~*~
High school fights were one of the strangest phenomena the world had to offer. High schoolers were never all that civilized, but when a fight broke out—especially if it was a fight between a bunch of girls—everyone in the school would trample each other to get to the scene on time. It was, Buffy thought, ridiculous. Generally she tried to be as far away as possible.
But that was kind of hard to do when you were right in the middle of it.
Percy had slapped Faith for hitting Harmony, and Buffy’s friend was currently doing her best to unman the burly football player. Harmony herself had chosen to attack Buffy…although to be honest, it was less of an attack and more of the kind of clawing Buffy would have expected from a particularly bitter cat.
“Can we stop?” Buffy asked conversationally. “Because seriously, I’d like to not get expelled because you were having a bitch attack.”
“You should’ve thought of that before you, like, broke my poor little Angel-poo’s heart!”
“Yeah, about that,” Buffy said sarcastically. “Tell your precious Angel-poo that he deserves you. Actually—“ she batted Harmony’s hand away—“I’ll tell him myself. Where is he?”
Harmony smirked. It was an unsettling expression, because it meant she’d been thinking—not such a good thing, when it was Harmony.
“Angel’s off making sure your boyfriend can, like, never make it across town again,” she said smugly.
“Huh?” Wonderful. Now I sound like a dunce in front of Harmony. What’s next, pigs growing wings?
“Fliers, Buffy. He’s putting up fliers.”
For a second, Buffy was torn between hysterical laughter—because honestly, fliers?—and pure, unadulterated fury. Unfortunately for Harmony, the fury won out. “You stupid, conceited, jealous little bitch!” And with that invective, Buffy launched herself at Harmony.
It wasn’t much of a fight, really. Spike had long since taught her how to defend herself, and as the local waitress/Girl Who Gets Made Fun Of, she’d been in quite a few scuffles. Harmony, on the other hand, apparently thought that defending herself amounted to squealing and holding her hands up to her face. It was less than a minute before Harmony was sobbing and holding one hand to her black eye, and Buffy was above her, gasping with anger, a few scratch marks the only evidence that Harmony had even tried to fight back.
“Apologize,” she gritted, grabbing Harmony’s wrists in a cruel grip and wrenching them away from the girl’s face.
“I—I’m sorry!” she squeaked. Looking down at the frightened girl, Buffy sighed; this whole intimidation thing was really no fun when the person she was intimidating was such a wimp.
“Fine,” Buffy said, sitting back on her heels and letting Harmony up. “But if you ever pull this kind of crap again, I’ll—“
She never had time to finish her sentence, because Harmony jumped at her, face twisted into a rather crazy-looking snarl.
Buffy rolled her eyes, grabbed the girl’s shirt, cocked her fist, and dealt her a carefully placed blow to the temple. Harmony crumpled, falling to the ground like an extremely ungraceful sack of flour.
Now that the Bimbo Baddie had been taken care of, Buffy’s attention expanded to the action occurring around her, including Faith and Percy. The four of them—Faith, Percy, Harmony, and Buffy—were surrounded by students, most of whom had their attention firmly fixed on the brunette and her opponent.
“Fight! Fight!” they cheered. Luckily, Buffy didn’t recognize anyone she knew—although the idea of Oz screaming Fight! was enough to bring a smile to her face.
“Gonna help me out, B?” Faith asked, jerking back to stop Percy from hitting her. “Apparently skanky’s boy hasn’t heard about not hitting girls.”
Buffy grinned. She wasn’t as openly violent as Faith, but fights were fun, and she was still plenty mad enough. “Of course,” she replied, and jumped into the fray.
She and Faith came at Percy at the same time, but from different directions. Buffy kicked the back of his knees and Faith kneed him in the balls. He doubled over in pain from both sides, and with identical grins, the two girl’s fists met his face. When he didn’t go down, they hit again. Buffy’s fist found his nose, and she heard the satisfying crunch of bone.
“Woo-hoo!” Faith yelled—and that was when they realized that the crowd had gone silent.
“Miss Lehane,” said a cold voice, “and Miss Summers. Why am I not surprised?”
