Chapter 4: Outnumbered
A feeling akin to Valentine’s Day singles’ spite washed over Alexander when he noticed the blonde superhero and her bleached-blond sidekick, arms locked, walking down the pavement towards him and his three female charges.
“Joan!” Dawn’s voice was a mix of excitement and relief as she hammered down the sidewalk. She didn’t stop until she firmly latched her arms around her sister, impacting with such force that Randy had to support Buffy with an arm to keep both girls upright. “Thank god you’re okay!”
Buffy returned the hug, petting her sister’s hair protectively.
“Of course I’m okay. I’ve got super powers, remember?
“But there were so many of them!” Dawn countered, pulling back to look her sister over for bruises. “You should be more careful until we know everything you can do.”
“Girl’s got a point,” Alexander added as he walked into earshot, followed by Tara and Willow. The two girls were awkwardly walking close enough to bump arms occasionally, but not so close as to imply anything.
Buffy’s arm immediately found Randy’s again when Dawn let go of her.
“It’s okay,” the blonde reassured them with a blush. She squeezed the vampire’s bicep gently. “I had backup.”
Randy wore a 4-year-old-with-candy grin as the others eyed him up.
“Does he have superpowers, too?” Alexander asked.
“Sort of,” the vampire replied, sharing a look with Buffy and wondering who should broach the somewhat disturbing subject.
“Randy’s a vampire,” Buffy said, careful to quickly string in her next point, “But he’s on our side.”
Tara and Willow unconsciously locked hands, fright playing in their features.
“A-are you s-sure?” Tara stuttered.
“Yeah, it’s all right,” Buffy assured her. “He has a soul and everything.”
“How can you be sure?” Dawn asked, getting uncomfortably close to Randy’s face, studying his eyes and teeth.
He took a step back. “Well, I’d imagine if I were your average evil vamp, I’d want to bite you.”
“You don’t want to?” she interrogated with a skeptical glare.
He shook his head. “Nothin’. You don’t look appetizing at all.”
The girl smiled. Then frowned.
Randy gently lifted her chin and shot her a dashing smile. “Don’t mean you’re not a fine lookin' bird, niblet.”
The gesture cleared Randy of the evil charges. As Dawn blushed, she realized he definitely was giving off those friend’s-hot-older-brother vibes in lieu of anything intimidating.
Buffy interrupted with the more pressing business. "So did you see a doctor? Could they help?"
"Nope," Alexander said curtly, noticing bitterly that he was the only one who’d gone this whole exchange without touching anyone.
There was a long beat until Willow realized Alex wasn't going to explain further. She picked up the slack. "The doctor said that it's unlikely to be an injury or a disease. He told us to check out the magic shop we were in when we discovered the memory loss."
"So we're dealing with magic?" Buffy wondered skeptically. "Like real magic?"
"We have been fighting vampires," Dawn pointed out.
"And I am one," Randy emphasized.
"And you're all SuperJoan," Alexander noted.
Buffy shrugged. "Good point. But do any of us know magic?"
They all glanced at one another as if someone should have WITCH in blazing letters on their forehead.
“I think the bigger question,” Alexander suggested, “is do any of us remember how to do magic?”
The silence was intense, and Buffy found herself wishing that finding whoever could do magic was as easy as Randy sniffing it out.
“I bet I’m a witch!” Dawn suddenly interjected cheerfully.
Buffy gave her a shove and started walking toward the magic shop, thankful their destination was somewhere she finally knew. Then she broke her pace.
“Oh, and guys?”
All eyes on her, Buffy squirmed and Randy’s tongue darted past his grin as he anticipated what she would announce.
“My name’s Buffy.”
It took exactly 3 minutes and 42 seconds for the laughing to stop. Well, excluding the little sniggers that followed as they walked back to the Magic Box.
“What kind of spell were we doing, anyway?” Willow wondered. “I mean, who would want to make themselves forget everything?
“Lots of reasons,” Randy surmised. “I mean, you screw up bad enough, I’m sure there’s a million things you could want someone to forget. And if we’re all close friends, then maybe that person would want the lot of us to forget.”
“So who screwed up what?” Alexander wondered.
Dawn shuddered a bit. “And what could be so bad that you’d want to erase everyone’s memory?”
“I bet someone cheated on someone,” Randy guessed. “That’s usually the hardest thing to deal with.”
