#aw fakey trauma

[rfxn-emulator]

A Tuesday headhunting

[yellowocaballero]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer fic: Buffy’s Mom falls for a real estate scam and plunges them all into hell.

“So,” Buffy said, excruciatingly slowly, “find out anything interesting at work today?”

Mom slowly unzipped her purse and dug through its voluminous depths before dumping a fistful of brochures on the table. Upside down, Buffy could read SUNNYDALE DOESN’T HAVE TO BE SUNNYHELL: 10 TACTICS FOR SURVIVAL and DEMONS, DEMONS, DEMONS...AND YOU!. 

“I have the manual in my backpack,” Buffy said sympathetically. “Want to take a look?”

“I’d rather get drunk, thanks.”

Buffy understands how this Slayer thing works.

Wake up, go to school, save the world. Never tell anybody who you are and what you can do, let your Watcher dictate your life, and then die in three years. Sunnydale will not be any different, and there’s no way it has a good hair salon.

But there’s definitely something weird about Sunnydale, and it’s not the Hellmouth. It might be the vampires at the nightclub and the demons in her math class. It’s probably the nerdy girl who writes manuals on the undead, the dweeb with a stake watching out for any suspicious ‘Watchers’ or ‘Slayers’, and the overly confident Queen Bee who might single-handedly be fighting crime. It’s definitely the overly Catholic vampire divorcee with a soul. 

Maybe Buffy didn’t understand as much as she thought she did. But hey - at least she doesn’t have to worry about a secret identity, right?

The rest of this 20k story under the cut. I have no explanation for this. 

    In retrospect, the house had been suspiciously cheap. 

    Buffy and her mom hadn’t really been in a position to complain. They were caught in a strange, all holds barred standoff of mutual resentment and guilt: Buffy, for getting expelled from school for reasons that were totally not her fault, and Mom, for divorcing Dad and having to find a job on the quick that pulled them all the way to Sunnydale, California. 

    Of course, it was hardly as simple as that: Buffy secretly wondered if Dad had bounced because she was just too much trouble, and she knew that Mom thought Buffy was a delinquent because of her subpar parenting and the trauma of divorce. Yeah, as if divorce was her problem right now. 

    So when Mom drained her savings to buy a gorgeous and cheap house in the middle of Lame Street, Suburbia, Boringville, Buffy tried only to complain about the stupid stuff. And if Mom got on her case for being distant and only talking about her closet, then she just totally wasn’t getting that Buffy was trying to help. Sometimes not bothering your mom meant just not telling her stuff. 

    Buffy started school only half a week after they moved in: barely enough time to get their boxes unpacked and then sit around exhausted from the strain. Mom complained about her aching back, and Buffy badly pretended that the fridge was too heavy to lift. She knew that this dumb year had knocked a screw loose, because she caught herself wishing she had read some of Pike’s geeky Spider-Man comics. Kind of a Secret Identity For Dummies type deal, except Spider-man was fictional and she was not nearly that lucky. 

    She needed more than a weekend of lying in bed exhausted and flipping through Teen Beat before starting school. She had to put together the perfect outfit, carefully apply her best makeup that won her Homecoming Queen at the 8th grade dance, and try desperately to make up some kind of amazing backstory that had no demons, vampires, ghouls, or ghastlies. Buffy Summers had moved to Losertown because she wanted some more sun, get away from the yucky LA pollution, rediscover nature…

 “Remember, honey,” Mom had said, smiling that new smile in the idling and sputtering car in front of the weirdly gigantic suburban high school. “This is a fresh start, okay? Everything’s going to be different from now on.”

“Is that supposed to be comforting?” Buffy asked. “That’s not comforting.”

Mom didn’t drop the smile, but she didn’t need to. It was so pained and fakey-happy. It was new and awful, but somehow it wasn’t all that different from her old smiles. Maybe Mom had always been fakey-happy, and Buffy had been too busy being fakey-happy with her to notice. “Please, Buffy. I’m just asking you to try.”

“I’m trying, I’m trying!” Buffy slid out of the seat, slamming the car door behind her. “What’s the worst that can happen? I’ll burn down two cafeterias?”

“Don’t even joke.”

Buffy walks onto the campus of Sunnydale High with her chin held high, her hips swaying seductively, ready to conquer high school - and, maybe, even her own life.

Twenty steps in, somebody is already staring at her. Buffy assumes this is because she is just that sexy and cool.

Thirty steps in, an entire group of kids kicking a ball around are staring at her. Buffy’s ego is through the roof, although she’s also a little uncomfortable.

Thirty five steps in, some nerd in a Hawaiian shirt loudly yells, “Holy shit, is that a new girl?”

And then everybody’s staring, and Buffy promptly loses control over the situation. 

Ten minutes later, Buffy’s found herself mobbed by a group of girls with teased hair lead by a particularly bossy and tall girl who was quick to assert that her name was Cordelia, she lived in the North side of town, thank you very much, and where did you buy that eyeshadow? Anyway, so, like, what are you doing here?

“Uh,” Buffy said, hemmed in on all sides by a ring of gawking students. Was this their first time seeing a girl from LA? “Going to...school?”

Cordelia gives her a look of abject sympathy, ready to put five dollars in her tin cup on a street corner. “So you’re here because you’re stupid, huh?”

“Aw, Cordy, lay off,” the nerd in the Hawaiian shirt said, pushing through the crowd and cheerfully ignoring the looks of mild disdain everybody was bestowing upon him. “You call this a Welcome Wagon? Wait ‘til first period to scare her pants off.” The nerd smiled brightly at her, in a way that he probably thought was winning but was painfully teenage boy awkward. He held out his hand. Buffy eyed it warily. “Xander Harris, Mr. Welcome Wagon, can I show you around? Get you a drink? It’ll be from the vending machine, so ten percent chance you’ll get Cherry Coke, but guaranteed it’ll be cold!”

“Ugh, Xander, don’t threaten a girl with Cherry Coke.”

“How can I threaten her when you’re standing right next to me, Cordelia!”

A short, painfully adorable red headed girl in a fuzzy sweater tugged at Xander’s garish sleeve, expression softly folded in gentle recrimination. “Xander! Be nice.” She smiled sweetly at Buffy, assailing her eyes with a bright pink butterfly hair clip. “I’m Willow Rosenberg. Uh, I like your hair. And your shoes. And your makeup is nice.”

“Thanks,” Buffy said reflexively, “I like your…” 

“Take your time,” Willow said magnanimously. 

“Points on the good taste, fresh meat,” Cordy said, somehow also magnanimously.

 She crossed her arms, taking a long hard look up and down Buffy. The crowd around them held their breaths, waiting for her verdict. Buffy straightened, pushing her chin up and setting out her shoulders. She’s known dozens of wanna-be Queen Bees in her life, but somehow Buffy had the sense that there was only one Cordelia. Nobody in the world but Pike had ever recognized that there was only one Buffy. There was no way she was going to out-popular this girl who clearly held the school in an iron fist, but Buffy didn’t back away from vampires and she sure as hell didn’t back away from girls who wore that shade of purple.

Finally, Cordelia decreed, “She has potential. I give her two weeks.”

Buffy instantly shot back, “Ye of little faith. Want to bet?”

“Didn’t the principal ban the dead pool?” Willow asked, distressed.

“The what?” Buffy asked, having admittedly not known what the bet was.

“One week,” Cordelia amended. 

Buffy was growing increasingly concerned. Kids around them were audibly making bets. One short boy wearing another unfortunate shirt was clearly acting as bookie. “One week of what?”

“Survival,” Cody said, grinning brightly and happily, “like, duh.”

    “Excuse me, hello, hi, I’m Buffy Summers. Wonderful to finally make your acquaintance. I like your hair. What did Cordelia mean by survival?”

    Willow stared at Buffy, wide eyed and confused. She looked around, as if Buffy could possibly be speaking to anybody else, but all she saw was the math class talking loudly amongst each other and horsing around. The math teacher wasn’t even trying: he was just sitting at his chair, feet on the desk and snoring away with a magazine over his eyes. 

    They were three periods in, and half of the classes so far had been like this. Buffy’s homeroom was a flop - the teacher didn’t even bother trying to introduce her, and she was put under the thumbscrews by gawking kids grilling her for her life story again - and her first period actually seemed to involve some English, but second period Science was just half a period of limp lecturing before passing out some worksheets. Mom had been promised a good school district! So much for the propaganda that these nice suburbs had good schools. 

    “Uh…” Willow pointed to herself and Buffy nodded very slowly. “Yes! Yes, right, um...I’d ignore Cordelia, really. She comes on a little strong.”

    “Yeah, her and half the school.” Buffy held up a completely blank notebook, devoid of everything but a dozen phone numbers. “Half the guys here are losing their minds meeting a girl they haven’t known since kindergarten.” Somewhat anxiously, Buffy felt the need to assert, “I mean, that’s also my total good looks. I had, like, five boyfriends freshman year.”

    Willow’s eyes goggled. “Wow! Five boyfriends?”

    “In a row,” Buffy promised. 

    “Wow. Life outside of Sunnydale really is different, huh.” Willow seemed a little distressed by this, as if there were a million other things happening outside of Sunnydale that she had no methods or means of witnessing. “Well, don’t listen to Cordelia. She’s a pessimist. I’m sure you’ll do just fine here. And - and people live longer than a month all the time! For example - I’m fifteen years old. That’s much longer than a month. One hundred eighty six months, if you wanted to get specific -”

    “Okay, nerd.” At least someone here could do math. With the quality of this education, it was a miracle she could do double digit multiplication. “Look, as fun as it is being - sorry, did you say live?”

    “Until old age,” Willow swore up and down. “I promise! If you follow every guideline in the handbook and follow all municipal laws, then your chances of making it a year are 80%! I would know, I helped write it! My mom’s on the committee. She says it teaches civil engagement -”

    Buffy had a headache. Maybe it was a good thing that math wasn’t happening today - she couldn’t take two things that killed her brain. She had thought her first day at school would be a stressful, harrowing ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ type thing - not a murder mystery, with her as the corpse! “What handbook?”

    Willow stared at Buffy, eyes wide and jaw slack. Her eyes widened and widened, until they were as circular as quarters. Panic bloomed across her expression. 

    She abruptly whirled around in her seat, grabbing a nearby pencil and lobbing it at a blonde boy laughing with his friends in the back of the room. “James! You stupid jerk!”

    Her pencil’s aim was true, and it hit James squarely on the forehead. He moaned and massaged the red skin, grimacing. “Damn, Willow, what’d I do to you!”

    “Your stupid mom’s real estate company is what you did to me!” Willow said, with a soft fury that somehow fit in perfectly with her fuzzy sweater. “They ran that con again, didn’t they! The Mayor outlawed that! There was a municipal ordinance!”

    “You and your municipal ordinances,” James complained, before he caught sight of Buffy. His eyes widened too as he obviously put the pieces together. Real estate con plus new girl plus suspiciously cheap house equalled…? “Oh, shit. Mom totally ran the con again.”

    “What con?!” Buffy yelled, two seconds away from hysteria. 

    But James just looked grim, and his friends glanced at each other nervously. A group of girls on the other end of the dinky classroom started whispering. “Mom hooked some suckers from the big city.”

    “She didn’t pass out the flyers,” Willow indicted. 

    “Wait,” another girl said, leaning over, “new girl hasn’t read the brochures?”

    “Please tell me you’ve gone to the orientation,” Willow begged Buffy. 

    “What the fuck are you people talking about?” Buffy asked blankly. 

    “Ugh, I hate my mom,” James said glumly. “She does this all the time. It’s just to meet her dumb quotas. She’s totally gonna get the firm in trouble. She lists the house for dirt cheap, she gets some...I dunno, recent divorcee or something, and then she conveniently doesn’t tell them about the demons. Like, you’re supposed to put the Hellmouth on the listing. It’s in the zip code. You don’t need the bonus that badly, Mom, God. Your dumb real estate company’s a money laundering front for the vampires anyway!”