Buffy’s head snapped up, her eyes confirming what her sinking heart had already concluded: Principal Snyder had arrived.
“And beating up on one of our school’s prized students, as though your ordinary activities weren’t enough of a blight upon Sunnydale High School,” Snyder continued. “Well, well. I smell some discipline in the air!”
“Ooh, kinky,” Faith muttered under her breath. Buffy glared at the other girl.
Snyder moved his glare to Faith. “I assure you, Miss Lehane, that two months of detention starting today is not kinky. If I find you two miscreants fighting again, I’ll take great pleasure in expelling you. Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” Buffy said quickly, smiling at Snyder and willing Faith to keep her mouth shut.
Snyder glared at her. “Stop smiling,” he ordered. “And what are you little deviants staring at?” he demanded, his eyes sweeping the crowd of students. “Get to class!”
Everyone hurried off, averting their eyes from Snyder and chattering in excited but low voices. Snyder coldly directed them to help the two fallen students to the nurses office. He sent them off with a cold threat to behave “or believe me, I’ll make juvie look like a walk in the park for you two.”
They walked off silently, not even daring to look at each other while they knew Snyder was watching. As soon as they were sure he was out of earshot, they glanced at one another…and burst into laughter.
“Did you see his face?” Buffy gasped. “Priceless!”
“Can’t believe that fucktard didn’t suspend us,” Faith agreed, laughing. “We totally kicked his star player’s ass, and he didn’t do a thing. Well, except for detention, and that ain’t shit.”
Buffy blinked at her, all traces of laughter suddenly gone. A sense of foreboding suddenly came over her. “That’s right,” she said slowly, “he didn’t do anything.”
“What, is that bad? We got away with it, B!”
“He gave Willow detention. For sneezing!”
“So? We got detention,” Faith said, still stubbornly refusing to see the point.
Buffy barely refrained from rolling her eyes. This was the part of being friends with Faith that drove her up the wall; the girl just plain couldn’t see the obvious. “Faith, he should’ve tried to expel us. He’s tried it before!”
Now it was Faith’s turn to look unsettled. “So, why didn’t he? Think he’s got somethin’ else planned?”
Grimly, Buffy replied, “We’ll have to wait and see.”
Faith snorted. “Yeah, and then die from the cliché.”
“Ha ha. You know, this might be serious.”
“Yeah, I know. But laughing’s fun.”
“True.”
“Damn straight it’s true.”
And then, still wary underneath the jokes, they went to class.
~*~
At quarter till noon, Spike said hell with the papers and poked his head into Anya’s office to let her know he was going to lunch. He grabbed his briefcase and left the building as usual.
Sunnydale was a strange town, full of more labyrinthine alleys than most cities twice its size. Spike generally used those to get around—it was a habit he’d had as a kid that he’d never really shaken. He was less than a block away from the diner when he reached one of the main roads.
The second he turned the corner, he halted in shock. There, on hundreds of sheets of fluorescent pink and yellow paper, was a picture of him and Buffy, snogging on the beach. The papers were attached to buildings, electrical posts, even the odd car window. And on every single one, accusing black letters said: William Kingston: child molester.
The funny part was, Spike thought dimly as he stared at the fliers, his mind still utterly stunned, that had this happened to any one else, he would’ve been laughing his arse off right about now. It was the most juvenile, stupid joke he’d ever seen—but somehow, faced with the reality of it, it didn’t seem stupid.
It seemed damned clever and, to Spike, deadly.
God, he was fucked. Well and truly fucked. By now all the kids at Buffy’s school would know—chances were he’d get shit from everyone at the diner—and oh God, her parents. What if they took legal action? What if they felt like they had to take legal action?
It was with a heavy heart and a sick stomach that Spike turned towards the diner, walking like a man in a dream.
~*~
A/N: Yes, that would be the Great Angsty Shoe of Doom that you feel dropping on your heads. ^_^
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Thanks so much for all the reviews! I love hearing what you guys think. This fic has been dragging on, I know, but things will be picking up from here on out.