Although it had been months since Buffy had set foot near the Bronze, it was clear that the place hadn’t changed at all. It was still a mass of hyperactive teenagers grinding against each others’ sweaty bodies as they writhed to angsty pop music. It was sad to say that in spite of its lackluster ambience it really was the only club in Sunnydale even remotely worth visiting.
Making their way inside Buffy and Willow headed to the bar, trying to fight their way through the crowd gathered there. Buffy glanced around, feeling a shiver course down her spine. Ever since she had stepped out of the house she had been plagued with an uneasy feeling. It was the kind of prickly feeling you get right between your shoulders when you know you’re being watched, but you can’t pinpoint the source.
“What do you want to drink?” Willow shouted, trying to be heard over the pounding music.
“Just a diet coke.” The blonde responded equally loudly. With a nod, Willow turned back to the bar, and procured them both a drink, before scouring the club with her eyes, searching for the rest of her friends. She gave an excited shriek as she spotted them, and tugged on Buffy’s arm in a way that reminded the blonde of a child on Christmas morning.
That was one of the things she had always loved about Willow, the way that she was able to find pleasure in the most ordinary and mundane facts of life. Ever since they met, Willow had been vibrant and positive, often providing the yin to Buffy’s much more negative yang. With a start, she realized that in her self-enforced isolation of the last few months, she had truly missed that.
Reaching the table, Willow flashed everyone sitting there a beaming smile, which they returned. However, when all eyes turned to Buffy, she felt a little less welcome, and turned her face to the floor, studiously evasive of their eyes.
Xander, Anya and Oz were staring at her with varying degrees of wariness. Oz seemed kind of indifferent and Anya appeared a peculiar mixture of bored and curious but Xander looked the least pleased to see her there.
“Well Buffy, long time no see. I thought you had forgotten about us.” He declared scathingly, raising his voice to be heard over the music.
“Xan…”
“We care about you, Buff, and you treat us this way. And then what? It’s okay to suddenly let us back into Buffy Town?”
She opened her mouth to respond, hating being on the receiving end of the boy’s anger, but Xander interrupted before she could choke out even a single word.
“No, save it, Buffy. You’re here because Willow wanted you here. Because she misses you. God knows why after how selfish you’ve been lately.”
“Xander.” Anya’s warning voice broke through his haze of fury and he slouched back in his seat. However, the damage was done and Buffy looked as if she was about to burst into tears.
It wasn’t as if she didn’t know that Xander was one of those people who held grudges and got mad over the small things, but she thought he might have been a little bit more understanding with her. The cold look in his eyes and the hateful words had floored her.
Trying to cut through the tension, Willow patted Buffy on the arm.
“Why don’t we go dance.” The redheaded teen suggested. “I mean, not that my dancing skills are very…dancey…but it’s fun. Right, Buffy?” She ended breathlessly, and pasted a smile onto her lips.
“Actually, I need to go to the bathroom.” Buffy told her, without raising her gaze from the ground. Sensing that her friend was getting up to accompany her, she stayed her with her hand. “It’s okay, you stay here. I won’t be long.” Reluctantly, Willow nodded, and watched as her friend made her way through the pulsating crowd toward the restrooms.
“Xander, that was not fair.” Willow admonished the boy once Buffy was out of sight.
“Listen, Wills. I get it, I really do. You want us to forgive and forget. But she acts like we’re lepers for months and then expects to be welcomed back like the prodigal Buffy. I can’t just do that. It’s going to take some time.”
With a sigh, Willow slumped in her seat.
This was turning out way less fun than she thought it would be.
As she left the table, Buffy breathed a sigh of relief. She hadn’t realized how stifling this would be. In the time since her depression over Spike had first kicked in and she had estranged herself from her friends, she had gradually forgotten how judgmental some of them could be.
Well, when she said some of them, she really meant Xander.
Since they day they had met, he had put her on some kind of pedestal, as if she was superhero Buffy. And every time she made even the smallest mistake, he punished her with his words or with stony silences, that made her feel about two feet tall.
But this was worse than before.
He hadn’t even offered her his condolences over her Mom.
Pausing by the bar, she leaned against it, resting her temple on her closed fist, letting her eyes drift shut. With the music taking over her senses, and the smell of booze thick in the air, for a moment she felt like she could lose herself in this place. Like she could forget who she was and everything that had happened lately.
The only other time she had felt that recently was when she was ensconced on Spike’s lap with his velvety lips making their way down her neck.
“Not the best place to take a nap, standing at the bar.”
Buffy’s eyes shot open at the sound of the intrusive voice, to come face to face with a dark-haired man standing a few mere inches from her. He towered over her and she shuffled back a little, uncomfortable at his proximity.
“Do I know you?” She asked petulantly. His eyes flicked over her rapidly taking in her subtle curves and sexy outfit, and he successfully managed to hide his lecherous leer.
“Not yet.” He replied with a grin. “Maybe we should rectify that. I’m Angel.” He held out a hand, but dropped it almost instantly when she glared at it as if it was some kind of biochemical weapon.
“That’s a name?” She couldn’t keep the sarcasm from bleeding through into her voice, but he didn’t take offense, and let out a deep laugh.
“It is. Not the name my mother gave me, but good enough just the same. And yours would be…?”
Buffy hesitated. Her mother had always warned her during childhood about talking to strangers. And while she was no longer a child, this guy was definitely a stranger, and an older one at that. From the looks of him he was probably in his mid-30s, and there was something about him that seemed a little off. He appeared to lack that unidentifiable spark that seemed missing from some people and made them seem cold and unapproachable.