    “Oh,” Buffy said, “is that all?”

    ***

    Willow was a sweet girl, and she was appropriately horrified on Buffy’s behalf that she was a) scammed into buying a house for more than its market price of zero, and b) didn’t know about the demons.

    She was so distressed about it that Buffy didn’t have the heart to tell her that she had already known about the demon thing. It looked like everybody knew about the demon thing. Buffy was beginning to feel a little self-conscious that she had only found out about the demon thing a year ago. Like, had the rest of the world found out about it when they were twelve and she just missed it? Was she late in finding out about the demon thing? That was so embarrassing. She felt like such an idiot. 

    But Willow was giving her such a well-rehearsed and educational speech about how yes, demons are real, and vampires do lurk in the night, and how you probably shouldn’t walk home alone in Sunnydale. But we’re very culturally competent here at Sunnydale, and we value diversity in our residents! Half the swim team were fish men, and they won championships every year! And she tutored a Brachen demon named Brad in math, he was super nice! It was about tolerance and coexistence, or so Willow preached. 

    Willow’s explanation lasted the rest of math and extended into lunch, and she was clearly very tickled to hold the attention of the hot and exciting new girl. She quietly pointed out all of the kids walking past them in the halls who were perfectly nice demons!, but also stay away from the Hyena boys, please, they were not very nice demons. As a general rule, if they’re part of “the Debate Team”, don’t talk to them. You could try talking to “the Book Club”, but they mostly just hummed ominously. “The Knitting Club” was best left unmentioned. 

 Xander, when he caught up to them during lunch in a move that was so clearly instinctual that Buffy automatically understood the two were best friends, was far quicker to tell her exactly who were the dicks in Sunnydale, which was most of them (“But not murderous jerks”, Willow stressed). Xander clearly relished in telling her the gory details, while Willow just screamed ‘girl who desperately wants to be helpful at all times’. 

“I know!” Willow said, stopping in front of the cafeteria double doors so she could whirl around. “Let’s go to the library! I know we have three copies of the orientation manual in there. It’s very important that you memorize all of the demons who are chronic hunters, Buffy. We have some nice safety tips in there, too. You can borrow my bear mace until you get your own!”

“I love girl talk as much as the next guy,” Xander said, effortlessly steering them both in a completely different direction than the sweet siren song of food, “but can’t we avoid the library? The new librarian gives me the creeps.”

“It’s not his fault he’s English,” Willow said loyally. “He seems really nice.”

“He’s a liar.” Xander stressed the word, shaking his hands in the air - as if it was an unbelievable thing, alien and disturbing in this chronically honest Sunnydale. “You heard the guy! He won’t stop going on about how he’s just ‘a normal librarian’ and that he found the Hejarrak demon like that!”

“He could have!”

“It was beheaded! He was holding an axe!”

“Is the librarian a demon too?” Buffy asked, alarmed. Willow and Xander were quickly leading her down a hallway with an ominous set of public school double doors at the end of it, and Buffy could swear that she felt a slight aura of evil and malevolence emanating from within. It had to be a library. Only libraries were that evil. “How much of the staff are demons here?”

Xander’s expression darkened. “Does Snyder count?”

“We need to give him a warmer welcome,” Willow insisted, stopping them all in front of the double doors of the library. Buffy could swear that it stank of sulfur. “Just because everyone’s saying -”

“Just because he is -”

“You don’t know -”

“Your attitude’s awfully funny, Willow, considering that Rule #24 of your handbook is to ‘always listen to rumors’ -”

“I like to give people the benefit of the doubt!”

“Fifth grade dance class,” Xander threatened.

“All ballerinas are evil,” Willow protested, pushing open the library doors and pulling them all inside. “I’m not going to let this town erase my faith in human and monster nature, Xander! If you look for bad everywhere you go, bad is all you’re going to find.”

“Bad’s everywhere we go,” Xander said flatly, following her inside and leaving Buffy to catch up. “It’s bad all the way down.”

The school library was strangely nice, for a school library. There was hardly a textbook or graphic novel in sight, which was both a relief and slightly a bummer. Instead, the shelves seemed to be stocked with...thick tomes. It was like the entire library was the reference section. People actually checked out books from here? 

Buffy floated closer to one of the shelves as Willow made happy small talk with the highly suspect librarian. He was...a middle aged white man in a vest, who looked like he’d rather be alphabetizing his tea than working in a public school library. He looked a little intimidated by Willow, as if her five foot two jumper-wrapped glory was more terrifying than any hellspawn. 

She squinted at the shelves, working hard to pick out the creased black titles in the leatherbound spines. Magik Moste Evil. Five Hundred and One Curses and Incantations. Death of a Salesman. 

“What is wrong with this school,” Buffy whispered. 

Was it her? Did this shit just follow her wherever she went, like Karen McNeil to her Justin Timberlake. She thought Sunnydale would be an escape - an escape from the looming and lurching LA, from the blood and ghost of Merrick frowning with disapproval down at her. She couldn’t believe she felt guilty that she was leaving - as if she was running away from all danger to waste the rest of her life in a suburban pit. Where ‘hellhole’ meant poky shopping mall with bowling alley carpets.

Xander sidled up next to her, leaning on the front of the bookshelf as she perused the side. He crossed his arms, giving the library a seemingly instinctual once-over before glancing at Buffy. He cocked an eyebrow and smiled at her, but his attempts to look cool and suave were paper-thin. They barely hid a real anxiety and tension in him, a strange cousin of Cordelia’s hidden steel and Willow’s hidden passion. 

“Don’t let Will’s everything fool you,” he said. “I once saw her stake a vamp with her bat mitzvah Torah.”

Somehow, Buffy couldn’t fight a grin. “The fuzzy kitten sweater’s the last thing they ever see?”

“You don’t live that long being that nice unless you’re a bit of a badass,” Xander said proudly. That, at least, was genuine - the guy who started bragging about how great his best friend was the second she was out of earshot. But when he glanced back at the enthusiastic librarian talking to an equally enthusiastic Willow his expression darkened a little. Buffy couldn’t quite identify it - something left of bitterness and right of caution. “Not to be rude, but you seem - well, normal, right?”

Buffy couldn’t hide the bitterness from her voice, either. She felt way too young to be this bitter. It was going to give her wrinkles. “I used to be.”

“Yeah, you gave up all intellectual rights to that when you moved here.” Xander tightened his shoulders uncomfortably, eyes not leaving Willow. “But popular girls like you know how important gossip is. And everyone and their bartender’s saying that Mr. Giles over there is a complete and total Watcher.”

Buffy’s brain short-circuited. 

Xander drastically misinterpreted the expression on her face, because he jumped in to clarify. “Not in a creepy way! Except, yeah, in a creepy way - look, Watchers are like the weird nerd sidekicks of Slayers.” At Buffy’s mounting horror, Xander quickly said, “Not like the band! Wait, that’s probably not what you’re worried about - I mean, Slayers aren’t bad. But they’re like these complete Terminators whose sole purpose in life is to kill demons and slay vamps and everything. They’re totally demon boogeymen.”

“Wow,” Buffy said, panicking completely, “sounds...good! Sounds like a good thing to have around. I love having, you know, bodyguards against vamps and stuff. Very multipurpose people, Slayers!”

“Yeah, you’d think. But the last thing we need right now is some Batman charging in and stirring everything up. Sunnydale has rules! A balance! And if you don’t know the rules, you’re fish food. When people like Slayers don’t know the rules, we’re fish food.“ Xander glanced over at Mr. Giles again, frowning. “Wherever a Watcher is, a Slayer’s gotta follow. So much for a normal school year.”

“I don’t know,” Buffy said. She was giving up all hope of a normal school year too. She didn’t know why she even tried. Hope was just a flashing neon sign to the universe - ‘hey, come on down here and stomp all over me!’. “Maybe she doesn’t really get a choice in this either.”

“What -”

“Buffy!”

Buffy and Xander jumped a foot in the air, but it was just Willow. She was still standing at the circulation desk, waving enthusiastically at Buffy and beckoning her closer. But behind her, the librarian seemed just as surprised. His jaw had dropped, and Buffy watched his gold wire-rimmed glasses fall on the desk. 

It felt strongly as if she had just walked into her new dentist’s office. Buffy felt like such an airhead for not even realizing. British? Tweed? Book-crazy? Freak? That checked off every single Watcher box for sure.

But it felt stupid to think that way, too. She didn’t even want to think that way. She would rather remember Merrick as special. One of a kind, just like her - the last in a long line of idiots. She wanted to think of tweed and think of him; think of a bristling mouche and remember the way it would shake when he yelled at her for some stunt or another. Every time she held a stake, she heard his voice in her ear: thumb this way, hold it like that, keep your elbows in, for god’s sake. 

Ugh, was the tweed a uniform? Truly unfortunate. 

“Mr. Giles, this is Buffy Summers.” Willow gestured proudly, as if she was a magician in a sparkly leotard. Buffy glared hard at Mr. Giles before walking up and standing behind Willow, arms crossed. “She needs some of your demon prep manuals, please!” She lowered her voice, looking around the completely empty library surreptitiously. “She’s new.”

Mr. Giles looked like a stiff breeze would knock him over. He obviously looked her up and down - not in a creepy way, but definitely in a ‘am I sure I’ve got the right address?’ way. Buffy wondered if he had been expecting someone a little less short and blonde. “I see,” Giles said weakly. “The new student. Yes, yes, I’ve - I’ve heard of you, yes. I mean, I heard you were coming. That we were receiving a new student, yes.”

“What, is it a once in a year occurrence?” Buffy asked sarcastically. 

Xander popped up behind her, grinning brightly. “We had one in the eighth grade! What was his name, Will?”

“Henry...something?” Willow frowned. “Or was it Hank?”

“Could have sworn it was Jeeves.”

“Hank Jeeves or Henry Jeeves?”

“We can check the gravestone after school!”

“Oh, good idea!”

“Oh my,” Giles said. 

“Yikes,” Buffy said. 

“But I’m sure that won’t happen to you!” Willow said quickly, apparently only distantly aware that she was being objectively upsetting. She gave Buffy two thumbs up, her grin strangely identical to Xander’s. Slightly desperate, definitely manic. “Not with my handy dandy manuals!”

“Yeah, Mr. Giles,” Buffy said pointedly, glaring as hard as she could at Mr. Giles and hoping that Slayers had laser vision, “I could use some manuals. To teach me about how to defend myself. Against vampires.”

Mr. Giles looked at her blankly. He looked down at a painfully cheerful Willow, then up at a highly suspicious Xander with his hands jammed in his pockets. 

“Hm,” Mr. Giles said. “This is a very interesting situation, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” Xander said pointedly, “it’s pretty interesting how you’re an academic, Mr. Giles. Would you say that you like studying demons? For, hypothetically, demon killing purposes? Or watching purposes?”

“I’m sorry,” Mr. Giles said, still apparently somewhat overwhelmed. He stepped away from the desk, bending down and hefting out a truly thick stack of spiral bound manuals before dumping them on the desk. They made Buffy sneeze. “I’m still not familiar with the cultural mores of America. Is killing demons a taboo around here?”

“Turnabout’s fair play,” Xander said flatly. “Personally, I’d love to have Ms. Rambo come in and knock off some of those monsters like Darla.” Willow made a face. Buffy wanted to make a face too, if only at the tacky name. “But I remember what happened the last time someone decided to play demon hunter. That’s a no thank you from me, buddy.”

“I miss the arcade,” Willow said mournfully. “They never rebuilt it.”

“Miss the arcade? Damn, Willow, I miss the Petersons!”

Buffy and Mr. Giles exchanged looks. He twitched an eyebrow at her. Buffy grimaced, before jerking her head towards the door. 

