entryway.
A clear view of the door was afforded and Joyce watched as Spike threw it open with an exaggerated sweep. Her jaw quickly dropped open when she witnessed the man that she had been introduced to as Buffy’s ‘tutor’ fall through the open doorway to land in a sprawling heap on the floor. Her eyes practically bulged from her head when she witnessed the return of another deformed looking guy as the heap on the floor lumbered quickly to his feet and attacked Spike with a loud roar that Joyce knew no mere human could make.
“Buffy?” her mom gasped, tearing her gaze away from the snarling duo to stare questioningly at her daughter. Spike’s shift into his deformed face hadn’t really taken Joyce by surprise, vivid memories of that night at the school now firmly implanted in her mind. Her newfound lack of denial also made these things much easier to accept.
But from the determined look on her daughter’s face, Joyce knew Buffy hadn’t heard her confused questioning, her attention solely focused on the spectacle before her. It took Joyce a moment to realize that she was witnessing the transition from the Buffy she thought she knew to the warrior she had just discovered her daughter secreted.
And she wondered how in God’s name she had managed to miss it all this time.
Eyes blazing, mouth set in a firm grim line, Buffy stomped over to where Angel was in the process of attacking Spike, their feral snarls filling the air as they slammed each other into the walls, knocking pictures to a crashing mess on the floor.
“Angel! God! Knock it off!” she yelled, trying to situate herself in the middle of the brawling vamps. To Spike’s credit, he was merely blocking, although his smirking wasn’t helping to diffuse Angel’s rage.
When the antique entry table was knocked over with a resounding crash, Buffy saw red. Angel was trashing her mom’s house and attacking Spike and that was not so much with the cool as far as she was concerned. Grabbing a piece of the broken table, she warned Spike off with a look and a curled lip, noting that he was more than happy to oblige, content to watch her kick a little Angel ass. He took a step back, his hands held up in mock surrender and an amused smirk playing across his lips even though his demon was howling in acute protest over letting Buffy fight his battles for him.
But he would play nice….for now.
Spike watched as Buffy brought her leg up and executed a powerful roundhouse kick which she followed up immediately with a spin hook that nailed him in the side of the head and Angel suddenly found himself on the ground with a very pissed off and very lethal ex-girlfriend straddling him with a very sharp piece of wood positioned over his heart.
“What the hell do you think you are doing, Angel?” she demanded, hardening herself off to the look of pained betrayal that flashed over his demonic face. “You think you can just come in here and trash my mom’s house?”
“It’s Spike,” was all he was able to say, figuring that should explain everything.
“Buffy! Think you’ve got the wrong vamp under your legs,” Xander commented from his safe and secure position in the doorway. He eep’d at the pissed off snarl Spike sent in his direction. “See?” he accused, pointing at the possessive blonde vampire.
“You watch your mouth, you git. Her mum is in the room,” Spike told Xander in a steely tone.
Buffy ignored Spike’s chivalrous defense, Xander’s petulant comments, even managed to ignore the fact that her watcher had stumbled into the house; the only thing penetrating her mind was the fact that Angel had attacked Spike. In her mom’s house, no less.
“Shake off the face, Angel.”
With a pained sigh that sounded like a ridiculous lisp through the fangs, Angel shook off his demon visage and gazed up at Buffy with eyes of the truly put-upon.
“Buffy….” he began, his voice morose.
“You can’t just… fall into people’s houses and attack them, Angel!” Buffy interrupted, still outraged by his actions.
“But it‘s Spike,” Angel repeated, turning his head to look at the object of his disfavor.
“Duh! I know it’s Spike!”
“You said that already, Peaches.”
Buffy sent Spike a glare. “Stop baiting him. You‘re almost as much to blame for this so just shut up, ok?”
Spike attempted to look chagrined, but his amused smirk belied any possible sincerity.
Suddenly Angel yelped with pain and jerked his head around to find an enraged Joyce standing over him with a rolled up newspaper in her hand. “How dare you come into my house and start a fight.” She gave him another smack to the side of the head with a resounding ‘thwump‘. “And you WILL be expected to clean up every bit of this mess, do you hear me? Every last bit of it.”
“Uh Joyce, you did happen to notice that he was a vampire too, right? So maybe the rolled up newspaper swatting… a bit of an overkill?” Xander felt compelled to mention, then mentally smacked himself. This was just too good, especially watching Angel trying to dodge his head around to avoid the blows since Buffy had his arms pinned to his side with her knees. Joyce was one dangerous lady with her makeshift weapon and Xander wished suddenly that he had a camera. It wasn’t every day that a master vampire like Angelus got disciplined and smacked around like some disobedient puppy.
“Mom, think you can lay off with the newspaper,” Buffy said, slowly rising off of Angel, keeping her stake prepared in case Angel decided to attack again. The look on his face was embarrassed fury, but he didn‘t seem violently inclined at the moment.
“Well since I don’t think he’s a deformed gang member on PCP; yes, I guess I did notice.” Joyce ignored Buffy’s comment and finally responded to Xander‘s earlier one, her weapon still firmly in her grasp, ready to inflict more damage.
The terse moment was interrupted by a loud burst of hysterical laughter coming from behind Buffy. Spinning around, her green eyes widened as she took in the spectacle before her.
