Faith gave a good head job, but not a great head job, Xander felt, but this was not something he could tell anyone except the woman who had, well, given him a basis for comparison. And he couldn't tell her very much about Faith, without explaining the 'vampires, werewolves and demons are real' thing, and winding up in padded cell. What he could tell her was that he needed someone to talk to about the Bostonian, and what she had said.
"Buffy." Was what she had said, and she had said it during her orgasm. This was not a problem at the time, since the Xanman himself was still going and the image of the two slayers lapping clams was a good one to get him there. But afterwards, after she threw him out with his pants in his hands and he defeated the zombies, etc, he thought about it. 'Faith wants Buffy', he thought, what do I do about that?
"You see, the thing is, Buffy is involved with this older guy called Angel, who killed a lot of people in the past, and came close to killing us all last year." He explained, with as much truth as possible with the looming threat of the white room and the straight jacket hanging over him. "And while Faith is a total wild child, she hasn't murdered anyone that I am aware of, and she isn't some ridiculous multiple of the Buffster's age either."
"And the police can't just arrest this older man."
"No, there is no proof of anything, and Buffy would still be in love with him, that wouldn't change."
"So your first thought on finding out that this Faith is interested in her is, 'hey, it would be an improvement over Angel'. Did it occur to you that perhaps your friend Buffy is not attracted to girls?"
"How could anyone not be attracted to girls?"
They were lying side by side naked on the bed, after sex. It had been a regular part of his schedule, not frequent but regular. It had started with him coming over for advice, as he often did, her putting on 'The Graduate', and explaining that ever since she first saw the movie she had fantasized about being like the Anne Bancroft character, Mrs. Robinson, an older woman initiating a naive young man. Right now she was looking at him thoughtfully, then she smiled and spoke.
"Xander, you are one of the most totally heterosexual individuals I have ever met."
"Hey, it's me." While the zeppo appreciated girls who were attracted to boys, really, really, really, appreciated them, he did not understand, deep in his soul, what there was to be attracted to. How could anyone look at a guy and want that? "And you are the one of the other totally straight individuals, I take it, lucky us?"
"No, my husband is. Right now he's fucking his secretary, we're working on getting her to come here for a threesome."
"And how, precisely, does that match up with 'not all girls like girls', and do you tell each other all the details of..."
"Who we're doing? He tells me all the details because I like it, but he doesn't want to know more than the outlines from me. He knows there is a you, but not who you are or any of the details needed to identify you."
After that they had sex again, then talked some more, and finally the alarm went off, signaling an hour before the end of the time husband and wife had agreed on for their mutual breaching of their marriage vows. They thought it was very civilized of them, and Xander felt like a hypocrite when he thought it was just weird. He didn't think her questions about Faith were unusual in their demand for details of her background, she was the sociologist, after all. He might have if he had known of her call to her husband after he left, or the frantic research that resulted from it.
The whole world, or at least the Scooby Gang world, looked different to him. She had that affect on him, which is why he had been visiting her before the nakedness, etc. He looked around at everyone with his altered perspective.
Willow, his oldest friend, was in love with a werewolf, or rather a guy who had turned out to be a werewolf. Arguably it was to avoid having to face up to why she was so jealous of anyone who Buffy was interested in. Willow, dear, sweet, innocent Willow, was and always had been in love, or at least in lust, with the blonde slayer.
Oz loved Willow. That really said it all, and was his only real reason for being here with them, she was here so he was here.
Cordy didn't really know who or what she was, other than the former Queen C, former girlfriend of Xander Harris, former a lot of things she was not certain she wanted to go back to. Currently supporting their efforts despite, rather than because of, her upbringing and traditional status. A confused girl in pain.
Giles was in way over his head, and arguably suffering a delayed stress reaction. As the adult responsible for a minor, he should never have allowed Faith to be shuffled off into the Sunnydale Motel. He should, at a minimum, have ensured she had enough money to live decently, surely the Council had some to spare, rather than just leave her without an income at all. What was the dark slayer doing to support herself? Why had none of the Gang bothered to find out what a pretty young girl with no marketable job skills was doing in a cheap motel room for money? She had no job, but she had a small income from, well, what exactly?
Faith, a puzzle wrapped in an enigma, wrapped either way too tight or not tight enough, depending on what analogy for craziness you used. How much, if any, of the Faith they saw was real, and how much was an act? She had turned up in Sunnydale with a 'I'm fine, just a tough slayer party animal' act that everyone STILL seemed to be buying, despite knowing she had been running from Kaikistos in blind panic when first seen.