Buffy gawked at him, stunned at his blatantness.
He shrugged. “What, pet? Probably true. I mean, love and hate being the world’s two foremost motivating factors.”
Her eyes asked Did you cheat on me?
“Don’t look at me like that. I’m too pragmatic to go to all that sort of trouble.”
“Y-you can s-say that,” Tara interrupted, “But do a-any of us kn-know ourselves that well yet?”
Randy scoffed. “It’s not a matter of knowin’, it’s a matter of feelin’. Do you think you could?”
She shifted uncomfortably, and the sentiment moved like a wave throughout the group, casting doubt in everyone except Randy and Dawn, who still bounced down the sidewalk hoping she knew how to turn boys into toads.
“Well, I’m clear,” Alexander added, despite not being sure he could never do such a thing. “I don’t have a lover to scorn.”
“Oh, about that,” Randy began, but Buffy cut him off with a jab to the stomach.
“Uhm, Alex,” Buffy began instead. “Before we met up with you, Randy and I found my house…”
“You did?!” Dawn cheered. Buffy axed the line of questioning by holding up a hand.
“Anyway, we found some photos, and I think..”
“Think, ” Randy again scoffed. “You bloody well know…”
“Anya is your fiancée, Alex,” Buffy quickly snapped.
The young man opened his mouth, but no words came out at first. When he finally gathered his senses, he managed a “Wha?”
“In the photos,” the blonde continued, “you were together and hugging and stuff. I’m pretty sure that ring on her hand is from you.”
He inhaled, remembering the blonde girl’s straight hair and thin legs in her high-heeled shoes. He remembered her 60s or 70s style blouse, and that struck a familiar chord in him as he dwelled on it. As he exhaled, he smiled.
“Anya.” It was the first time that day the woman’s name was properly pronounced. “Anya’s my fiancée.” He rolled the phrased around in his head. Nothing sounded wrong about it.
“And you left her with Rupert,” Randy noted.
“Oh my god.” White drew into Alexander’s face like vaccine into a syringe. “Oh my god!” He started jogging toward the shop, not understanding why he was suddenly frantic, but somewhere, deep down inside him, some part of him knew that the shopkeep really liked sex.
“Oh, this is going to be a bloody mess.”
“Anya!” Alexander burst into the back room without knocking, and saw exactly what he had feared: His gorgeous woman naked next to an equally naked middle-aged man resting lazily on a gym mat.
Hearing her correct name roused her from a post-love-making lull like a splash of cold water. Somehow, there was no urge to cover herself from Alexander when she turned toward him, exposing her firm, lean form and rosy nipples.
He swallowed hard, both from the shock of seeing her naked with another man and the testosterone-riddled joy of just plain seeing her naked. He laughed because it was the only thing he could do.
“Alexander?” she cocked her head, and all her thoughts must have tumbled out her ear, because she couldn’t think of a thing to say. Her body lacked modesty towards him, but her head had no idea why he would burst into the room.
He didn’t dance around the subject.
“You’re my fiancée!” he squeaked.
“What?” For a moment her face was as blank as a freshly cleaned blackboard, but the chalk came out soon enough.
By now Rupert Giles had roused and covered himself with Anya’s skirt. As he stared at the two children – and he realized at that moment, without the haze of sexual tension, that he did indeed regard Anya as a sort of child – he found he didn’t feel nearly as disappointed as he thought he would in overhearing the conversation. Instead of dread or anxiety, he had an overwhelming urge to shake his head, much like a teacher, and lecture them on the importance of knowing who your proper partner was.
“Well, don’t look at me,” he said instead. “I didn’t know.” He reached up to pull off glasses that he then realized were sitting atop the edge of the vaulting horse.
Anya pouted, eyeing Alexander, then the man she had just screwed, and suddenly covered herself from the older man’s eyes, although he was already intent on staring at the wall. The girl then scrambled for her blouse as her fiancé watched, silent in his shock.
She didn’t meet his eyes as she approached him, buttoning her shirt.
“I-I didn’t know,” she explained to the man whose last name she couldn’t even recall.
“I…” he wasn’t sure what he even wanted to say. Am I mad? he wondered, rationalizing that if he had to ask himself, he wasn’t. He placed a hand comfortingly on her shoulder. Her shirt was still clean, but he swore it felt dirty. He fought the urge to wipe his hand on his jeans. “I know.”