“I do believe lunch will be over soon,” Mr. Giles said suddenly. He tried to smile reassuring at Willow and Xander, but it came out more like Buffy popped a lemon in his mouth and told him to swallow. “You two should hurry on back to your classes. Ms. Summers, if you’ll stay behind, I can write you a late pass and give you a - crash course, if you will, on Sunnydale.”

“You’ve lived here for a month, dude,” Xander complained. “What makes you think you know anything about Sunnydale?”

But Mr. Giles just smiled thinly. “As it happens, demon academia is my specialty.”

“I knew it!” Willow cried, excited. Xander grimaced. “Of course a demon academic would move to Sunnydale! I bet this is, like, field work. Teenage Demons In Their Natural Habitat: A Compendium! Do you need a co-author? I have notes!”

“Do you really?” Mr. Giles asked, fascinated despite himself. “My studies have been rich on the theory, but woefully lacking on the practicals.”

“Wow, is that the bell?” Buffy said quickly. She gently took Willow’s shoulders and steered her in the direction of the library doors, leaving Xander to play catch-up. “You two are probably really busy, I wouldn’t want you to be late to your next class -”

“We’re never busy,” Willow said proudly.

“Mr. Finkel noticing if anybody’s late to class is the first seal of the apocalypse,” Xander said. 

Mr. Giles just looked alarmed. “Is it really?”

“Sorry,” Xander said, “black humor is our blood and butter around here. Get it, Wills?”

Willow patted his arm reassuringly. “You are so funny and clever, Xander. Women love you.” She perked up, spinning around in excitement to face Buffy. “I know! Why don’t you come to the Bronze with us tonight? That’s our local nightclub slash teen hangout slash only hangout thing. It’s totally safe, I promise - there’s a treaty and everything. I wouldn’t walk home alone, but that’s what we’re here for! Think of it as a bona fide Sunnydale tour!” She faltered a little, her own words catching up to her. “I mean, if you aren’t busy. You really don’t have to, I know there’s a lot of unpacking and...stuff. Or if you want to go with Cordelia, that’s fine.”

Buffy had the feeling that Willow and Xander were social suicide. Willow was a geek and Xander was a nerd, and they both looked like they had wandered out of the wrong end of a thrift store. They obviously didn’t hang out with any other friends during lunch, and would rather spend their time in a stuffy library with a creepy librarian just so they could help out the new girl. If Sunnydale was going to be Buffy’s fresh start, then spending her time hanging out with these two was falling on her face right at the starting line. 

But Willow was smiling at her so hopefully, as if she was already imagining all of the good times they would have if she said yes, and Xander was smiling so wryly, as if he had already accepted that she would say no. And, somehow, Buffy found herself saying, “I’ll be there with bells and my dancing shoes on. I don’t need to, like, bring a shotgun, do I?”

Willow squealed with excitement, jumping up and down and clapping her hands. “Don’t worry, I can bring the weapons! This’ll be so much fun! I’m so -”

The bell cut her off, and all four of them jolted. Buffy pasted a big smile on her face, quickly made something up about how excited she was, and finally vanquished Willow and Xander from the library. They waved goodbye enthusiastically, whispering with heads together as they pushed open the doors and vanished down the halls.

But Buffy’s hearing was supernaturally keen, and she heard Willow whispering excitedly to Xander as they disappeared. “ - real friend! And she’s -”

If Xander replied, Buffy didn’t hear him. Mr. Giles interrupted her, coughing slightly for her attention. She turned around to see him leaning on the circulation desk, twisting his glasses between his fingers in a strange show of anxiety. Merrick had always been so confident and sure. Mr. Giles probably wasn’t half the Watcher Merrick had been. But Buffy was always half the Slayer she should be, so maybe they were a good fit. 

“I have to say, this assignment isn’t quite what I was expecting.”

“God, tell me about it.” Buffy sighed, leaning against the circulation desk with her arms crossed. The library really was nice. It would probably be cozy if you found books comforting. Buffy’s favorite books were the very heavy hardback ones that made good improvised weapons. “So much for my painfully normal civilian life. I’m Plain Jane compared to these people.”

“Yes, I’ve found the students quite eclectic so far.” So that was why he was terrified of Willow - was it the sweaters or the repressed bloodlust? “I suppose there’s no need for introductions, then. I am glad that you’ve finally arrived. I’ve found myself rather drastically underprepared for this assignment. It’s far more dangerous than the briefing implied.”

“God forbid demon hunting be dangerous,” Buffy said flatly. “Look, Mr. - what’s your first name?”

“It’s Rupert, actually.”

“Look, Rupert -”

“It may be more appropriate for you to call me Giles -”

“Look,” Buffy said, and Giles shut up. “Rupert. I’ve tap danced to this before, okay? You’re the Chosen One, no more little buddies for you, stop wasting your time on hair care and go make with the Slayage. Was that the speech you wanted to give me?” Giles’ silence was incriminating. “Stellar. I’m sure this is the beginning of a wonderful working relationship. I dearly look forward to you trying to control my life. I will cherish our training sessions where you try to hit me with a stick. I’ll try to shed a single stoic tear when you die.”

Silence stretched through the library, both of them standing together and far apart. Buffy knew she was coming across all defensive, but she didn’t care. He wasn’t going to get attached to her - Merrick had made that very clear - so she didn’t have to get attached to him either. Nothing in life really lasted all that long - homes, marriages, schools. Slayers, Watchers. Better to just work hard, play hard, and live life to the fullest. Buffy had a lifetime of living to get in for the next - three years, max, so she was going to get her money’s worth. And maybe a good life insurance policy. 

Finally, Giles said, “Mr. Merrick was a well regarded member of the Watcher’s Council. I had quite a bit of personal respect for him. He talked highly of you, you know.”

Buffy’s throat closed up, and she rubbed hard at her eyes. “He thought I was an idiot.”

But Giles just hummed. “He thought I was an idiot too, so I’m afraid you’re in good company. What was it he said...oh, yes. ‘She’s a frightfully stubborn, hard-headed girl. But she’ll make it.’ He had a great deal of faith in you, Buffy.” Buffy rubbed harder at her eyes, and Giles’ voice softened. “I know we’ve just met, so forgive me for saying so. But I agree with him. And if you let me - I fully intend on making sure that you live to graduate from this blasted secondary school.”

“I don’t even know what that is,” Buffy croaked, rubbing hard at her eyes. She sniffed, and finally turned around to glare hard at Giles. He straightened, expression somber, but she just jabbed a finger up at him. “Don’t give me the no friends speech.”

Giles abruptly looked very uncomfortable. “You must dedicate yourself to your training -”

“Oh, it’s not as if this place gives homework anyway, I can multitask. I can work on other homework!” She grabbed the manuals, dragging them closer and flipping open to a random page. She frowned down at it. “‘Hellmouth 101’? Nobody’s explained what a Hellmouth is yet.”

“The manuals are rather useful, aren’t they?” Giles asked eagerly, but Buffy just stared at him blankly until he deflated. “They’re a sort of weak point between hell dimensions and ours. Think of them as...if demons and demonic activities are fruit flies, then hellmouths are rotten apples. The supernatural always arises as a sort of chaotic element - a natural consequence of the ineffability and unpredictability of the universe, one might say - but a hellmouth feeds antimatter into the surrounding area in such drastic quantities that reality itself weakens. The unpredictable proliferates itself, and arranges into atomic structures and malevolent background radiation. Of course, that’s a drastic oversimplification.”

Buffy stared at Giles blankly. Giles sighed. 

“Hellmouths are demon magnets. They are also Slayer magnets. It’s no coincidence that you’ve found yourself here, Buffy.”

“What, was suburbia my destiny?” Buffy paused a beat. “God, that’s more depressing than the five year life expectancy.”

“The Powers That Be certainly keep its employees busy,” Giles said, faux-philosophical and definitely nonsensical. Buffy was beginning to get a taste of who Giles was: somebody who desperately wanted to be a perfect Watcher like Merrick but knew that he wasn’t even close. “I suppose this is an unconventional assignment for the both of us. No need to keep the secret of the supernatural or worry about keeping our actions covert. Although judging from some of the unsavory rumors that have been flying around about me -”

“You mean the true ones?”

“ - I’m afraid that Slayers and Watchers don’t have a good reputation in this town.” Giles hummed thoughtfully as Buffy crossed her arms and looked away. “I’m somewhat surprised. I would have thought the townspeople would view a Slayer as a savior. Instead, she seems to be somewhat of a...loose canon. I suppose I can’t blame them for their distrust of powerful and maverick supernatural entities. Although I wouldn’t call us maverick, precisely -”

“It’s stupid, isn’t it?” Buffy asked suddenly. To her horror, her throat was kind of thick. This was such a stupid thing to be upset about. Bad things should have a limit - like, max time to be upset about something is a hundred hours. And then it doesn’t bother you anymore. That should be how it worked. “This is the worst town in America. It’s on a hellmouth. There has to be something in the water that makes all the other kids freaks, and I’m the freaking new girl again. But I’m not alone here, Giles. I don’t have to pretend demons aren’t real, or that the world isn’t terrible. But I’m still the Slayer. The one place where I can fit in...and I’m still a freak.”

It was obvious that Giles didn’t know what to say. She didn’t blame him. He was, like, fifty. Middle aged men didn’t worry about being freaks or not having friends. There was no way he understood how she felt. Adults were always looking at her, a hot and popular teenage girl, and totally writing her off. She was dumb, flighty, irrational, and none of her problems mattered. Demon hunting was the only important thing to them, so it must be the most important thing to her too. 

But it was Buffy’s life. It was all she had. She wasn’t going to give it away to people who ran through Slayers like toilet paper, and she wasn’t going to let them design it for her based on what they thought was important. Even if her life wasn’t important to all the old farts across the pond, it was important to her.

Killing things and almost dying every night was easy. It was life that was hard. And even Merrick had known that Buffy never took the easy way out. 

“In that case, we better get to it,” Giles said finally, uncomfortable with her teen girl feelings.  He put his glasses back on, shifting through a large stack of books until he drew out a slim leather bound notebook. “Now, I’ve drafted up a training schedule for your Slayer duties. I think five hours a day and two hours of patrolling per night ought to be sufficient, don’t you? Eight hours on weekends?”

“Yeah, sufficient to kill me. Big pass.” Buffy grabbed a pen and scribbled over his itinerary, eliciting a mournful sound. “Sign me up as a library assistant for seventh period. You get three hours after school and a two hour patrol. Fridays off, that’s party day.”

Giles looked scandalized. “There are no days off when fighting the forces of evil, Ms. Summers.”

“Tough nuts. You’re lucky I’m giving up cheerleading for you.” Granted, the hours were probably still less than cheerleading, but that was why Buffy knew she could do it. Slaying was easier on her knees, anyway. “You get five hours on Sunday but Saturdays are mine.”

“The weekends are the most valuable time - I have field trips planned!”

“I will go on strike, Giles.”

And, somehow, they figured everything out just like that.

Maybe Giles wouldn’t be too bad. Maybe school wouldn’t be too hard. Maybe becoming a Slayer hadn’t stolen her ability to make friends. Maybe she’d survive to graduation.

A girl could dream, right?

********

Mom picked her up from school, which was so weirdly embarrassing Buffy silently swore to figure out the school bus. It was bad enough she was the new girl. The last thing she needed was people to see her Mom’s rinky dink SUV. Dad had gotten the Mercedes in the split.

 Mom wasn’t looking so good. Her perm was totally ruined and her unfortunate suit jacket was balled up in the back of the seat. Buffy silently sat in the passenger seat as Mom easily peeled away from the school, joining the scuttling streams of high school drop-offs and meandering between high school drop-outs. 

They sat in silence for a few minutes before Mom apparently remembered that mothers and daughters talked sometimes. Her voice was hoarse and strained, as if she had seen the unseenable a few times too many today. “How was school, honey?”

“Oh, you know.” Buffy shrugged. “New girl disease. They had to quarantine me.”

“That’s nice,” Mom said vaguely. 