Her Watcher slammed back against the wall, his hand clamped over his mouth as if that alone could stop the giggles from spilling out of his mouth. When he slowly slid down the wall on legs that had obviously grown too weak to support him, Giles‘ laughter trailed off.
But then he took another look at Angel and his rumpled hair and the giggles took over as he weakly brought his hand up to point in the souled vampire’s direction.
“Earsch Mcgee…” he managed to get out, then looked at Joyce and attempted to look stern. “Jocysh, you’re supposed to rub der nosch in the messh when you schwat them.”
“Oh my GOD! Are you DRUNK, Giles?” Buffy accused, her fisted hands flying to her hips as she looked at him with disbelief. “What are you babbling about?”
“Housh-breaking the puppy,” Giles slurred, then looked around at the shattered table and mess that the two fighting vamps had made, then back at Angel’s dumbfounded expression and became lost to the conversation, tears rolling down his cheeks with the intensity of his laughter, and all that those around him could do was watch the display, unable to look away.
“Buffy,” Joyce interrupted, recovering first. ‘What is going on here? And please don‘t tell me he‘s a deformed tutoring gang member on PCP either.”
Buffy sighed, drawing her eyes away from the hiccupping watcher. “He’s my ex-boyfriend,” she finally mumbled, ignoring Spike‘s snort.
Expecting a huge backlash from that announcement and the revelation of more secrets withheld, Buffy was surprised when Joyce merely held up her hand and said, “I don’t even want to know” and walked back into the living room, stopping at the bar on the way.
Giles got himself together at the sound of bottles being clinked together and hauled himself to his feet, stumbling in the direction Joyce had taken. “Do believe I will join you,” he called after her.
Hank just shook his head and followed suit, more than willing to dodge the lecture that had been about to take place before this other…vampire fell into the house. He didn’t know the story but he now trusted Buffy explicitly and figured it was something that could wait for another time.
Buffy found herself watching as the adults in her life pounced on the alcohol, not acting in the least like they’d just had stuff of the majorally freaky unloaded on them.
It was suddenly clear to her; her life had entered the twilight zone. There was no other question or reasonable explanation. But then Buffy looked into Spike’s eyes and was once more gripped by the passion and intensity, the perfect CONNECTION she found lurking there and swiftly came to the conclusion that if this was the Twilight Zone, she was so never leaving.
Especially not when Spike walked forward to pluck the stake from her hand and tossed it away, tucking her against his side securely. Buffy didn’t even hear the gasps of shock from Xander and Willow at the easy familiarity, so captivated by the look of profound reverence on Spike’s face.
All for her.
Angel, on the other hand, began growling at the possessiveness with which Spike beheld Buffy, and even the other two interlopers in the room could practically feel the tension that poured off of the older vampire.
“Come on, pet,” Spike said softly as he encased her hand in his own, ignoring the growls coming from his elder.
“Where are we going?” Buffy asked without thinking.
The sardonic tip of Spike’s scarred brow was her response and Buffy flushed crimson. “Oh yeah.”
Xander stalked up to her, with nervous glances at Spike. “What do you mean ’oh yeah’?”
“Means none of your business, you stupid git,” Spike answered, his eyes narrowing.
“You can’t really think that we are going to let you go anywhere with him, do you?” Xander asked in disbelief. “Because that would be so very foolish of you.”
Xander felt a chill go through his body in response to the icy glare Buffy sent his way and a fit of desperation struck him. “Buffy?”
Dismissing her friend, Buffy looked into the living room where her mom sat with a drunken Giles in one chair and her ex husband in the other. “Mom, I’ll be back later, ok? I have my pager.”
Joyce’s head shot up to lock her eyes on the determined green of her daughter and vehement protestation immediately came the tip of her tongue. But the assessing look her daughter was giving her allowed her to take a step back.
“Just… don’t be too late.”
Buffy’s grateful answering smile almost brought tears to Joyce’s eyes, and while this new independent daughter of hers would take a while to get used to, Joyce was reassured that things would be ok.
Joyce watched as Spike led Buffy out of the house, trying desperately to put aside all preconceived notions out of her head and NOT think of anything she really didn‘t want to know.
“He’s ok, Joyce,” Hank announced, seeing the mental conflict taking place.
“Wha? Huh? You just LET her leave with that thing?” Xander stomped into the doorway and accused, looking like he’d just had his favorite toy taken away from him. “With a ‘see ya, buh bye, oh don’t break curfew‘?”
That did it for Joyce. Tossing her shoulders back, she announced, “Yes, Xander, I did.”
Angel’s loud brooding sigh resounded through the room and Giles looked around in confusion. “Did I misch stomaching?”
“Unbelievable,” Xander muttered, giving everyone a dark look before spinning on his heel and stomping out the front door.
He was just in time to see his dream car slide smoothly from the curb and through the drivers side window, a finger with chipped black nail polish waved a silent salute back at him.
“Bastard,” Xander grumbled, scuffing the ground with his shoe. A moment too slow on the uptake, he tried to flick Spike back off but with a flash of the brake lights, his dream car and his dream girl disappeared around the corner and Xander didn’t even want to think of where they were headed.
Because sometimes denial was just so much easier.
tbc..
Reviews would be EVER so nice!!
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