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Author's Chapter Notes:
This chapter is quite light-hearted. Not entirely though because, well... that wouldn't be me, would it? ;)

Huge thanks goes to All4Spike for betaing!
Chapter 30

Something fishy was going on.

Buffy could barely keep her eyes open and yawned into her pillow before trying to pinpoint the source of her discomfort. It took her a while to realise that yes, it was a school day and no, she had not heard her alarm clock go off.

The stupid thing was broken, stubbornly insisting it was 3:13 am even though the March morning light filtered through her blinds to pave the way for swirling dust. What time was it exactly?

“Hmph,” she whined and buried herself under the duvet for the last blissful second before she dragged herself out of bed. Surely it couldn’t be too late or Dad would have come in yelling and banging about like he was so prone to do.

She tiptoed down the hall to keep the contact of her feet with the chilly floor to the minimum and twisted Hank’s door open. With bleary eyes, she slipped in but hardly registered the door falling shut behind her.

Her bleary eyes promptly widened.

Blinking! God, someone please shut her eyelids for her!

“Ah!” slipped out of her numb mouth as she willed her eyes to block out the traumatising visual of her father doing… “My alarm clock didn’t go off!”

The disheveled adults stared at her in equal horror, her father tumbling out of bed then quickly snatching a pillow to cover parts of him she’d never, ever wanted to see. Parts that had just a few seconds before been stuck in other parts of Ellen and now Buffy was certain she could never have sex without seeing that disgusting visual in her mind. She’d never have sex— period— and she’d die a virgin living somewhere in the woods talking to bears.

“Buffy!”

“Oh my God.”

“Buffy! What are you—”

“I just saw your penis!” He wasn’t supposed to have one! Not a functioning one anyway. How come he didn’t get the memo?

His father’s cheeks turned alarmingly red and Buffy slapped her hand over her mouth since it had apparently been disconnected from her brain.

“W-what are you doing in here? Why didn’t you knock?”

Ellen fidgeted on the bed in obvious discomfort, clutching the sheet to her chest but it was too late. The image of those massive knockers had been burned into Buffy’s mind to haunt her for the rest of her life. Haunted by Hispanic boobs, which surprisingly, were quite firm. And why the hell was she thinking of that right now?

Wow, her life was tragic.

“How was I supposed to know I was to knock? I never knock. You didn’t raise me to be polite!”

She fumbled behind her back for the doorknob and in her panic twisted it with more strength than she intended.

When the doorknob snapped loose and crashed to the floor, Buffy thought she’d probably have to reevaluate the definition of embarrassment because this was reaching entirely new levels of badness.

Three pairs of eyes flew to the fallen doorknob as though it had just started to speak Romanian.

“Oh fuck,” her father said.

“I concur,” Buffy squeaked out, unable to get the visual of her father with Ellen’s ankles around his ears out of her head. “I might need intense therapy after this. Again.”

“Could we talk about this once we get into some clothes?” Ellen offered, probably the most composed out of the three of them.

“I’ll just…” Buffy grimaced and turned her back on the crime scene of nakedness. How had she not heard the grunts and mattress springs whining and… Yeah, this is why she needed a cup of coffee every morning. If she’d had her coffee, she’d have known not to barge in and now she wouldn’t be wishing for someone to bleach her brain clean.

It took a few excruciating minutes before the adults got somewhat decent and Hank wordlessly fixed the doorknob with a screwdriver so they could get out. A tool box in a bedroom? A bit weird, but she wouldn’t complain, considering it would put an end to the increasingly awkward situation.

Then Buffy realised she’d been forced to inhale their sex air and it now probably polluted her lungs. Even therapy wouldn’t help her out after this.

Ellen was lucky enough to escape the heaping awkwardness by walking back to her own house. Meanwhile Buffy sat opposite Hank who looked even more mortified than she felt. Then again, it hadn’t been her genitalia flapping in the air. Also, eww. Stupid brain.

“I’m late to school,” she broke the silence and sipped her coffee.

“School can wait.”

“But your libido apparently can’t,” she muttered then fixed him with accusing eyes. “How come you are allowed to have girls in your room but I can’t?”

“I never said you couldn’t have girls in your room,” he answered with a twitch of his lips. Like he was so funny? He knew very well what she’d meant.

Buffy was about to roll her eyes then thought of a much better way to retaliate and cupped her coffee mug, dropping her gaze to the swirling black liquid with as much seriousness as she could muster. “I’m glad you’re telling me that.”