Halfway home, Mom turned off the main street and stopped in front of a liquor store. She unbuckled her seat belt as Buffy stayed in the passenger seat, feeling exceptionally awkward.

“Hitting the happy juice a little early, Mom?” 

“Mom’s just celebrating her new job,” Mom said, still vague and distant. “Just a little one woman party. Stay in the car, honey.”

She came back with a bottle of whiskey ten minutes later. Buffy appraised it thoughtfully and resolved to steal it later. Pike had taken great pains to educate her on the best booze. He was a fantastic influence and a good friend, no matter what Mom had said. 

“So,” Buffy said slowly, “how was...work?”

“Oh, you know,” Mom said. “Very boring.”

The rest of the car ride was spent in silence. Buffy, who had spent five whole minutes mentally composing the thrilling tale of her first day of school so Mom could make all the appropriately horrified noises, felt a little cheated. 

Buffy and her Mom used to be close. She couldn’t even blame the whole Slayer thing for this one: they stopped really getting along when she entered middle school. But elementary school overflowed with memories of Mom. There were albums on albums of Buffy in elementary school dressed up in increasingly adorable outfits engaging in painfully adorable extracurriculars, and Buffy’s early childhood memories were crowded with Mom. Horseback riding lessons, dance team, choir, tennis...Mom always stood at the sidelines of each game, and she always spent the entire drive home criticizing the moms of all the other girls. Honestly, why did Helen let Rebecca out of the house dressed in dinosaur pyjamas?

But Mom got bored of that after a little while, and Buffy started focusing on cheerleading, and suddenly Mom was spending all of her time at the Monday book clubs, Tuesday wine nights, Wednesday volunteer service at the food bank, Thursday wine nights, and so on. It wasn’t as if they never saw each other, since Mom stayed at home and did basically 100% of any actual parenting, but it was really obvious that Mom found the stay at home thing boring. She used to have a very exciting job, or so she would tell Buffy all the time. She used to manage art galleries. Isn’t that so refined? 

She had been thrilled to get right back in the saddle. This whole thing was very exciting for Mom. She had been such a terrible mother to Buffy the last few years, which had to be the reason why she became a JD, so time to finally hit those special mother-daughter notes! Finally, freedom from the shackles of financial comfort and not needing a job: time to be feminist! This was her Live, Laugh, Love moment, and Joyce Summers was getting her groove back! 

Honestly, kind of sad. 

Two hours later, Mom was sitting at the kitchen table with a glass of whiskey on the rocks staring into the distance and Buffy was reorganizing her closet for the fifth time in a blatant avoidance tactic. She should probably put the heels in the back of the closet, no matter how cute they were - oh, no, not the Marc Jacobs, these were surprisingly comfortable and an excellent getaway shoe. What about dancing clothes? Could this clutch hold a stake?

After Buffy regretfully stuffed the purses that couldn’t hold stakes in the back of her closet - the sacrifices she made for Queen and country - she laid out her nightclub clothes for later that night. That took another twenty minutes, because your first time at the local nightclub was a time for impressions. She picked the rad baby blue number, totally tight and very slinky with a surprisingly good range of motion and shoulder stitching that didn’t impede her torso movement. She was all about the fashionable and the functional. Modern girls really could have it all. Of course, she’d have to figure out how to manage the purse situation…

Buffy leafed through her Cosmo. She organized her makeup. She tried to do homework, before realizing that nobody had really assigned her any. 

She went downstairs and stood in front of the kitchen table. Mom was on her second glass of whiskey. She stared directly at Mom. Mom took a robotic sip of her whiskey.

“So,” Buffy said, excruciatingly slowly, “find out anything interesting at work today?”

Mom slowly unzipped her purse and dug through its voluminous depths before dumping a fistful of brochures on the table. Upside down, Buffy could read SUNNYDALE DOESN’T HAVE TO BE SUNNYHELL: 10 TACTICS FOR SURVIVAL and DEMONS, DEMONS, DEMONS...AND YOU!. 

“I have the manual in my backpack,” Buffy said sympathetically. “Want to take a look?”

“I’d rather get drunk, thanks.”

“Oh-kay,” Buffy said, feeling a little as if she had lost control of her life. “So...are we moving or what?”

But Mom just buried her hands in her hair, pulling them through the carefully and primly permed wheat blonde brands and thoroughly ruining it. She didn’t even seem to care anymore. “What, and sell the house we just bought? To who? I have no money, no savings. What am I going to do, go crawling back to your father?”

Okay. Buffy stepped back, a slimy worm of awkwardness writhing in her gut. “So what are we going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Mom said. “I’ll...find a buyer, somehow. See if there’s a return window. Raise hell. Maybe sue.” Mom brightened a little, the idea of legal action always comforting. “I still have that card from Wolfram & Hart. This has to be fraud, right? We bought this house under false pretenses. There has to be something…”

It should have been good news. Buffy could kick back, relax, and let Mom worry about it. Money, real estate, bills and work was all Mom’s job. Buffy had way too many responsibilities on her plate for any fifteen year old, but at least she wasn’t paying a mortgage. Small favors. 

They could leave. Escape Sunnydale and leave it behind, brochures and manuals all. Giles would probably be forced to follow her, wherever she ended up. She wouldn’t leave behind the vampires, but that was fine. She probably wouldn’t leave behind the demons, but at least there’d be less of them…

What would she be leaving behind, exactly? Demons existed wherever night fell. The only thing she’d be abandoning was people who understood her. Kids who didn’t make her pretend to be normal. Xander and Willow. 

“I don’t know,” Buffy found herself saying. “It’s not all bad. The life expectancy is actually pretty good if you compare it with Medieval England.”

“Oh, so long as we’re better than Medieval England, Buffy!” Mom gestured sharply with her hands in frustration, vague and ineffectual. “We can’t possibly stay here. Half the people at the grocery store had hatchets in their shopping carts. The graveyard has a hot dog stand.The co-director of the art gallery has a Brachen demon for a husband! I don’t even know what a Brachen demon is!”

“They’re really harmless and squishy, but watch out for the spikes,” Buffy said reflexively, before pausing a beat. “According to the manual.”

“We aren’t like the people here, Buffy!” Mom cried. “We’re - we’re normal people!”

It shouldn’t have hurt her feelings. Mom didn’t mean it like that. Buffy was a normal person, and she was darn proud of it. She liked all the things normal girls liked and some dumb Slaying night job wasn’t going to take that away from her. 

But Buffy couldn’t help but think about Rebecca in dinosaur pyjamas and Willow in fuzzy sweaters and Cordelia in abrasive surety. Maybe in Sunnydale you had better things to worry about than whose daughter got the most ribbons in horseback riding. 

“You’re right, Mom,” Buffy said finally, with a fake pep and chipperness natural to any cheerleader. “In Sunnydale, we’re the freaks. Looks like we better get used to it!”

    An hour later - way before typical party time but before sunset, which was probably the point - Buffy was out the door with a vague explanation about a party. Mom had never required more than that (“Honey, I can’t possibly keep up with all of your parties”), which was useful with the whole demon slaying thing. Willow had even helpfully drawn a very detailed and precise map, complete with a large circled warning at the top (“DO NOT LEAVE AFTER SUNSET”) and a suggested list of weapons. Buffy liked the cut of Willow’s jib. 

The map took her all the way down to the Bronze, which was predictably disappointing. It was a smallish run-down building sandwiched between a Pizza Hut and Blockbuster, sagging under the weight of days that weren’t necessarily better, but definitely less leaky. Buffy wondered morbidly if the Blockbuster’s horror movies were filed under ‘slice of life’. The entire town had a truly weird abundance of alleys, feeding into Buffy’s already growing theory that the place had been built by demons, and Buffy knew that if you took a wrong turn behind the building you were stuck wandering through a maze of alleys with vampires hanging at the end of each one looking for drunk teens. The lengths people would go just for some watered down beer.  

Willow and Xander were waiting for her outside. Xander was dressed in a predictably terrible over-long dress shirt and jeans, while Willow was engaged in an actually painfully adorable tank top, ruffly skirt, and capri pants situation. The only bizarre aspect was the fact that Cordelia was locked deep in an argument with Xander as Willow calmly read a book next to them. Other teenagers milled around, with what looked like Cordelia’s posse huddled a safe distance away from the carnage. 

The distinct smell of teenage musk assaulted her nose, heavy with the sweet scent of heat and sweat and sweltering air. The ebb and swell of the bassy music from inside the Bronze was already assaulting her ears - nightclubs had become impossible since the Slayer thing, definitely the worst aspect of the entire deal - but when she finally got close enough she could make out the details of the argument. 

“ - treaty, they’re not going to do anything.”

“Are you even listening to what I’m saying?” Cordelia was dressed to the nines in high heels and a dress just as slinky as Buffy’s, although it was obviously much tackier. She was holding her own suspiciously long clutch purse, hitting it against her thigh in a move that was somehow threatening. “Hello? My intel is totally reliable. We gotta shut the whole place down tonight.”

But Xander just scoffed. “First off, the Bronze didn’t close when the fires of hell rained down upon us last Valentine’s Day. And second off, nothing’s going to happen! Vamps talk a big game, but even the biggest bad’s not going to risk getting a lifetime ban from the only decent cocktail place in the town. Your intel just fell for the shittalk.”

“You know, you actually used to care about this crap.” Cordelia crossed her arms, expression pulled tight as she stared down Xander. “You used to actually try and help people. Now all you do is sit around and mope.”

“Cordy, that’s not fair,” Willow protested weakly. 

“And you used to have a spine! What happened to you two?” 

Xander’s expression darkened, face barely illuminated by the buzzing neon of the lurid sign and the soft golden trickles of twilight. “You know full fucking well what happened.”

“For God’s sake, Xander, Jesse was months ago! Just get over it!”

Judging from the way that Willow hissed, it was a low blow. But Xander’s mouth just twisted unhappily, as if Cordelia wasn’t saying anything he didn’t already know. “I know that you have an excess of expendables, Cordy, but I don’t got that many friends to lose. So sorry, not sorry, but a terrible side effect of caring about people is moping a little bit after they get eaten. I know you can’t relate.” 

“You’re an idiot,” Cordelia condemned. She hit Xander on the arm, ignoring his exaggerated wince. “Moping’s a real ugly look on you, Xander. And it’s a real ugly look on me, so listen to what I’m freaking saying!”“Christ, it’s hard to miss your infernal harpy screeching -”

“I’ll show you harpy, you trash bag in plaid -”

It was downright impossible to tell if those three were in a frenemies situation, if they genuinely couldn’t stand each other, or if they cared about each other too much to be normal about it. Buffy couldn’t begin to interpret it. She had her own rotating cast of expendables, flushed down the drain as surely as this Jesse was. Maybe she didn’t know how to care about people, especially in their weird and awkward way - where you couldn’t share a civil word, but they were the first one you asked for help. But it was awkward listening to this, and Buffy had already thought about death more than enough for one night. 

“Hey, guys!” Buffy said, artificially chipper and trying hard to come across as if she had just gotten here. “So, does the Blockbuster shelve horror movies in the slice of life section, or would they go in the comedies?”

 Everybody whirled around to face her, and she watched all traces of fury drain from Xander’s expression as his jaw dropped. Willow flushed a very deep red, opening and closing her own mouth before hiding behind her book. Cordelia just scanned her quickly and made a somewhat approving noise. 

“Seven out of ten,” Cordelia said. “Not bad but you could do better. Go sleeveless next time and emphasize the biceps. Guys here are into muscular girls.”

“Muscular girls,” Willow whispered. She abruptly stuffed her book in her rainbow tye-dye tote bag, which clinked ominously. “I mean, hi! Nice night, isn’t it?”

“I can definitely confirm. That’s why this twig here can’t find a date.” Xander instinctively dodged Cordelia smacking him on the arm with her clutch. “Now that the gang’s all here, and if Cordy doesn’t have any more death threats, maybe we can get a little dancing in!”