He hugged her, pulling her close with a desperation he couldn’t have guessed he’d have. Somehow this woman who moments before was nothing more than an acquaintance was a gem to be coveted, and he clung to her as if staking a claim.
“Ahem,” Giles cleared his throat loudly. “I’m sorry about the incident, but I’d appreciate the opportunity to dress.”
“Oh, right.” Anya broke from Xander and awkwardly took her skirt back. She tried to fix her hair briefly before leaving alone in the back room.
When they opened the door back into the main room, suddenly everyone had a book, and their gazes into said books were very stern and concentrated.
Except for Randy, who didn’t particularly like the tension. “You and Rupert find anything to help?”
Anya glowered.
Buffy shrieked, “Randy!”
“What?” He put his arms up in a display of innocence. “I meant before they shagged.”
The admonishment was tri-fold this time, from Buffy, Dawn, and Xander, “Randy!”
“Well there’s no point in denyin’ it happened,” he mumbled.
“Look, I…” Xander glanced at the woman beside him, more and more frustrated every moment he didn’t know a thing about her. He reached for her hand, wondering if how he twined his fingers around hers now was how they always held hands. Or maybe we don’t hold hands at all. Maybe we’re an arm-in-arm couple or a hand-in-pocket couple. He completely disregarded that she was wearing a skirt.
Most of all, it bothered him because he didn’t know why she would like him. He tried to stop the trembling that jostled everything below his elbows.
“We’re gonna go home. We need to talk,” he announced, and Anya nodded quietly in agreement before they left.
Giles exited tentatively moments later. He had straightened his hair and the wrinkles in his shirt as best he could without a mirror or iron, but he knew he didn’t look presentable. He coughed lightly in lieu of talking to the girls and his son – or at least the man who could be his son, were he sure he had ever had someone in his life to be Randy’s mother. Mostly, he took comfort in the fact that he did own the shop, and he could kick them all out if he wanted to.
“Uhm, hi,” Buffy said awkwardly. Dawn rolled her eyes and Randy didn’t stifle his laugh at his girl’s lameness.
“It’s okay,” Willow said, nervously clutching at her own hands. “You didn’t know. We didn’t know. I mean, I thought I was Alexander’s girlfriend, and I’m gay, so…”
Everyone but the vampire stared at her wide-eyes, and she shrank like a violet. But she believed in her point. “Well I am, and I’m just saying, we don’t know anything about ourselves or anyone.”
“I-I’m gay, t-too,” Tara announced, and the redhead beamed at the support. “B-but, I knew. I felt it r-right away. Knew I… you…” She lost the confidence, and hugged herself as she looked down, but Willow quickly doubled the hug with her own arms.
“It’s okay,” she nearly sang, and though their feet didn’t move, the girls went somewhere private in that moment.
Moving off the girls’ revelations, Randy announced to Rupert, “I’m a vampire, and therefore probably not your son, which means we just plain don’t like each other.”
The older Brit heaved a sigh of relief. “Oh thank God.” He tilted his head and laughed. “So your god-awful name is someone else’s fault. Brilliant.”
Randy growled.
“Great,” he declared sarcastically as he headed for the door. “Now that everything’s settled, I think I could use a…”
“Hold it,” Giles ordered. “I need to be filled in.”
The general consensus after the recap was that the answer to their problem was somewhere in the magic shop. Most likely in a book.
Possibly one of the thirty or so on the table the four young women and two older men sat at, maybe even one of those that were currently opened before them. And if not any of those, definitely in one of the hundreds of others in the shop.
The ticking in Randy’s jaw went unnoticed, but he was bored out of his bleedin’ mind. They’d been sitting in their little circle for more than two hours, and while everyone was sharing their interesting little discoveries – “Buffy, you’re not the only superhero, and they call you slayers” – no one seemed to care that the vampire was decidedly silent. It wasn’t that he didn’t like reading. Maybe it was that he still wanted a cigarette.
Or maybe it was the beautiful blonde eye candy sitting next to him. Stuck with everyone, it was like she had a ‘Look, but don’t touch’ sign on that gorgeous body of hers, and all Randy could think about was their tonsil hockey match earlier that night.
