Chapter 2
Two days later, fifteen minutes into her History class Buffy’s eyelids started to drop, not that anyone could blame her. The teacher’s voice was just so lulling and she really tried to resist the call of sleep as much as she could. Needless to say, it was a losing battle.
Images flickered behind her closed lids like a movie put on fast forward. Voices and faces lapped over each other in her head before settling on one single image.
The boy was kneeling and Buffy noticed that he was wearing school uniform pants that had been torn. Soaked with blood. Utterly saturated by fear, he lifted his head even though it felt like someone had stuffed it chock full of steel cotton. The scene before her was horrifying, forcing everything out of her own mind but the devastation settling on the boy like a heavy cloak. A man she vaguely recognised stood in front of him, a mass of muscles and raw strength as he held two trembling women by their throats. Their terrified eyes met the boy’s and Buffy felt helplessness crash on his back, weighing him down.
“Choose,” the man said.
*******
Buffy’s elbow slipped from the table, jolting her awake. Everyone was staring at her and she realised she was panting as though she’d just run a marathon. She must have had one of those dreams again, but as usual, it had dissolved before she could get a hold of it.
The teacher looked at her, both concerned and annoyed at the interruption. “Miss Summers, are you all right?”
Oh yeah, just peachy keen. Awkwardly, she rose to her feet. “I… Can I go to the restroom please?”
“Of course, but you should go see the nurse if you’re not feeling well.”
She picked up her bag. “Thank you, I will.”
As soon as pigs start to fly.
The corridors were empty, her steps echoing off the walls. This whole dream thing was starting to get on her nerves. Absentmindedly, she fingered the chain around her neck, the locket hanging from it hidden beneath her T-shirt.
Even though Buffy knew for a fact that her dad would kill her if he knew she’d been rummaging through the old boxes stored in the basement, she couldn’t help herself. Dad thought he’d concealed them pretty well but he couldn’t hide anything from her. She didn’t even know why she’d searched through them. Perhaps she’d needed to remember. They never talked about what had happened to her mother and she knew better than to bring it up since her mother hadn’t been a good person. Still, Buffy was ashamed for feeling relieved she was dead.
The box had been filled with stuff that belonged mostly to Mom and Buffy didn’t get why Dad had kept it instead of throwing it out. But none of it had mattered once she peeked in and spotted the antique locket. In that moment, when she had first laid eyes on it, she knew she had to have it. It might sound insane, but it had called to her somehow. When she had slipped it around her neck, something had just clicked.
The sun was up, beaming down on Buffy’s face as the autumn wind weaved through her hair. She squinted against the harsh light and headed across the grass field to get home quicker. Apparently, the cheerleaders had just finished their practice and Buffy grimaced, hoping they’d ignore her.
She passed the bleachers when a high pitched voice screeched, “What are you doing here, Summers? Spying, wishing you could be one of us?”
Buffy suppressed her temper and kept walking. The footsteps behind her got closer right before fingers grasped her shoulder as the girl spun her around.
That was exactly what she needed. Talk to Parker’s girlfriend. What was her name again? Melody? Chastity? No, Harmony! She was pretty sure that was it. Only a girl as ditzy could have a name like that. Not that she should throw any stones? Buffy? Seriously? What had her parents been thinking?
“I was talking to you,” Harmony said, her nose high in the air.
“Yeah? See me with the not caring?”
She looked as though she might stomp her foot. Buffy wouldn’t be surprised if she actually did, the spoilt little brat.
“I know why you’re really here.”
Buffy narrowed her eyes. “Do you?”
“You were so hoping to see Parker play football and don’t even try to deny that you have a crush on him. Like… Everyone knows.”
She couldn’t help it. She started laughing. Loudly.
“That’s… oh God… too funny!”
“Don’t even talk to my boyfriend, Scarface!”
Buffy cleared her throat and tried to calm down. “Okay, seriously? Get a life, would you? Or better… a lobotomy.”
A crease appeared between Harmony’s brows as she obviously tried to work out the obscure meaning of the word.