“Oh, forget it.” Cordelia stalked forward, pushing past Xander and Willow as her posse roused themselves into action. But she waved them away, stopping only for Buffy. She jabbed a finger at her, expression intent and oddly furious. Buffy noticed for the first time that a strand of her hair was eskew - a little less than perfect. Maybe even frazzled. “This is your problem now. Try not to get those losers over there or my guy on the inside killed. All the stress is making me break out, I need an emergency face mask.”

Before Buffy could process why anybody but Giles was telling her not to get anyone killed Cordelia was already striding off, high heels clicking confidently against the pavement until she disappeared into the crowd. Buffy watched her go, the image of that one vagrant hair sticking stubbornly in her mind, before Willow grabbed her hand and dragged her inside.

The Bronze was like every loosely carded club: a little run down, with a cracked dance floor and a staticy karaoke machine singing a siren song of entertainment. A band staffed by three pimply college students were grinding out fuzzily distorted notes on antiquated guitars, providing a wobbly rhythm for the partiers that had already started migrating to the dance floor.

Human teenagers sat around rickety tables and competed to see who could talk the loudest, pushing each other and laughing. The scene could have been plucked out of a shitty club in LA if it wasn’t for the distinctly non-human contingent lurking around the corners.

As the Slayer, Buffy had a pretty good vibe for demons. She thought it was woman’s intuition until Merrick had started rambling about the resonance of supernatural energy. There were definitely some demons at the bar wearing a human face - older than the rest of the partiers, sipping a dark amber liquid and talking quietly amongst themselves. A large, thin table in the center, splitting the dance floor and the table area, had vampires sitting on every seat, drinking out of opaque water bottles and shoving each other. But there were far more obvious contingents too. A group of men at the corner pool table had scales all up and down their skin, and a giggling group of women had tough red skin with nails way longer than even the most unfortunate pedicure. 

Willow caught her goggling, and she quickly launched into an explanation as Xander steered them towards a small table closer to the back that seemed to be their standard hangout spot. “The Bronze is where all the teens and demons hang out! The adults all go drinking at Montgomery’s, and I think the community college students hang out at a bar on campus. There’s another nightclub on the other end of town, but they don’t let anyone under 21 in there. I hear some really hardcore demon stuff goes on inside.” She looked around obviously before leaning in and lowering her voice. “They say that some of the college students and the demons hook up.”

“This town is insane,” Buffy said flatly. 

“There’s grinding,” Willow whispered, alight with the lure of forbidden knowledge. 

“Drinks, drinks, who wants drinks!” Xander yelled, clapping his hands. “Enough about demon sex, Willow, we’re getting smashed and hitting the dance floor. I have a fake ID and dubious morals.”

“They don’t even ID here, Xander.” Willow squinted at Xander. “And since when do we dance?”

“I bet Buffy likes to dance,” Xander hinted desperately. “And I’d never leave her alone on the dance floor, would I?”

Willow sighed before turning to Buffy, the picture of long-suffering. “You don’t want to date him. You’re a beautiful young woman and you can do better.”

“Why, yes, Willow, you’re a great best friend, who’s always there for me in my time of need, who just wants my happiness -”

“Trust me, I’m aware,” Buffy said. She reached out and gently patted Xander’s hand in sympathy. “You seem nice, but not on your life. Let’s just be friends.”

Xander looked a little as if his night had just started and it was already ruined. “Okay, to be clear, I accept this friendzone and I’m happy with the friend. This is the last you’ll hear of it from me. But you don’t even know me! I’m not a hideous man! I could be boyfriend material!”

“The only material you wear is polyester,” Buffy said sympathetically. “Trust me, it’s nothing personal. You just aren’t my type.”

“What is your type?” Willow asked, strangely focused. Buffy wondered if she had memorized a list of ‘things girls talk about’ from her American Girl magazine before she left the house. “I bet you dated the quarterback in your old high school.”

“Lacrosse captain,” Buffy said humbly. Willow made appropriately impressed noises as Xander muttered something about how he could do sports. “But I’d say that I like tall, dark, and handsome. He has to be thoughtful, you know? Sensitive. And really into poetry.” Buffy may or may not have had an extremely formative crush on Hamlet as a child. “Oh, and he has to be older. Older is mandatory. Seventeen at least.”

“Wow,” Willow whispered, eyes wide. “You are so cool, Buffy.”

Buffy tossed her hair. “Of course, I’ve been settling until now. Mr. Lacrosse couldn’t recite anything more complicated than the Fresh Prince theme. I’m looking for a guy like…” Buffy scanned the room, picking through the guys at light speed. She found herself skidding to a stop at the corner,  her attention caught by a man tucked in the corner of a booth. “A guy just like him.”

He was perfect. Strong chin and piercing eyes. His hair was dark and elegant, and she could see his well-toned muscles from across the room. He had a quiet, intent expression on his face - as if he was thinking about the secrets of the universe, or reflecting on the nature of man. 

“Wait.” Willow craned her head to follow Buffy’s line of sight, struggling to connect the dots. “Angel?”

Xander instantly and reflexively grimaced. “Ugh. Hate that guy.” Then he paused a beat, Buffy’s words clearly processing. “Wait. Angel? Buffy, I’m sorry, I know you’re new here, but that’s Angel.”

Okay, so maybe not a perfect guy after all. “What’d he do?”

“Technically nothing,” Xander complained, as if this was an unforgivable crime, “but seriously. It’s Angel. He’s, like...the me and Willow of vampire society. Except a thousand times more awkward. He sits alone at the cafeteria table in Dracula’s castle, if you catch my drift. He’s just embarrassing.”

Wait. Rewind. “He’s a vampire?”

“What’s Angel doing here?” Willow pushed herself up in her seat, squinting over the room. “He hates being in places where other people exist.”

“Humans and vampires don’t really hang out much, but those guys get so cliquey.” Xander rolled his eyes, propping his elbow on the table. “There’s basically around three main gangs. They’ve been around since we were kids. Tons of random vamps are always just happening naturally, but either they join one of the gangs or one of the gangs kills them because they ate someone on Main Street or North Avenue or something. There’s always a gang on top, and that shifts a bit. Lately it’s been Darla and her crew reigning over us lowly humans.”

This was all very West Side Story. The scene in LA was nowhere near this organized. Vamps weren’t really smart enough to keep up any city-wise hierarchy or organization. Someone elects themself king of the hill and they get their head ripped off the next week. Vampires were too cannibalistic, backstabbing, and impulsive to form up anything as complicated as groups. “So who’s Angel with?”

Xander grunted, making a wavy hand gesture. “He, like, hangs around Darla? I think they’re the kind of exes who hang out just to bitch at each other and, like, go shopping.”

“But he’s really nice,” Willow said quickly, despite the mental image of Angel carrying Evil Vampire Boss’ Nordstrom bags. “You know, for a vamp. And for someone who married Darla. At least I think he’s nice. He doesn’t talk much. I think he’s scared of teenagers. And maybe everything?”

“Yeah, he’s a nice guy who’s terrified of kids and not Darla.” His tone soured a little, the cheerful explanation of local politics curdling. “She’s been daring lately. Raiding the fucking high school. Who even does that, anyway?”

Willow squeezed Xander’s hand, and they sat in silence for a second. Buffy picked at one of her cuticles, glancing sideways at Angel and searching for ways to change the subject. For nerdo supreme, he was really cute…

“I can’t believe a guy that hot isn’t popular.” Buffy sighed, propping her chin on her hands and unapologetically staring at him. She could look at that jaw for days. What a shame about the evil thing. And the mid-twenties thing. She liked old, but not that old. Guys who were that old were great to look at but terrible to date - something about not being able to get a girl their own age was very unsexy. “I swear human blood has to be the best moisturizer.”

“Oh, but that’s the thing about Angel. I think it’s why none of the other vampires like him. He doesn’t even drink -”

“Whoah, whoah, whoah! Angel on the move, guys! Angel on the move!”

Sure enough, Angel had stood up from his booth and was undoubtedly making his way towards her. Willow’s jaw had dropped. Xander was making big ‘X’ gestures with his arms, trying to make Angel go away.

Sirens were ringing in Buffy’s head. Two dual impulses raged. Hot guy alert. Hot guy about to flirt with her alert. But he was a vampire. She was a Slayer, technically, and she should be killing these guys. They definitely killed people and Buffy did not date murderers. Or loser twenty somethings.

One day in this town and it was doing something to her already. She had staked dozens of vamps, maybe hundreds, but after barely an hour in a crowded nightclub where demons hustled each other at pool and vampires chugged blood from water bottles it all seemed so...normal. Not benign, not harmless - but just a facet of life, as easy and confusing and terrifying as everything else. 

She would let him flirt with her and then let him down easy in a show of virtuous piety. Merrick would turn in his grave a little, but he wouldn’t spin like a shirt in a washing machine. That was the important thing. 

Angel almost ran into a teenager and mumbled a lot of apologies before promptly almost crashing into a table. They all winced. 

“He’s not meant to be in public,” Willow said sadly. “It’s like seeing a Husky in a desert.”

“Or a Mormon in Sunnydale.” 

The band’s set ended with a show-stopping riff that sounded like a screaming banshee, and Buffy and Angel winced as one. As the room clapped listlessly he finally made it to their table, grabbing the high surface as if it would anchor him against the roiling tides of B.O. and drunk teenagers.

The hottest guy Buffy had ever seen looked straight at her and said, “You! You’re blonde!”

“Uh,” Buffy said, as Willow and Xander gave her sympathetic ‘I told you so’ looks. “It’s natural?”

“And you’re here with Willow and Alexander,” Angel said, clearly proud of himself. “Great. I was worried. You all just look the same, and - oh, hi Willow, Alexander.” He squinted at them as Willow waved happily and Xander rolled his eyes. “Did you two get taller?”

    “Yeah, from when I was twelve,” Xander bitched. “And for the last time, it’s Xander. Ex ay en dee -”

    “Hi, Angel! We were just talking about you.” Willow conveniently did not mention what they were saying about him. “Buffy, this is Angel. He’s really nice. He’s always walking people home and keeping an eye out for little kids. He’s kind of like a guardian angel, so that’s why we call him Angel!” She lowered her voice, still completely audible. “And I couldn’t pronounce his name when I was six…”

    “He decapitated this vamp who caught me and Willow on the way home from the playground when we were six,” Xander elaborated. Angel looked a little embarrassed. “He’s always doing stuff like that. Just hanging around outside of elementary schools like the weirdest stalker of all time -”

    “I’m Buffy Summers,” Buffy said firmly, sticking out her hand. Angel looked at it in complete and abject confusion before human social norms caught up with him and he hastily shook it. Buffy was beginning to worry that he wasn’t here to flirt with her. “New girl extraordinaire. I have a stake in my purse, so can I help you?”

    Angel hastily dropped her hand. Smart man. “I’m just here as a favor to a friend. She told me to, uh - ‘handle any trouble?’. Which I didn’t really want to do, but it’s hard to argue with Cordelia -”

    “Cordelia?”

    “Oh, right!” Willow said, who really should have mentioned this sooner. “Aren’t you two friends?”

Angel grimaced. “I didn’t have a lot of choice.” Everybody nodded in understanding, even Buffy. “Anyway, but now that you’re here I can go, right? I really don’t want to get in the middle of all of this.”

The pounding bass and the rise and fall of voices made it hard to think, much less process what Angel was saying. It was his posture that tipped her off more than anything he said - the way that was subtly leaning back from her, how he was almost wringing his hands. The way he always kept an eye on her, as if she was a venomous snake in the grass. 

Both of her friends were making confused noises, but Buffy ignored them. She grabbed the front of his navy blue cotton t-shirt, pulling him sharply in. 

“Who else knows.”

Angel held his hands up in a ‘please don’t shoot’ pose, not bothering to fight her grip. She knew it was like iron, and her fingers were already tearing through the fabric. “Nobody! Look, I really don’t want any trouble -”

“Then who told you?”