Not moving his head, he looked up and saw how oblivious everyone was. Maybe she wouldn’t mind a touch after all, he thought, recalling how she had matched his passion before. He really didn’t think he’d be interested in a prude. Still leaning into his right arm, he moved his left hand off his book and under the table before placing it on Buffy’s leg. They shared a sideways glance and a smile before she continued reading.
Randy, on the other hand, was only interested in how warm she felt. He brushed his hand slowly back and forth over her thigh, noting how soft her muscles felt, how dainty her strangely powerful frame was. And she let him for a while, smiling at first before her expression turned neutral. He continued gently, letting his fingers slide a little further up her thigh each time. Until she frowned. It wasn’t an angry frown, but a frown of lost concentration and it was quickly followed by her hand sliding under the table and pushing his away. And then slapping him gently when he tried to put it back.
His right hand moved to cup his chin as he pretended to focus on the book, but his intense concentration was on her. He ran his tongue over his teeth, breathed that exasperated library breath out his nose. She was his subject, and the subject was being difficult, but not unresponsive. He waited for her to once again become engrossed in her book then slowly moved his hand behind them to strike from an unexpected angle.
His fingertips had barely grazed her ass when she jumped.
“Spike!” she yelped as she batted his hand away.
Everyone stared at them, partly confused andpartly annoyed at the interruption.
Spike grinned wickedly. “That really is my name,” he mused, feeling it this time.
Buffy could only blush. “I… he…”
“I’m bored,” he explained. “And Buffy’s my girl or something, so of course I’m distracted.”
“Spike!” She got redder, and his smile widened.
“Sorry, love, but it’s true. Been a long day, I’m not feelin’ the study bug.”
As if his statement reminded the youngest at the table that there was life outside of demons and spells, she agreed. “Spike’s right. I’m getting hungry.”
Willow nodded. “I could eat. How about you, honey?”
Tara liked it when Willow spoke for her, and the nod saved her the embarrassment of stuttering.
“Oh, fine,” Giles retorted dryly. “Put off knowing who we are.” He told himself he had the burden of being the responsible one, his alpha male kicking in. However, the bookish librarian he didn’t know he had in him was also having a say. “I’m staying,” he declared dramatically, as if to cover up the fact that he was enjoying his exploration of the books on the table.
Recovering, Buffy asked, “Do you want us to bring you anything?”
He softened at her warmness. “No, I’ll be fine. I’m sure I’ll manage something.”
It wasn’t until they left the store that he once again began to wonder why he had a one-way ticket to England. He drowned that question in texts.
Spike felt like a single dad at a sleepover as he followed the gaggle of girls into Buffy’s house. He was carrying two large pizzas and keeping his mouth shut amidst the girl talk.
“This is really nice!” Willow observed as she took in the long staircase and separate entryways to the living and dining rooms. “And we live here?”
“Spike says so,” Buffy said.
Spike nodded.
Before he could ask where they wanted the food, Dawn giggled, “That’s so cool! It’s like I’ve got three sisters! And only one is annoying…”
“Hey!”
“S-so where are our r-rooms?” Tara asked.
“You only have one, love.”
Tara blushed, looking at the redhead. Confused, Willow looked at Spike, who in turn nodded at her, then Tara, then raising his eyebrow.
“Oh,” she said. Then, “Oooh” before turning red.
Dawn had run up the stairs, and Buffy had wandered into the living room, so Spike gravitated there.
“We should all watch a movie!” the slayer said with more bubble than champagne. “It’ll be like a sleepover!”
“Sure!” Willow agreed.
Spike groaned. No one paid attention.
“This should be fun!” Buffy said while perusing DVDs off the small entertainment stand. “I mean, I must have liked these movies to buy them, and I don’t remember seeing any of them.”
Willow joined her in reading the backs of cases. “This one looks really good. Beaches.”
“What’s it about?” Buffy leaned over her shoulder curiously.
“When the irrepressible C.C. Bloom and the shy and proper Hillary Whitney first meet under the boardwalk at the beach, all the 11-year-olds have in common is the need for a best friend. Worlds apart in lifestyle and location – ”
“Oh, hell no!” Spike protested as he finally dropped the pizza boxes on the paper-covered coffee table. “I’m a guy, and I should get a say.” He stalked over to the DVDs with them.
“You know you’re outnumbered,” Buffy pointed out.
Chin up, sarcasm dripping, he replied, “I could snore if I fall asleep.”