On the other hand he was dressed well, and looked mild mannered and polite, if not warm and gentle. No, this guy seemed just fine. And she did pride herself on being an excellent judge of character.
“I’m Buffy.” She finally told him.
“That’s a name?” He mimicked her earlier words with a friendly smile, and with a matching smile of her own spreading across her lips, she immediately warmed to him.
For a while they continued chatting. He told her that he was in town on business, as well as looking up an old friend. He seemed…sweet. And his flirting was a nice change from Spike’s cold glares and admonishments about how she was just a child. For the first time in a while she felt wanted. Instead of being a scrawny teen, she was a woman, and a desirable one if the looks Angel was giving her were any kind of indication.
Here was an older guy who was clearly showing an interest in her, and it suckered her in like a fly crawling into a spider’s web.
Their pleasant conversation was interrupted when Willow came bounding up to the bar, her fair face etched with anxiety.
“Uh, Buffy, we were wondering what happened to you. I was worried.” Willow told her, chewing on her bottom lip as she checked out the man standing at her friend’s side.
“Oh, Wills, sorry, I got talking to Angel, and I got totally sidetracked. Color me bad Buffy. And, oh, by the way, Angel this is my friend, Willow. Willow, this is Angel. He’s in town for a while on business.”
Willow graced him with a reluctant nod, which he returned, before turning back to Buffy.
“Are you coming back to the table?”
“I don’t think so.” Buffy exhaled wearily. “They don’t want me there…”
“They do!”
“No, Wills, they don’t. Especially Xander. You know what he’s like when he gets like that, and I just can’t…okay? And I don’t want to be the one who spoils their night, or your night. ” Seeing the despondent look forming on Willow’s pale face, Buffy placed a comforting palm on her friend’s shoulder. “I will make an effort, okay? Just, not right now. Xander needs…time, I guess.”
“Alright, just…” Her eyes flickered over to Angel. “Just be careful.”
“I will. I promise.” With a quick vow to call each other in the morning, they exchanged a warm hug, and Buffy felt thankful for the human contact that seemed missing from her for so long.
Reassured, Willow said her goodbyes to Buffy and Angel, and weaved her way back to join her friends.
“Would you like a drink?” He asked her with a smile, as he watched Willow retreat.
“Um, okay, sure. I’ll have a diet coke.”
“Wouldn’t you prefer to try something different?” Angel wondered. Before she could answer, Angel smirked at her. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll surprise you.”
Making his way down the bar, he located the bartender and leaning over, he managed to attract the man’s attention.
“Beer for me, and a nice strong Long Island Iced Tea for the lady.” He asked the shorter man behind the bar in a hushed whisper.
“She over 21?” The bartender asked, casting a suspicious look in Buffy’s direction where she was standing farther down the bar.
“Yeah, of course. She just looks young.” He lied smoothly.
With a shrug the bartender poured the drinks and Angel tossed him a twenty-dollar bill, picking up the drinks and making his way back to the younger girl.
He handed Buffy the tall glass, beads of condensation rolling down the side and pooling on her fingertips as she took hold of it.
“What is it?” She asked, sniffing it with more than a hint of suspicion.
“Just iced tea. Cheers.” He raised his beer in salute and chugged a swig. His smile grew wider as she took a long swallow of the liquid in her own glass.
“I like it.” She announced, smacking her lips. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she tipped the glass to her lips for another gulp.
Four iced teas later, and Buffy was swaying on her feet. For some reason everything seemed unbelievably funny. She felt as if all the secrets of the universe had suddenly been unlocked and she was invincible.
Was this why Spike drank so much?
God! Now was so not the time to think about him. Not when she had the company of a good looking guy who didn’t treat her like some dumb five year old kid who didn’t know its own mind. Immediately she pushed all thoughts of the man who had been the object of her affections for more than a year out of her head and tried to concentrate on the moment in which she was currently living.
However, as she was not used to drinking, and her blood was filled with way more alcohol than was mixy with the Buffy constitution, that was easier said than done.
Tripping over her own feet, she almost stumbled to the floor, but Angel reached out his arms to catch her.
“I think someone’s a little tipsy.” He told her.
“Schomeone being you.” She pouted in reply.
“Come on, Buff. I’ll walk you home.”
“I don’t wanna go shmone…mone…home. Ha! Home kinda rhymes with bone, ya know?” She giggled. “Bone! Like a…” She lowered her voice. “Like a…penis.” She broke out into another fit of uncontrollable giggling, and Angel sighed, getting frustrated. Getting the girl this drunk hadn’t been his intention at all. He thought he could get her a little tipsy and then…
Well that plan was right out of the window now. It would have to be Plan B.
“Well, it’s time to go, okay. So haul ass and let’s move.” He demanded. She raised sad eyes to him at the harsh tone, but didn’t object further and allowed herself to be dragged out of the club. Vaguely in the back of her mind it registered that wandering the streets at night, drunk and alone with a stranger probably wasn’t in “The Teenager’s Handbook of Sensible Things to Do”. Somewhere along the line it appeared that she had missed receiving her copy.
But she tried to suppress the growing feeling of concern as Angel led her through the labyrinth of dark alleys that Sunnydale was peppered with.
In her chest the growing fist of foreboding flexed itself, and she tried to tell herself that she was just being stupid.
Surely nothing bad could happen.
Right?
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Thanks for the reviews. :) Hope you enjoy this next lengthy chapter.
Chapter End Notes:
Sorry...no Spike in this chapter, but he will be back in the next...with a vengeance. ;)
Thanks for reading and please review.
Thanks for reading and please review.