Angel winced. “Cordelia?”

Okay. What?

“Uh,” Willow said, “what are we talking about -”

“Why the violence,” Xander said, “but please don’t stop on my account -”

“And do you want to tell me why Cordelia knows?” Buffy asked pleasantly.

“I think she just figured it out. It’s Cordelia, you can’t hide stuff from her.” Angel tugged lightly at her hand, and she reluctantly let him go. He huffed, frowning down at the holes. “Look, she told me to come here in case you weren’t coming. She said you’d be blonde and hanging out with Willow and Alexander. So you’re here to take care of this, right?”

Buffy felt dizzy. She really did feel like an airhead sometimes. Why did she ever expect that she’d get one night of fun? The universe must disapprove of underage drinking. It had to be punishing her somehow. “I just came here to dance, Angel.”

But Angel just frowned in confusion - as if a Slayer dancing at a nightclub was outside the range of his comprehension.  As if it was only natural that vampires and demons liked partying the night away, but all Slayers ever wanted to do was stake vamps and polish their guns. As if there was no situation in which a Slayer would want to do something so normal and fun as dance.

“I don’t -” 

He stopped short. His nose flared a little, and he obviously sniffed the air. Buffy automatically did the same, and felt her own heart stop. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the vampires sitting at the long table in the middle of the room stiffen, a tension rippling through all of them. 

Despite the bad lighting, crowded atmosphere, and drunken revelry, the humans of the Bronze caught onto the thickening anxiety in the air. They stopped what they were doing and looked around, moving closer to each other and grabbing their large bags. A few women slipped out of their high heels. 

A hand grabbed her arm and Buffy almost twisted it off, but it was just Willow. She was calm and composed, but every inch of her was on edge. She held a finger to her lips, her fingers digging in just a little too hard on her arm. 

“Everything’s going to be just fine,” Willow whispered. “But you can’t panic, okay?”

Xander had Willow’s tote bag on his lap, and Buffy caught a large wooden handle poking out of the corner. “I can’t believe Cordelia was right,” Xander muttered. “And that cannot be the last thing I think before I get eaten.”

And Xander was right. It couldn’t be the last thing he would ever think, and Buffy couldn’t be the last person Willow ever touched. Buffy gently shook Willow off before reaching out a hand across the table. “Do you have a knife in there?”

“Okay, you’re more likely to stab yourself with that, how about a nice stake -”

“Condescend, much?”

Doors slammed open.

Every door. Buffy had already counted three exits when she walked in - front door, back service door, and fire escape - along with an entrance to a kitchen that might serve as another building entry point. The invading parties clearly had no interest in being quiet, or being subtle about blocking off all of the exits. 

Buffy grabbed her own clutch, subtly unclasping it and putting it on her lap as more and more vampires strode in. They were clearly vampires - if the smell didn’t give them away, then the scattered assortment of twisted faces did. Buffy hated looking at their ugly-ass faces, but some part of her was thankful for them. She hated killing things that looked too much like people.

Nobody moved, and the living barely breathed. Buffy counted a vampire at each exit, and four other vampires filtering in and parting the dance floor like Moses and the red sea. The vamps had to be familiar to everybody else in the room, because even the vamps sitting at their table looked uncomfortable. The jukebox’s crackling music slowed to a stop and fizzled out, waiting for a new quarter.

Finally, a woman entered. She was platinum blonde and making a truly risky fashion decision with a semi-slutty Catholic schoolgirl outfit despite clearly being in her late twenties. She had a game face on, and wherever she walked everybody tripped over themselves to get out of her way. In their first active sign of fear, Willow shrank back and Xander’s fist clenched. 

“Hello, Sunnydale!” Darla - because only someone with the name Darla wore a Catholic schoolgirl outfit - crowed. She easily jumped on stage, kicking aside a stray microphone stand and scattering it. “How are we feeling tonight?”

Silence reigned. Darla’s eyebrow ticked, and she grabbed the base of the microphone stand. 

“I said, how are we feeling?” She threw it into the crowd, sending teenagers screaming and scattering. Her cronies laughed, exaggeratedly snapping and snarling at a group of young girls as they cowered. “That’s more like it. Don’t kids these days know how to have fun?”

A vampire in a trucker hat nursing a beer stood up, moustache bristling. “Darla, the hell’s wrong with you? You don’t go making trouble at the Bronze.”

“Because of the treaty, right?” Darla said, sickly sweet. Her voice was awful, reedy and high with a plastic falsetto. “That pathetic treaty? The same one that says we should roll over for the weak? That’s funny. I always thought the strong had the right to rule the weak.”

    A demon in the corner opened her mouth, then closed it. Her friends leaned in and whispered to her. The ones playing pool were muttering unhappily to each other. None of the humans moved.

    Darla made a gesture, and one of her vampires - Buffy counted ten in the room, outnumbering the other group of vampires - eagerly grabbed a pool cue and cracked it in half. He jammed it in the middle of the pool table, dragging it down and ripping the thick green velvet. He was grinning and laughing. Another of her vampires had chased off the bartender, grabbing a large handle of vodka and throwing it at a wall. It shattered explosively, raining glass shards and alcohol over the heads of the red demons. They all shrieked, shielding their eyes from the glass. 

    From where he was standing at her shoulder - when had he gotten behind her - Angel muttered, “Oh, real mature.”

    Darla heard him. She stopped short, head swivelling to look straight at Angel. Straight at Buffy, and she felt Darla’s sicky yellow-eyed gaze pierce straight through her. 

    “Excuse me?” Darla said pleasantly, and the room froze. Buffy resisted the urge to step away from Angel and out of the line of fire. “What are you even doing here, Angelus? You hate being seen in public.”

    “I wanted some sun,” Angel panned. But he slouched away from the group anyway, rubbing the back of his neck and projecting a self-effacing and sheepish air. “Look, Darla. Don’t you think this is more trouble than it’s worth? You’re already on top. You don’t need to knock over beer bottles to frighten people.”

    But Darla just sneered, the motion pulling naturally into the ridges of her face. “The Angelus I knew would have never -”

    “Oh, here we go again.”

    “ - never settled for being the biggest fish in the pond. He would have become king.” Darla’s dark eyes flashed, and another vampire jokingly lunged at a shrieking girl. “Why coexist when you can dominate? Queen of the Hellmouth doesn’t sound so bad to me.”

    But Angel just rolled his eyes, as if the rant was as familiar as a slutty Catholic school girl uniform. “We were King and Queen of Bristol for two months before we got bored. That was ten times as hellish as California. If you’re that bored then just go turn yourself another boyfriend.”

    “Your jealousy isn't as sexy as it used to be,” Darla said loudly, propping her hands on her hips. Xander pinched the bridge of his nose hard. “You know, Angelus, I’ve been taking pity on you. I felt sorry for you. I am a good Christian and I was a dutiful wife until I dumped your ass, and in sickness and in health I’ve been tolerating your tragic mental illness.”

Angel looked exceptionally pained. “Darla. I’m not mentally ill. It’s called having a soul.”

“Tautology doesn’t suit you, dear.” Darla sniffed, crossing her arms. “But this is the 21st century, Angelus, and I’m a liberated woman. I’ve found a much...stronger man.” Somehow, Buffy wasn’t surprised that the evil vampire only had a rudimentary understanding of feminism. “Things are going to change around here. I’m going to shift the entire balance of power in this godforsaken town.” Darla smiled, flashing her teeth in the fuzzy white spotlights. “I’m bringing in a real player. Then we’ll see if you finally start obeying me again.”

She made a cutting hand gesture, and a vampire lunged for Willow. 

Buffy was fast. She wouldn’t have made it a year if she wasn’t. She had her stake out as the vampire leapt, and was out of her seat almost as quickly. But Angel was far faster than she was. 

So it was so quick that even Buffy could barely see it. Angel reached out a single hand and grabbed the vampire’s neck, and in one smooth motion he twisted the vamp’s head straight off his neck. A horrible crack and a crunch echoed through the Bronze, the sound of neck snapping and a spinal cord shearing into fragments, and the vampire sloughed into dust. 

Angel opened his hand and let dust trickle down onto the pile on the floor. He had barely even moved - one hand was still in his pocket, and his posture was still languid and loose. Buffy had never seen a vampire display that kind of speed or strength, much less while staying so placid and calm. It wasn’t a show of force or an intimidation tactic - he had just seen a danger and removed it. 

“Don’t involve me in this,” Angel said simply. “I’m retired.”

That was it. 

Sunnydale had monsters that Buffy had never seen before. New flavors of monster jumping out from every corner. Familiar dangers standing twice as powerful . Giant warring vampire gangs and entire civilizations of demons just underground. A vampire so powerful that she commanded the town and still wanted more, and her ex-husband who was so powerful that he didn’t have to. 

And the moment a Slayer arrives in town, whispers of a more powerful monster appear on the horizon. Buffy knew how this would go. A force of Light appears, and a force of Darkness arrives to beat it back. And she’s left on the defensive again and again, fighting off the next monster after monster. Making her life miserable so they could knock over just a few more teen clubs. 

It was Buffy’s first night on the town. It was Buffy’s fresh start. And she wasn’t going to put up with this. 

She was already standing with stake in her hand, halfway to save Willow, so she just shifted the stake to her left hand. With her right, she leaned over and grabbed the wooden handle poking out of Willow’s tote bag. She withdrew it to find that it was an axe: gleaming and sharp, well-kept and twice as long as her forearm. She gave it an experimental swing before turning to face Darla. Good heft. 

Darla, for her part, just laughed. She looked down on Buffy, powerful and strong, the spotlights shining down on her and illuminating her platinum blonde hair like a halo. “Why, I think you’ve inspired someone! Have we found a new hero in Sunnydale?”

How must this have looked to her? A fifteen year old girl, small for her age, in a tight dress and high heels standing against a monster with a warped face and a twisted ego. She tilted her head up and looked straight at Darla, facing her down.

Darla’s grin faded somewhat. For just a second, she looked almost disturbed. 

“Who are you?” Darla asked. 

Buffy walked forward and easily hopped up on the long table. Its far end pushed almost directly up against the stage, and Darla obligingly moved to step down and stand on the other end. Two of her gang moved to stand at the sides, snarling and snapping their teeth at her. 

“I’m new in town,” Buffy said simply. “And you’re the baddest bitch here, huh? In those thigh highs?”

Darla grinned, teeth dripping with pearly spit. “You must be awfully brave to stand in front of California’s greatest vampire in that dress. If you’re a do-gooder hunter, I suppose we’re just lucky you aren’t wearing camo.”

“I knew a girl like you in sixth grade,” Buffy said, seemingly randomly. She stepped forward, and Darla stepped forward too. Not for much longer. “She was really big shit in elementary school. Everybody wanted to play My Little Pony with her, she won every tennis competition, and for six sweet years her life was perfect.” Buffy twirled her axe in her hand. Darla’s eyes followed the motion. “First day of sixth grade, she insulted my hair. And by the end of sixth grade, she was eating alone during lunch.” 

“I’m sorry,” Darla said pleasantly, “What are you talking about?”

“There’s a new bitch in town, Darla.” Buffy looked around the room, letting her eyes rake over each and every vampire and demon before snapping back to Darla. “And this Little Miss Slayer doesn’t want plaid within two hundred feet of her.”

Buffy moved. 

She threw her stake at the vampire to her left, piercing his heart with perfect aim. The second she saw him start dissolving she turned to the vampire on the right, kicking down and spiking her heel directly into the flesh of his eye. The vampire screamed, a horrible and blood curdling moan of pain, and Buffy swung her axe in an arc and chopped through his head straight into his neck. She gave the axe a good yank, pulling it out of the corpse as it dissolved into nothing, and continued advancing on Darla. 