“Then get down here and help,” she ordered, pulling him down playfully by an empty belt loop.
They all had chick-flick titles, and he feared for the worst when he began pulling cases out to read them. After putting When Harry Met Sally and Fried Green Tomatoes back on the shelf, he finally found an interesting one.
“Here.” He handed the blonde The Princess Bride. “Romance for the birds. Swashbuckling and a giant for me.”
She smiled and messed up his hair before setting up the TV. “Dawn!” she called. “We’re watching a movie! Come eat dinner!”
Willow and Tara settled onto one end of the couch and neatly stacked two throw pillows on the floor, so Spike claimed the other end, moving the pillows on his side as well. Four people would now fit, albeit snugly, on the couch. Dawn hit the lights, grabbed a slice of pizza, and sprawled across the love seat as the mandatory previews started up, leaving only one place for Buffy to sit.
It was a simple pride, but pride nonetheless that swelled in the vampire as he thought, Mission accomplished.
Sitting while the girls cracked open the pizza boxes, though, he felt strange. He was definitely hungry, just short of stomach growling, but the scent of cheese and sauce didn’t hit him as appetizing. It was nice, sure, but it wasn’t hitting the parts of his brain that said ‘food.’
Willow noticed his consternation as she pulled at a wire of cheese that had refused to break. “Aren’t you hungry?”
He didn’t answer.
“Can you eat pizza?” she wondered. “Or do you…” She swallowed nervously, and Buffy looked up at him from her wrenching decision of pepperoni or extra cheese. Spike couldn’t place her expression, but he knew it wasn’t happy. He immediately leaned forward to grab a slice.
“I suppose I should try,” he ventured. The girls all stared at him as he took a bite, but he only noticed Buffy’s curious gaze. He could taste the pepperoni pretty plainly – liked it – but the cheese and sauce were muted, a bit like eating water. It wasn’t bad, but…
Buffy was blatantly staring at him, one hand holding a box open, her expression saying that she was completely lost in observing him.
He chuckled and licked some cheese off his teeth. “You gonna sit down and eat, love?”
“Hm?” she murmured, then, “Oh!” She settled on extra cheese, fighting to get the slice to break free of its stringy net of cheese, and seated herself next to the vampire.
Inwardly, he thanked whatever it was vampires were supposed to believe in that the blood conversation was dropped. He wanted Buffy to like him, and he didn’t know enough about himself – or her – to know everything in the vampire package and how much she could tolerate. For all he knew, maybe she had liked him before today and decided not to do anything about it because he was a vampire.
Eating his slice quickly and grabbing another felt more like a reflex, his stomach telling him he was still hungry, which didn’t bode well. Sure, the girls didn’t seem like tasty morsels, but he was a vampire, and vampires had to drink blood. He couldn’t focus on the movie as he wondered if he needed human blood, or if any would do. And where do I get it? He didn’t fancy Buffy would be keen on him eating small animals, either.
But the second slice seemed to curb his hunger a bit, and he took comfort in that as he unceremoniously wiped his greasy hands on his jeans. He couldn’t take his eyes off Buffy as he settled back into the couch. She had that little-girl-watching-a-fairy-tale glow on her face. His mind registered that the others must have had it, too, but it was the light in those green eyes that mattered. And when she finished eating and finally leaned back on the couch, Spike’s arm was waiting. She startled a moment, like she’d forgotten he was there, then immediately snuggled into him. He kissed her shoulder lightly and tried to focus on the movie, which was pretty good.
Good enough to want to keep watching it, but – unbeknownst to his mind – his body had spent the past twenty-four hours wide awake, fighting, and hiding from that loan shark. He was exhausted, and Buffy’s warmth was spreading into him.
Fortunately, he didn’t snore as he’d threatened.
Shell Presto can be reached at mangetsuDELETEME@email.com
www.insomn.com
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Note: I don’t own Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Joss Whedon does; but I do own this piece of fanfiction, which is meant solely to entertain. Also, special thanks to my beta, Dorian’s Kitten. Without her, there would be actors’ names where characters’ should be!
Chapter End Notes:
I’d like to state that the comments did in fact make me write faster; it only seems like longer because I had two all-day conferences across the state and my beta also had more pressing plans. So, keep those comments coming, and I’ll keep these pages coming with proportionate speed – even over my upcoming three-day weekend if I get enough motivation. *nudge nudge*