“You think you’re so smart, don’t you?”
“Smarter than you, that’s for sure.”
Her cheeks reddened with anger and her manicured hands closed into fists.
“You’re ugly!”
“What are we, in kindergarten? Why don’t you go back to your hopping around? Stop making an idiot of yourself. Oh, but wait… guess that is a requirement to be in the cheerleading squad.”
Buffy turned around because this conversation was pointless and she had better things to do than standing around behind dilapidated bleachers arguing with someone who had no valid points to make.
Her knees buckled and she staggered as Harmony shoved her from behind. Incredulous, Buffy whirled around and the way the bimbo was suppressing a smile made her want to tackle her. But Buffy was better than this. She was. Wasn’t she?
“What the hell?” Buffy demanded.
Harmony pursed her lips and stepped close enough to invade her personal space before shoving her again. Buffy stumbled back but managed not to fall and gritted her teeth because her patience was wearing thin.
“Do that again and you’re going down.”
Harmony swung her arm back to slap her and that broke the camel’s proverbial back. Buffy caught Harmony’s wrist and twisted it behind her back. She yelped in pain but Buffy couldn’t find it in herself to care and kicked at the back of Harmony’s knees with boot-clad foot. The cheerleader dropped to the ground and Buffy forced her face first into the dirty earth with one arm still behind her back. It gave Buffy an immense satisfaction to see Harmony like this, she had to admit.
She sputtered and coughed as she inhaled the dust swirling up from the ground. “Let me go, you freak!”
Harmony squirmed under her but didn’t have enough leverage to flip around.
“I warned you. You can be happy I didn’t break your nose.”
She couldn’t afford to actually hurt the skanky nuisance, so she settled for rolling her face in the dirt for a bit, enjoying as Harmony squeaked and cursed. After a few seconds, Buffy let her go and stood up. Seeing Harmony’s face covered in dust with the specks of dried mud in her hair… well, it was definitely worth it.
Harmony scrambled to her knees, astonished and enraged. “You may act all tough and stuff, but you’re nothing but a pathetic loser nobody likes.”
Something akin to hurt bit into Buffy’s core but she firmly clamped down it and slapped another layer of bricks to the wall protecting her heart.
“And yet, I’d rather be a loser than be like you.”
Harmony snickered and gave her a haughty look.
As Buffy turned on her heel to head home, she spotted a girl standing not too far away, regarding her. The girl was wearing a cheerleading uniform and resignation settled in the pit of Buffy’s stomach. She was going to get in so much trouble.
*******
She was helping Dad with replacing the sold out items on the shelves when the door bell jingled to announce a customer. Dad went to the front to serve them as she kept doing her job. Only one more hour until they closed the shop and Buffy darted glances at the clock, watching the time slowly trickle by.
“Can I help you?” she heard Dad ask the customer.
“You got one of those chili things? Not the powdered one, but the real thing?”
She shivered against her better judgment. The voice was deep and the accent resonated all the way to her core. This was the second time this week she got all weird due to some guy. One she didn’t even know. Maybe she was the one who needed a lobotomy.
Unable to help herself, she peeked around the shelf to look at the customer. He stood with his back to her, but the casual slouched posture struck her as terribly familiar. If there was a God, the similarities between the man at the bus stop and this one was just a coincidence.
He turned to the side and Buffy quickly darted back behind the shelves.
It’s him!
Someone up there had to hate her. Now if only he left without noticing her, since she had so spectacularly embarrassed herself by gazing at him like she was some kind of ditzy, love struck teenager. She was definitely not one of those.
“Buffy, do you know where we keep the chili?”
Crap.
She was forced to come out of her sanctuary of canned fruit but she avoided the stranger as she addressed her dad, “It’s… umm… next to the vegetables? Can’t remember.”
Dad went in the search of it, calling triumphantly that he’d found it. All that time, Buffy could feel the stranger staring holes into her.