“Uh… not sure what you mean by that, pumpkin.”

“Well, now that I know I can have girls in my room, I’ll have the wild sex romps with Anya here instead of her house.”

Silence.

Buffy swallowed down her mirth.

“What?” her father yelled, drawing her attention back from the mug. “You had sex?”

One freaked out parent? Check. “A lesbian sex. Anya taught me all kinds of things you wouldn’t believe. Yesterday, we—”

“You’re not a lesbian,” Hank said with a scoff, his eyes slitting. “You’re just pulling my chain.”

“Am I?”

“Yes,” he said but suddenly sounded less sure.

“But what if it’s not about gender at all? What if I just love her for the person she is?”

Hank’s mouth dropped open then snapped closed several times until Buffy couldn’t keep a straight face anymore and started to laugh.

“Y-you should have… seen your… face!” She giggled madly.

“Oh, very funny.” He tried to look stern but couldn’t fool her. The slightest smile he tried to hide betrayed him. He probably wouldn’t be smiling if he knew she’d been halfway to de-virginising territory with… Never mind.

“Ah, Dad,” she said, holding her quaking abdomen as the last thought doused most of her mirth. “Can we just forget what happened this morning?” Well, beside the fact she planned on exploiting that into blackmailing him in the future. Let’s see if he’d begrudge her a katana now.

“I feel like we should discuss this.” Yet he hardly looked certain.

“When did she get here anyway?”

“Uh… she snuck in early this morning.”

“You know, I’m disappointed in you.” Buffy ruefully shook her head. “It’s kind of disrespectful to have your girlfriend sneak in instead of telling her to come in like a normal person.”

It was the first time she’d ever called Ellen his girlfriend and the words felt foreign to her ears. Yet she could see the tension flow out of Hank’s shoulders as he read between the lines. Understood that Buffy wasn’t too mad.

His brows drew together in concern. “Do you think she’s angry with me?”

“Nah.”

“Are you angry with me?”

“Try mortified with the side of ‘Can I please suffer from a temporary memory loss?’ kind of mood.” And she’d know about that one, wouldn’t she? What she didn’t tell him was that strange feeling swarming in her stomach. Jealousy? Frustration?

She didn’t begrudge her dad happiness but she couldn’t help but feel like she was losing him. Like things had changed and would never be the same again.

“I’m sorry.”

Ah he did look it. Suddenly she just wanted to reassure him even though everything wasn’t okay. He didn’t need to know. “It’s fine, Dad. Just please, remember to lock the door next time?”

He laughed briefly and gave an embarrassed nod before rounding the counter to hug her to his side. “I love you.”

Buffy just wished she wasn’t longing to be hugged by someone else. Someone whose name had been banned from her vocabulary.

“Love you too.”

*******

Buffy spotted Anya waiting for her near the school’s entrance and hurried to catch up to her. In the month since they started to talk to each other again, Buffy would often find herself keeping Anya company by staying at her place. It was hard to imagine being alone at such a big house. Although it sounded like fun for a while, Buffy thought that loneliness was inevitable and suspected Anya did as well. Not that she’d ever admit it.

“Anya!”

Her friend turned to the side and waited for her to catch up before Anya pushed herself off the wall where she was leaning and walked out of the school. “There you are. I was afraid you’d got lost in the library.”

“You should be worried,” Buffy said. “All ten of those aisles look the same. It doesn’t take much for me to get all confused.”

Anya patted her shoulder. “Which is why I use Google books.”

Buffy snorted. “You’re ancient. You don’t need books of any kind. You probably know what happened first hand.”

“Very true.” Anya’s eyes gained a faraway look that Buffy knew meant Anya was recalling a gory memory from her past. “The Russian revolution was a profitable time. It was a busy year for vengeance.” She sighed, melancholy tightening the lines around her mouth. “I was such a workaholic back then. All eager and ready to get my hands dirty.”

Buffy knew it was probably in a very literal, bloody sense, so she didn’t prod Anya to elaborate. “Everyone needs a break from time to time. And speaking of a break, can I come with you? Don’t feel like catching Dad’s naked parts again.”

“Of course.” Anya gave her an interested glance. “So, how big?”

“Anya!”

“What? I’m curious.”

Buffy grimaced and shook her head as though the memory could be flung out of her ears. “I’m not telling you. I’m still disturbed.”

Anya looked puzzled. “Sex is a natural thing. Do you feel embarrassed watching people eat?”