She was distantly aware that the vampires around her were retreating fast. Everybody was retreating fast - the entire room making a hot break for the exits as they left Buffy and Darla to their showdown. She hadn’t really anticipated getting in a fight with the top dog of the town her first day in, but in retrospect it was probably good business sense. It was better to strike an intimidating first impression. Made sure they didn’t fuck with you. The vamps in LA never really got scared of her, mostly because of her absolutely dismal performances her first few weeks out. Time for her fresh start. 

Darla was fast. She didn’t have a weapon, but next to her speed Buffy felt almost clumsy swinging the axe around. They exchanged hot and fast blows, so rapid that Buffy didn’t even have time to think about them or plan them out. She swiped for Darla’s gut and Darla jumped back - Darla grabbed her wrist and tried to break it as Buffy socked her in the face - Buffy made another swing with the axe and Darla grabbed the handle - Darla tore the axe out of her hands and snarled -

Buffy kicked her solidly and forcefully in the chest, throwing as much weight behind the blow as she could. But somewhere Merrick was calling her an idiot girl, and as Darla topped off the table Buffy overbalanced and fell right with her.

They both landed ignobly on the deserted floor, Buffy catching a big mouthful of vampire ash. Mega gross. For just a second, they looked at each other - both in equally vulnerable positions, the only weapon in the room on the other end of the table, and both equally without backup or help. It was a quickdraw, and they were both paralyzed with tension.

Darla was faster than Buffy. Darla was stronger. Buffy did not have a weapon. Buffy did not fancy getting killed in this tacky nightclub.

“My third removed fledgling has killed two slayers three times as skilled as you,” Darla snarled. 

“If your fledgling’s here I’ll fight them too,” Buffy said pleasantly. “Are you still paying child support for that?”

They both lunged forward at the same time. They both missed each other, skidding on the ground, and somewhere along the way they both made the same decision. 

Darla made it for the back exits and Buffy made for the front. Neither of them were winning today, and neither of them felt prepared. Buffy sure didn’t. One stake out of her hands and one lost weapon did not a victory make.

Merrick’s first lesson, taught as he threw a vampire at a terrified fourteen year old gripping a piece of wood like a pencil: always run from a fight if you aren’t confident you’ll win. 

She burst out of the front of the nightclub, panting hard and wiping sweat away from her brow. There was a thick crowd of teenagers and demons loitering around the front, talking excitedly to each other or shaking from fear. Groups of vamps were huddled together, arguing furiously. The doors clanged against the wall and everybody stopped and stared at her, eyes wide. Half of them were slowly backing away - vampires, demons, and humans all. 

“Rule number one,” Buffy yelled, making the crowd shirk back. “The treaty will now be enforced. Comprende?” Everybody nodded very quickly. “Good. Now get out of here, the new sheriff’s cranky.”

    The crowd dispersed with equal speed, although Buffy could have sworn some of them made pig noses at her. The only ones who stayed were Angel, leaning against a street light that illuminated his pallor with a sickly yellow glow, and an uncertain pair standing in the middle of the cracked pavement. 

    Xander and Willow stared at her with wide eyes. Willow was clutching her tote bag to her chest, and Xander was holding a large hunting knife slack at his thigh. They were both looking at her as if they’d never seen her before. As if she was a ghoul rendered frightening because it was unfamiliar; a novel terror in their endless parade of misery. 

    The adrenaline abruptly drained out of Buffy’s system, and a wave of exhaustion overtook her. She stumbled forwards, toeing off her splintered and cracked heels, and she let her stockings scrape against the pavement. She slowly bent down and picked up the heels, letting the straps dangle from numb fingers. 

    “You two better get going,” Buffy said blankly. “It’s only getting darker.”

    Willow’s arms tightened around her tote bag, hugging it protectively. Xander put a hand on the middle of her back. “Buffy…”

    “Go!” Buffy yelled, her voice hoarse and cracking, and Willow and Xander went.

    She watched them go, Xander gently steering Willow along, and waited until they turned a corner and disappeared from sight before she tore her eyes away. So much for that. 

    Slayers were not human. Buffy was possessed by a migratory demon spirit or something. She didn’t know, she had fallen asleep while Merrick was trying to explain it to her. Slayers were created by humans to protect humans, harnessing and enslaving the primal demonic spirit so it could serve humanity and act as their defender against evil. The birth of Slayers had been cruel, and its cruelty propagated itself. 

    Sometimes Buffy could swear that humans understood that she was cruel. Not many humans ever saw her doing her thing, but the Watcher’s Council had always treated her with a kind of distant revulsion. And when she did her saving people thing in front of humans, they never really looked that relieved or happy. They only ever looked like Xander and Willow: frozen stiff and scared, because they had seen a demon in the body of a girl. 

    How was it, in this strange little town where the natural and supernatural twisted so closely around each other that they became indistinguishable, that Buffy still didn’t belong?

Buffy strode forward, letting her stockings scrape across the pavement. Angel didn’t move or say anything - he just watched her walk past him, then stop and turn to look at him.

    His eyes were dark and lifeless, like any vampire’s. But they were weirdly sad - a look no vampire ever had. It was a strange fit on his face, like the two elements were at war with each other. Uncomfortable in his own skin. 

    “Did you know that was going to happen?” Buffy demanded. 

    Angel raised his hands again, but this time the gesture rang so fake it was almost mocking. “Do I look like I can stop Darla from doing anything? I did everything Cordy asked me to do. I would have defused the situation if you hadn’t been there to help.” He lowered his hands, looking at her with a strange and blank intensity. “I try to help where I can, you know.”

    “Oh, puh-leeze.” Buffy scoffed, somewhat offended. “You eat people. You don’t get anything besides an ego boost out of trying to help them.”

    But Angel just blinked at her. “Did nobody tell you?” I got here last week,” Buffy bit back, irritated and grumpy and really needing a hot bath. “Tell me what?”

“Darla mentioned it.” He was still staring at her, and Buffy realized for the first time that he didn’t blink. Vampires didn’t need to blink. It made sense, but - well, she had never quite stopped and looked at one long enough to notice. “I don’t eat people. I have...ah, I have a soul.”

Buffy stared at him blankly. 

Angel shrugged. “Witch’s curse.”

Buffy stared at him some more. 

“So...that means you shouldn’t stake me?”

Buffy pinched the bridge of her nose, hard. Why couldn’t this night be over? “You’re walking me home. That’s a story I have to hear.”

********

    The story, as it was, turned out to be way more interesting than she would have liked. 

    Sunnydale rolled up its sidewalks at night. The Bronze was located near the center of the town, deep amidst shopping centers and plazas and car repair places and Goodwills, but every parking lot was empty and there were no shoppers. Sometimes she saw shambling figures lurch down the street, but they always took one look at Angel and continued on their way. Buffy knew that soon they would be taking one look at her and continuing on their way. Despite everything, she was kind of looking forward to it.

    There were no stars, but that was familiar. Streetlamps flickered and hummed, and cicadas ground their eternal chirps and whirls in the night, but that was familiar too. The only unfamiliar thing was Angel, and how the world felt abandoned and empty except for Buffy and Angel. 

    “Darla turned me ‘round...that was during the Cromwell thing, I think, so mid 1700s. She turns a lot of men, but after a little they usually disappoint her and she eats them. I was, ah...very incentivized not to disappoint her.” His mouth twitched in strangely placed humor. “For decades I didn’t really understand why she picked me. Blessed me, empowered me, cursed me, whatever. It took a long time before she finally ‘fessed up. Apparently she had walked into Galway and asked the first barmaid she saw who the nastiest motherfucker in Ireland was. And that led her to me.”

    “Jeez,” Buffy said, impressed despite herself. “I’d hate to see her at speed dating competitions.”

    “You know, that’s exactly what Cordelia said. I spent the 19th century…” Angel trailed off, pausing a beat. “To be clear, staking me would be very rude and I’d hate for you to try.”

    “You’d hate for me to succeed,” Buffy corrected.

    But Angel just smiled thinly. “Try.” 

    “Will you get to the point, already? If we’re going through every year of your ridiculously long life then I’ll have to invite you in for coffee. And you are not scoring an invite to Casa de Buffy.” Never mind the fact that two hundred fifty, closer to three hundred, was insanely old. Buffy had never met a vampire that old. Vampires could theoretically live forever, but the vast majority were way too stupid to last more than fifty years. The idea that she couldn’t kill Angel, even if she really wanted to…

    “I’m getting there,” Angel chided gently. “This information is important if you’re going to be dealing with Darla. Darla and I...we were pretty awful.”

    “Big whoop. All of you are awful.” Buffy had seen some shit. She wasn’t new at this. “Murder, death, killy stabby kill, the works. I get it.”

    “I was a sadist, Buffy,” Angel said plainly, and Buffy shut up. “You’re right. The average vampire’s a bloodthirsty, murderous monster. They kill to sustain themselves, and like any animal they take great pleasure in eating. I liked eating, obviously. Eating people’s great. Still great, honestly, even if the guilt kind of ruins it these days. But I mostly liked killing. I wouldn’t even bother eating half of them.” Angel sighed, burying his hands in his jean pockets. His tone turned almost wistful. “I would spin some bullshit to Spike and Dru about how the abject despair of seeing your entire family massacred or something tenderized the flesh. Those two are pretty stupid, they’ll believe anything. People are so pumped up on - what’s the little thingamagummies in your blood called? Cortisol? They’re so pumped up on cortisol by the time you’re eating them that they all taste the same anyway. Spike would, like, philosophize about it. Man, Dru picked a dumb one.”

“What do I look like, your priest?” Buffy asked. She didn’t bother to keep the disgust and horror from her voice. It was bizarre to look at that broad, solemn face, and know that hundreds of people had looked up at that same face as it killed them. Their families. Tortured them to death. People just like her, except for one important detail. “I don’t need the play by play. So what, you ate the wrong person and a witch stuffed the human back inside Vampire Ted Bundy’s body. That fucking sucks for you, I guess.”

“That’s what I’m saying,” Angel said, almost patient. As if he was trying to teach her something. What did he possibly have to teach, Marauding 101? “A soul isn’t you. I’m not the human Darla killed. I am the exact same vampire who pillaged his way through Europe for hundreds of years. A soul is a conscience. It’s the voice in your head that tells you right and wrong. It’s...regret. I was given the ultimate punishment for my sins, far worse than any Hell could possibly give. I understood what I had done.”

“Which made your wife divorce you,” Buffy said, straight-faced. 

“Which made me go completely insane for decades.” Angel sounded a little defensive about the divorce thing. Still a touchy subject after a hundred years, huh. “She...took care of me, I guess. Until I snapped back to it. She was so excited. Everything’ll go back to normal, Angelus. This is our fresh start, Angelus.” Angel’s tone soured a little, scraping his foot against the pavement. “I tried. I was different, but - I could still be with them. The people who had always made me feel so good, who had worshipped me. We could just re-brainwash Spike and Dru into loving us - they had gotten a little rebellious, but you just have to be firm with Spike. All I had to do was suck up my reservations and start eating again. Maybe orture some people every few months. It would be fine. 

“But I just couldn’t. I wasn’t that person anymore. I tried to be him, and I couldn’t. I wanted to be that demon again so badly. That’s - I could excuse everything else I did. I didn’t have a soul. And before that, I - I was just a dumb kid, kids make mistakes. But there’s no excuse for that.”

“So what are you doing in Sunnydale?” Buffy asked. She actively decided not to ask for elaboration on half of that. She knew that she didn’t really want to know. 

“I left for a few decades, found myself, yadda yadda.” Angel made a circular gesture, sweeping away decades with one hand. “And then I realized I needed to repent. There was a lot of tele-evangelism at the time, which is of the devil and everything, but they had a point. Are you Catholic, by the way? Protestant?”

“Not answering that.”

“Yeah, sorry. Anyway, I decided to...make up for it, I guess. Or at least stop running. Darla’s my responsibility, so when she moved here I did too. I’ve been doing what I can since then.” He scrubbed the back of his neck, suddenly self-conscious. “The Bible talks about redemption. Not that anybody reads the Bible anymore, but - right, but it talks about it. You achieve redemption through atonement. So I don’t do any of it anymore. Haven’t tortured anyone in years. I just keep my head down.”