Now he knew that she was at least lusting after, and probably in love with Buffy Summers, the elder slayer. So, she is hiding a secret identity as a Vampire Slayer, a secret fear and shame at having failed to protect her first watcher or even avenge her on her own, and a secret sexual preference, and in was in love with a woman who not only was in love with someone else, and apparently straight, but did not even like her particularly.
No, Faith didn't have any problems, did she? Just wild, fun loving Faith that no one worried about, or cared about, until she was needed. Then she was used to satisfy the need of others, and cast aside again until next time. She was being treated like a hooker; if she was actually working as one it would not even be a change of status. Which was sad, and partly his fault for not seeing it and dealing with it before now.
Buffy Summers, vampire layer. Still in love with Angel, still trying to make a relationship work, despite all the killing that resulted from it working a little too well last year. The draftee hero who kept trying to run away from the fight, only to find she had just run to a new one instead. Not a heroic personality so much as someone who has become resigned to her fate.
Wesley Wyndham Price, boy Watcher. He might be useful with some seasoning, but right now more of a hindrance than help, as should have been obvious to the Council when they chose whom to send to 'replace' Giles. Did that mean they were inept in their choice, or that they had deliberately chosen someone who would be a drag on the Scooby's in order to get them killed and end the problem they presented?
Angel, monster trying to be a man, knowing he will probably fail. The highest threat level of anyone around, in the military sense of the word. Common usage defines 'threat' in terms of intentions; a threat is someone who intends to hurt you. The military definition was the one he was using, which was about intentions, because intentions can change overnight, as they had with Angel before. Huge help or huge menace, balanced on a knife-edge, that was Angel. Angel of the high threat level.
They were doing a general research session, looking for prophecies about upcoming events. He was wondering what he should think of himself in the light of his new speculations about the others, since it was a slow evening and he wasn't looking forward to visiting the Bronze with the gang the way he usually did. He had been wondering how badly Buffy would torture him before killing him, when she found out about him lying to her about the second resouling attempt.
Not that he felt in any way guilty about it, it was necessary and, as usual, only he could see that. He felt bad about her pain, but not nearly as bad as he felt about all the people who had died because the blonde slayer had failed to dust Angelus as swiftly as he himself had Jessie. He was thinking about what that said about him and the gang when the library door opened, and the Rosenburgs walked in, looking grim and a little excited. A strange combination of looks, really.
"Ah, mom, dad, what are you doing here, I mean, hi, how are you, and, ah we were just researching, I mean, are you going to the airport and wanted to say goodbye?" Willow was babbling, they had all the demonology books on the table, after all, and she still remembered MOO and being tied to a stake by said mother.
"Mrs. Rosenburg, Mr. Rosenburg, to what do we owe the pleasure of your visit?" Rupert Giles asked, in his most cultured and educated tone. Wesley would also be useful here, between the two of them they could probably lay a convincing smoke screen over whatever the hacker's parents thought they saw.
"We came here to see Willow and Faith." Was the reply.
Ok, Xander thought, now what have I done?
"How do you know about Faith, why would you want to see her?" Oz asked, as he sniffed the air, his wolf senses trying to tell him something the human part of him was having trouble with. Then he looked at Xander, sniffing in that direction, back to Shiela Rosenburg.
"Faith, your last name is Henderson, your father's name was James and your mother was Carolyn. Both were petty criminals, until he was convicted of rape and imprisoned, where he was killed in a gang fight." Ira Rosenburg was speaking in his best law court tone, the one where he recited facts not in question to get the jury in the right frame of mind. The girl in question was humiliated, angry and hurt. Xander was very nervous, for reasons he had only learned this afternoon.
"WHAT DO YOU WANT, HOW DARE YOU MENTION THAT SCUM HERE, WHY..." The dark slayer thundered at them before breaking down. She could not run from it any more without being chased by the council, and her instincts were to run or fight, she could not see an option here. Oz, meanwhile, was going more and more into wolf mode.
"And why do you have Xander's scent all over you, and him yours?" The werewolf asked. He was partly wolfed out, the first time anyone had seen him in this state. His wolf senses had told him something his human side said would hurt his mate, and both were losing their cool factor big time.
Willow did not like Faith, it was jealousy mainly at the other girls closeness to Buffy, their sharing of something she could never be a part of. But she was a kind hearted girl beneath it all, and tried to comfort the crying, angry slayer as best she could.