“Of course not.”

“Hmm. Interesting. What’s the difference?”

Kicking at a pebble, Buffy wrinkled her nose in thought. “It just is. I think it’s the nakedness and… intimacy.”

“I saw people that enjoyed food in a way that bordered on sin. Still don’t see how it’s different.”

They squabbled all the way to Anya’ house and Buffy salivated when Anya made them macchiato. It was a guilty pleasure Buffy never suspected she’d enjoy. The fact she was regularly cheating on black coffee still inspired random bursts of guilt, but the damn macchiato was too delicious for her not indulge in.

“You should have seen my father’s face when I told him I was having sex with you,” Buffy said as they sat down on the comfy sofa in the living room. She half expected Anya to laugh at the ridiculous idea but wasn’t all that surprised when her friend just shrugged and sipped the bittersweet concoction. Sex and casual usually went hand in hand in Anya’s mind. Although Buffy noticed that for all her talk, Anya remained faithful to Xander. For all her worldliness, emotions were Anya’s unfamiliar territory and often left her perplexed.

“That kiss is still on the table.”

“Oh, the girl smoochies.” Buffy’s cheeks reddened and she hid behind her mug. Yeah, mug. Because Anya considered cups too tiny to contain a sufficient amount of caffeine.

“It’s a very friendly thing to do. I bet it feels nice too, especially since you don’t have stubble. I read girls do it all the time.”

“What kind of magazines do you read?”

Anya put her mug on the table and scooted closer to Buffy. Close enough to make her stomach flip with nerves. “Anya, what are yo—”

Then there were lips on hers. Oh God. There were girl lips on her girl lips and it was… exciting, actually. Soft lips that unhurriedly caressed her own with a faint taste of coffee and raspberry lipstick. Wisps of their long hair tangled and Anya caressed her scarred cheek, but it didn’t matter anymore. A touch upon her desecrated flesh no longer made her cringe away. It was sweet and languid and made her feel closer to Anya though not in a romantic sense. It didn’t change anything. Didn’t feel like kissing him. Like scorching heat. Like being caught in the eye of a summer storm. It wasn’t passion, but it felt good and she was surprised to be a bit disappointed when their swollen lips parted with a final open-mouthed kiss.

“See? As I said.” Anya tucked a strand of Buffy’s hair behind her ear. “Nice.”

“It was,” she admitted and they shared a smile. The awkwardness Buffy had expected to spring up never did and instead they resumed their conversation as though nothing had happened at all. But it had, and somewhere inside she felt connected to her friend on a new level.

A sudden knowledge crept up on her and Buffy realised that she’d come to trust Anya in a way that she’d ever only trusted her father and… him.

*******

Two hours following Buffy’s departure, Anya sat on the floor with her back propped against the sofa and cradled her face in her hands. She was an utter mess. A failure. A deserter betraying her own kind for a girl she was supposed to kill.

D’Hoffryn had been calling her and the echo of it skated down her spine. If she answered, she knew the charade would fall apart. If she didn’t, well… She wasn’t looking forward to the consequences. As giving and pleasant as D’Hoffryn was to his subjects, the coin could flip twice as fast and cast you as a persona non grata in his black beady eyes.

But she did try!

She did.

Every time Buffy came to her house, Anya’s fingers would linger on the small vial filled with deadly poison nestled behind the mugs. Just one flick of her wrist, a few drops was all it would take, and it would be over. Buffy wouldn’t feel a thing. And it shouldn’t even matter because causing pain had never bothered Anya before.

Yet the excuses kept popping up. Buffy would catch her. The timing wasn’t right. She’d do it after they finished playing Monopoly.

And today she’d kissed Buffy. Anya told herself it was no big deal. That it hadn’t deepened the feelings tumbling around inside her stomach. That she didn’t feel a variation of the same thing when she kissed Xander. Now she knew why whores didn’t kiss. Apparently, they had more common sense than she did.

A knock on the front door startled Anya out of her thoughts.

For a moment she contemplated not answering the door. If it was those annoying little Scouts asking money for crappy chocolate bars that stuck to her gums and teeth, she’d show them her demon face.

Maybe Buffy had forgotten something.

Rising to her feet, Anya hurried over to the door and flung it open.

“Anyanka.”

Oh no. No! Not now. “Hallie.”

The visitor gave her an empty smile and invited herself inside.

TBC


Chapter End Notes:
Hope you enjoyed. :) Feel free to tell me what you thought. Good or bad.



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