Keep your head down?

Buffy stopped short, and Angel stopped too. They were underneath a streetlight, and without her heels she was left craning her head to look up at him. He was a foot taller than her, no matter how small he hunched or how much smaller he tried to make himself. He held himself too still, and stared too blankly with eyes long dead. If he had a soul, she couldn’t see it in his eyes: only in his face, which always seemed just a little sad. 

    “So what you’re saying is that you were a supervillain, and then you dropped out of the game to hang out with your ex-wife,” Buffy said flatly (“Please stop calling her my ex-wife”). “That’s not joining the good guys, Angel. That’s just giving up! That’s dropping out! If you really feel so bad about your puppy torture, then why didn’t you help me in there? You don’t stake vamps, you just scare them off. You could rule this place and clean it up, but you just run errands for Cordelia!” 

    “Buffy, you’re young. You have no idea how young you are.” Angel’s expression creased as Buffy scowled at him. “And you’re never going to grow much older than you are now. It’s convenient that way. You know those Watchers don’t tell you anything on purpose, right? They keep all of it from you, because so long as you’re reliant on them they can control you. Trust me. I would know.”

    If Angel was expecting a denial or a fervent defense of Watchers, he didn’t get one. Buffy just stood there fuming, because he was right and there was nothing she could do about it. 

    “They sold you this lie about good and evil,” Angel continued. “That you’re made for good and us demons are created for evil. I mean, hey - demons, hell, Satan, right? I swear, we need to update the terminology.” Strangely enough, this looked like a pet peeve. “I would know better than anyone if I’m an emissary of Satan, right? I’ve never even met Satan. If I ever met Satan, I’d get mad that he was telling me what to do. And Hell isn’t in dimensions, it’s on a heavenly - anyway. Thinking of it as God and Satan, good versus evil is easier. But I’ve met demons who lived a holy life. There are humans who were far worse than demons, Buffy. I’ve met humans who were worse than me.”

    “What are you saying?” Buffy asked. Her heart was thumping hard in her chest - why? What was so oddly terrifying about Angel’s words? So strangely liberating? “That they cut my life expectancy by sixty years for no reason? That I just exist to hurt people and be hurt?”

“Yep.”

Buffy punched Angel on the arm. It was like hitting a lamppost. Before Slayer powers.

“Real inspirational, buddy. I can tell that soul thing really helped your pep talk skills.”

“But that’s what I’m saying,” Angel complained, rubbing his arm. “None of it matters. It doesn’t mean anything. What your life means is just between you and God. And He only judges you on the life you’ve led. Do you get what I mean?”

“No! I’m not Catholic!” Buffy threw up her hands, walking forward and away from Angel. The gritty cement dug into her stockings, and she knew that she was tearing holes in them. She’d have to throw them out. If that was the total casualty count of a night she was lucky, but somehow it filled her with so much frustration and pain. She couldn’t have anything. She had nothing. “Ugh, you know what? Fine. You’rethree hundred and I’m barely in high school, what do I know. I’m sure you’ve figured it all out. But at least I’m doing something. You’re giving yourself the grand prize for not being a terrible person.”

Angel jerked back a little, strangely surprised. “Do you have any idea how difficult it is for me not to kill people? I’m doing the best I can.”

“No, you aren’t! I want to stab catcallers on the street too, but I don’t!” Buffy had no idea of how to phrase this. She didn’t know how to make Angel understand. She didn’t even know if she understood. So she just walked away instead, fighting the urge to stomp. “This isn’t something you can be neutral about. You can’t play both sides, Angel. You’re a coward.” She stopped short and turned around, because she wasn’t the kind of person who called someone a coward without looking them in the eyes as she did it. “Beating yourself up over doing the wrong thing is easier than doing the right thing. I didn’t step in back there because I was in danger, or because the Watchers made me. I don’t care about duty, or - or responsibility. I just can’t stand watching powerful people push around the helpless.”

    “You’re not like them, Buffy,” Angel said. From this far away, he looked more like a smear of black clothes and pale skin under the yellow light. He fit strangely in his surroundings, out of place and strange. As if he belonged to a different time, and never should have left. “You’ll always be between two worlds. You’ll live another three years on average in struggle and misery, and then one day a demon will get lucky. You have to abandon this while you still can.”

    “Do you know what I think!” Buffy yelled. Her voice was swallowed up by the cicadas and the night, but she didn’t care. Yelling at Angel wasn’t raging against her fate or his stupid little Catholicism, but he was the only one standing in front of her. “I think if none of it matters, and if my life is so short and pointless, then - then all that matters is what I do with it! If all I do is make sure that Willow lives until one hundred and eight, or that Xander finally finds a girl who’ll tolerate him - even if they hate me, even if they don’t care about me - then good! That’s the point of my life! And you don’t get to tell me what to do with it!”

 She could probably stand here arguing with him until the sun came up, but Buffy’s eyes were gritty and her fists were sore, and she had better things to do than argue with someone who’d already given up. 

So she turned around again and kept walking. After a few seconds, she heard Angel walk to catch up with her. He didn’t say anything to her, and she didn’t say anything to him, but they walked each other all the way home. 

***

    The next morning, after Buffy fielded Mom’s annoying interrogation about why a man in his mid-twenties had walked her home through fervent assertions that he was annoying, Buffy stopped by the library before school.

    Everybody stared at her as she walked through the halls. Buffy found herself unconsciously imitating Angel and hunching a little, trying to make herself seem less like the unholy lovechild of Rambo and the Terminator, but it didn’t work and she didn’t respect Angel anyway. So she stood straight instead, and kept her eyes fixed in front of her even as the other students scrambled to get out of her way or avoided eye contact. 

Giles wasn’t going to be happy, but - well, they both knew it would happen soon enough. Judging by the rate that gossip spread in this town (although Darla hadn’t seemed to know about the Watcher rumors - maybe high schoolers could keep a secret after all) Mom would know soon enough, so Buffy should probably have that talk. She really didn’t want Mom to find out about the mystical destiny thing from the grocery store clerk.

But when she pushed open the doors of the library, she didn’t see Giles. Or Giles wasn’t the first thing she saw. He was easy to find, standing in front of the circulation desk holding a very thick book and a very wicked stake, but it was Willow who Buffy saw first - Willow, who was standing at the front of the table in the center of the room, who turned around when Buffy came in and looked straight at her.

They locked eyes, and Buffy found her breath catching. She didn’t know why. She didn’t know why she wanted to look away from Willow so badly - in shame, in guilt, in fear - and she didn’t know why she couldn’t. 

Then Willow ran forward and hugged her, squeezing her tight, and Buffy knew why. 

She separated from Buffy, smiling brightly. There was something tired and stressed about it, but it was nothing like Willow’s smiles from yesterday. There was something firm in it, strong and determined. Whatever had been missing in Angel yesterday was in Willow, and it had transformed something about her. 

“Good, you’re here! Come on, I was just talking to everybody about our game plan.”

Game plan? Everybody?

When Buffy looked over Willow’s shoulder, she saw that every seat around the table was occupied. 

Xander sat closest to her, and when he saw her looking he raised a hand in a faux-jaunty greeting. Across from him sat Cordelia Chase, who was back to her usual pristine self in an admittedly nice mod dress and chunky earrings. She was impatiently tapping her fingers against her arm, but there was a terrifyingly thick manual lying flat on the table in front of her, completely marked up and annotated in color coded highlighters. 

Behind her sat Angel, who just weakly lifted a hand in greeting before letting it drop. That was probably why Giles was standing so far apart from the group, and why he was holding a stake. 

“Hello, Buffy,” Giles said, perfectly pleasant. “Do you mind telling me why Angelus is in my library?”

“Oh, relax, worst he’ll do is bore you to death.” Cordy smacked on her gum, waving a careless hand towards the sadistic serial killer. “Get on with it, we only have twenty minutes before class starts and I have studying to do.”

“You can take your online classes whenever you want, you know,” Xander said brightly. “You don’t have to take them at all, actually!”

“How do you want me to get into Yale, Xander? Let me know how you want me to do that and I’ll get right on it.”

“What’s this?” Buffy asked weakly, and everybody shut up. “Why are you all…”

“Why do you think we’re here?” Cordelia demanded, as if Buffy had asked the stupidest question possible. “You’re the Slayer. Giles over there is your babysitter. We’re the ones who would prefer to cut down on the almost getting eaten alive every two seconds, thanks.” She slapped Angel on the arm, who just pulled a pained expression. “And he said he’s here to make sure I don’t get myself killed. Thanks for that, by the way, didn’t know you cared.”

Angel slouched in his seat, looking around in complete discomfort. “Is this what a high school looks like?”

“Do I want to know how much education you finished before you had the worst sexual experience of your life?” Cordelia asked flatly. Angel opened his mouth. “Never mind. I’m signing you up for my online classes. Sharpening the mind reduces the risk for Alzheimer’s, you know.” Angel stared at her blankly. “Ugh, shut up, I know you don’t know what Alzheimer’s is.”

“Now that we actually have a Slayer around to help keep us alive,” Xander said loudly, “I think it’s our job as law abiding citizens to help her. You know, hold them down as she punches them.” 

“We can help teach Buffy about Sunnydale!” Willow said eagerly, moving to sit down next to Xander. Her backpack was already sitting on the table, stuffed and overflowing with books. “We’ll teach her the rules, and together we can see what demons need slayin’ and what demons need - you know, crisis mediation. We can help keep the peace!”

“I’m sorry,” Buffy repeated, struggling to connect all of this in her head - the nerds, the Queen Bee, the vampire, the Watcher, and her. What put them all in this room? This wasn’t the way it was supposed to work. “You aren’t possibly suggesting...what I think you’re suggesting.”

She looked at Giles, as if he would interpret the entire situation into something that made sense, but he obviously didn’t understand either. He rubbed at his temple, keeping the stake pointed away from his forehead. 

“It appears some of your friends have volunteered their help,” he said mildly. “Normally I’d never allow such a thing -”

“Who cares about what you allow or not?” Angel said, somewhat nastily. 

“ - but I don’t believe I can stop them.” Especially not Angel, went unsaid. Giles deflated a little, and Buffy realized that he was looking to her for answers. This was so far beyond his wheelhouse - either of their wheelhouses. Maybe, in the entire sordid and sad history of the Slayers, it was the first time this had happened. “I believe this one is up to you, Buffy. Of course, should they die, on your head be it, but -”

“Oh, no, really?” Xander said. “Something might be dangerous? Say it ain’t so, G-Man, I’m quaking in my boots.” He glanced at Buffy, sharp and quick, and she wondered if he looked like this before Jesse had died. “One girl against this dumbass town’s bad odds. I think helping her out increases our life expectancy.”

“It’s not as if it’s not scary,” Willow said fervently. “It’s super, duper, mega scary! But the scariest thing is - you know, not being able to do anything about it. Or not being able to help. Being a kid in this dumb town, you always feel so helpless and alone. But the Slayer’s a kid just like us, and she can punch Darla in the face! Watching her yesterday, I felt like I could do anything too!” She faltered just a little, uncertain for the first time. “And Buffy’s so nice, and her taste in clothing is so good. We can’t make her do this all alone. That just isn’t fair.”

    Buffy burst into tears. 

    She couldn’t help it. She didn’t even try. She didn’t even know why she was crying. All she knew was that it wasn’t fair, and that a dozen people had told her life wasn’t fair but only one person had ever volunteered to help. There was no good or evil, no mystical destiny or fate - just Willow and Xander and Cordy and Angel and even Giles, who wanted to help. 

    And then Willow was hugging her again, and Angel was asking in a panic why she was crying, and Cordy was berating him, and Xander and Giles were talking over each other, and Buffy cried and cried and cried in complete and total relief.