"Faith, Willow is your half-sister because your parents kidnapped and raped me over a weekend while I was in Boston delivering my first important paper at a sociology conference. Oz, Alexander and I have each others scent, because we spent the afternoon having sex, as we often do." Sheila Rosenburg calmly explained, her husband holding her hand the entire time. "And how long have you been a werewolf anyway."
Xander sank into the chair, hoping the hellmouth would open up and swallow him. 'This is so not good.' He thought.
"Well boytoy, I never thought you had it in ya. Or her, for that matter." Faith joked, contemplating the fallout from Sheila Rosenburgs announcement the previous evening. Willow was angry and hurt and not certain what she should be angrier and more hurt about. "I mean, the only member of red's family you haven't had sex with is her dad. You haven't done him too, have you?"
"GOOD GOD NO, what do you think I am?"
"A guy who was cheating on Cordelia with Willow's mother while also cheating on her with Willow and on Willow with her own mother." There was a new level of respect in the dark slayers tone, Xman had hidden depths to him, in all sorts of ways.
She was quiet for a while, sitting next to the dark haired boy on the lawn in front of the school while he ate lunch alone. She understood alone, she understood no one wanting to have anything to do with you because of who you had screwed, she really did. It was the pain of having lost friends she did not understand, never having had any really. And the whole 'wanting to comfort him' thing was new, comforting a man in any way except taking him home and riding him like a wild stallion was new to her.
"I knew dad was convicted of rape, you know, 'cause I was dragged along to the trial as a way of getting sympathy from the jury." She had never spoken of it to anyone, not being a believer in the theory that talking about problems helped. Except she had mentioned it the previous night after all the yelling had stopped, as they walked back to her motel room, Xander having nowhere else to go except to his drunken parents, and no-one else to go with anymore. "It never occurred to me that it was not the first time, or that mom was involved. It shoulda though, most rapes don't get reported, and mom never thought turning me out for the girls was anything other than a business."
"Turning you out for the girls?" Xander automatically focused on Faith and her problems, forgetting his own, which was the point of her talking about them, after all. But now she had to explain, and she never had before.
"Yea, like, there's this old Elton John song called 'All the nice girls love Alice', it's from Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, most people never listen to it.
All the nice girls love Alice,
Sweet tender Alice they say,
Come over and tease me,
Come over and please me,
Wait till my Husband's away"
Faith had a sweet singing voice, disturbed at the end by the crying that stopped her getting past that verse. Xander hugged her and reassured her it was over, it was all right, and that genuinely did make her feel better.
"See, Alice is hooking for rich housewives, and she winds up dead. Don't know how big the market is, but there was a wicked number of snooty Boston bitches who wanted some street trash pussy, which is all I am after all and..."
"Don't you dare say that Faith, you are special." Xander interrupted angrily.
"Special cause I'm the slayer."
"Special because you are Faith, who is a very special and unique woman." He responded, then softened his tone to ask. "Do you know why I spend so much time with Sheila?"
"She gives a good blow job?" The slayer asked with a smile. "Because she's the only person I know who doesn't treat me like I'm worthless, not even Willow respects me, they all treat me like a burden and said as much to my face a few days ago."
"Yeah, that was quite a speech Mrs. R gave." If Willow had been angry with Xander and her mother, said mother was furious with the Scooby gang. There was a long tirade about 'inconsiderate ingrates passing themselves off as friends', and how 'none of you care enough to notice the first class mind hidden behind the inferiority complex and clown mask'. "Do you really do your parents taxes and help Mr. and Mrs. R with theirs?"
"Well why not, it's simple enough if you have someone to do the math, I was tested once and I have a real problem with math and spatial relationships." His parents could hardly be expected to do the things themselves, after all, that would involve being sober and in the house at the same time, obvious impossibilities.
"Xander, Albert Einstein had trouble filling out the tax forms, professional accountants mess it up all the time. We have the worlds most complicated tax system."
"I've been doing it since I was 10, and if I can do it anyone can. The Rosenburgs are harder than dad's because she's a company, and then there's the trust funds and investments and the partnership arrangements with Ira but it's no big deal." And he really didn't see what the difficulty was, like when Mission Impossible came out and people complained about not understanding the plot. He had thought it was very simple and straightforward.
"Boytoy, we really have to do something about your ego. Like, we have to get you one."
"Charity begins at home Faith, you have more to be egotistical about than I do." And the two friends talked until lunch ended.