“What would I do without you, pumpkin?” Dad asked and her eyes widened. Normally, she would say something witty and clever, but you see… Common sense seemed to have fled the building kicking and screaming for the moment. Buffy really hoped it would return eventually. And did Dad really have to call her pumpkin?
Someone kill me now.
“I… err… I’ll g-go… to the back.”
Oh my God, did she just stutter? What the hell was wrong with her? Her dad seemed to share that opinion and looked at her as though she’d grown a third eyeball, which only made her blush harder before she dashed to the back room they used as storage. Away from burning stares and incredulous parental figures.
“Is your employee always this shy?” the man said.
She was so not shy! She’d never been shy in her life!
“That’s my daughter, Buffy,” Dad replied. “She’s not usually like this. I don’t know what’s gotten into her.”
“Maybe I make her nervous,” the quirky, hottie of a man said. And she could not believe she had just called him that. Also, what was up with that smug tone in his voice? He made her nervous? Like hell!
“Nah. Must be something else,” Dad said.
Thank you, Dad. Can you please sound any more unconvinced? There had to be something seriously wrong with her. But hey, she was so not nervous. Not because of some guy. She was just embarrassed because he apparently seemed to have misunderstood her stare-fest yesterday.
The completely delusional stranger mumbled something in reply, and they said goodbye before he left the store.
Buffy exhaled.
Heavily.
*******
“So, want to tell me what that was all about?” Dad prodded and she groaned in reply.
It seemed as though relief was going to be short-lived.
“Not really.”
He cleared his throat and leaned against the door jamb of the storage room where she’d been temporarily hiding like a big chicken.
“You acted pretty weird back there. Want to tell me why? Is it true, what the man said? That he made you nervous?”
“Okay, this is beyond ridiculous. Why would he? And anyway, what are we playing… twenty questions?”
“Buffy…”
“That tone is not going to work with me. Seriously, what do you want me to tell you?”
He rubbed a weary hand over his face. “Is there something to tell? Do you know him?”
“No!”
His gaze never wavered from her face and she sighed. “Dad, look… you know me better than anyone. I swear, it was just a momentary brain lapse or something.”
“I don’t like him.”
Buffy rolled her eyes. “Neither do I.”
“Are you sure? Because we could talk about this. If you have a crush—”
“Now hold on right there, Hank. There is no crush!” She grimaced. “I can’t believe we’re still talking about his.”
“First, don’t call me Hank. You know how much that irritates me. Second, yes we are still talking about this because I want you to know it’s fine to have a crush… but not this one.” Dad frowned. “He looks… older. And I don’t like him. He’s… a heartbreaker. I can tell.”
Talk about being embarrassed by your parent. So far they’d steered clear of these topics pretty successfully, which was why they got along so well. She really didn’t need to be lectured on bees and flowers at the age of seventeen. Once had been enough, and that conversation had sure turned her off the idea for life.
“Do people even say heartbreaker anymore?”
He narrowed his eyes and playfully flung at her a rag he’d had slung over his shoulder. Buffy snatched it from the air and stuck her tongue out at him.
“You kids don’t know what’s good anymore,” he said. “You with your ridiculous shortening of words and crude slang.”
“You only think so because you’re ancient.”
Dad grinned and pulled her into a side hug, ruffling her hair into a tangled mess. “Hardly. Eligible bachelor here.”
“Eww, Dad. Gross. I so don’t need a visual with the town floozies offering you their home-made casseroles.”
“No casseroles. Got it.” He laughed, shaking his head. “What about cherry pies?”
“No!”
He winked at her, enjoying grossing her out way too much.
Still, she was so lucky to have a father like him. What would she ever do without him?
TBC
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Thank you lovely people who read and left me a review! I had fun replying! :D
Beta'd by the awesome All4Spike.
Beta'd by the awesome All4Spike.
Chapter End Notes:
Did you like? You better! ;) I'm in a mood to tease you, so I'm going to give you a hint for the next chapter. Could it be a Spike/Buffy interaction? Could it?! Hell, I suck at hinting- not a very subtly person here. Anyway, I'd love to hear your thoughts!