Willow Rosenburg was not totally sure whom she should be angriest with. Her mother had been committing the statutory rape of her best friend, knowing full well that she had been in love with him for years. Ok, so she was with Oz and had rejected a chance to be with Xander, and had known Sheila was having a guy in her class because, as part of an 'enlightened family' her mother had talked about it to her quite freely. But damnit, that was logical and reasonable and she was too ANGRY to let logic and reasonableness get in the way.
It hadn't mattered to her who her mother was fucking as long as it was not a threat to the marriage and not Xander. Her parents had talked at the dinner table about their arrangement, on those occasions when they were at home to do that, which was not all that often really. It was the only thing they did talk about except work, always had been, it was so incredibly boring, how Xander had sat through all those talks about Sociological theory, and Torts and socio-economic interactions and 'Paragraph 12 Subsection 17a of the California company registration act specifically states that...'
He had sat through it and responded with questions and gotten smiles and long complicated answers he sometimes had counter questions to and sometimes just quietly listened to. She had just let it all flow over her with whatever grace she could manage, bored to tears and embarrassed that Xander, in his desperation to avoid spending the night at home had actually pretended to understand all that. And her parents inability to see that, and their playing along with his silly questions for that matter had been worse.
"But he did understand, and they weren't silly questions, were they?" She muttered to herself.
"Did you say something Miss Rosenburg?" Wesley asked. He was the least affected by the whole incident, not having been here long enough to be part of it all. Watching the people who were so dismissive of him taken down a peg or two was also something he was not unhappy about, though he did not let it show on his face.
"I was just thinking about what my mother said, and Xander. He stayed over at our place an awful lot when we were children you know."
"And began the formation of his somewhat unconventional bond with your parents." Parents plural, because Ira did not seem in the least disturbed by his wife sleeping with the boy. "Interesting to see an intellectual bond becoming sexual rather than the other way around, rather a reversal of the norm, but then this is the hellmouth after all."
"Intellectual, now there's a word I never thought I'd hear spoken about loserboy." Cordelia said.
"And we have an understatement of the year award winner folks, for the use of the term 'unconventional bond' by the junior watcher. Buffy added quickly, as much to cut off Cordelia from another rant as anything else. "Cordelia, I think you should hold off on the shouting from now on."
"And why is that, miss dressed by the Salvation Army?"
"Because if you don't you'll give yourself a heart attack, and a death by natural causes would be unique in Sunnydale history and get investigated, made an X-File even."
"First off those two won't be back, so stop being so paranoid." The former Queen C responded. Marcy Ross, the invisible girl, had been taken by fake FBI agents, leading to a pair of real FBI agents arriving to investigate. Talk about the odd couple. "Second, no one has heart attacks anymore, it's just so 5 minutes ago."
"So, oh queen of the one Starbucks town, what do they die of."
"Being eaten by Mayor Wilkins when he ascends to be a 60 foot long demon." Giles loudly said from the doorway of his office. Despite the evenings events Faith and Buffy had patrolled that night and been found by deputy mayor Finch, who had an interesting story to tell. The librarian sincerely hoped it would be enough of a distraction to get everyone's mind off the previous evenings revelations. "Which is what he plans to do, is in fact what he founded the town 100 years ago with the intention of doing."
"We will need the whole team in on this, will we not Mr. Giles?" Price asked in his best 'this is a rhetorical question' tone.
He had not survived his fathers manipulative condescension without learning how to take advantage of a change in fortune, and this was one. While the slayerettes went against everything he had been trained to believe in, they were here and had to be dealt with. The recent collapse of the group gave him an opportunity to ingratiate himself by bringing them together again. Attempting to eliminate the non-slayer element had failed, and he was not Quentin Travers, he could see that effectiveness was more important than tradition. Hopefully he would end up with his rightful place in the leadership out of it, also.
"Where did the skank go with slutboy?" The sole Chase heir asked bitterly.
"Out on the front lawn." Willow added. "And hey, that skank is my sister."
"Making you a family that share your toys, right? Or are you the only female in the family he hasn't slept with?"
"THAT'S ENOUGH!" Giles shouted, clearly enough to be heard in the halls and disturb any students who were not already deeply disturbed simply by virtue of being Sunnydale students. "Wesley is right, we need the whole group together AS A TEAM, and the petty bickering will get us all killed. Buffy, please go outside and as politely as possible, bring Faith and Xander into the library." "Gman, just passing by and heard the insults, thought we'd save Bufficus the trip and come in on our own." Xander Harris had a forgiving nature, but it had its limits and he had officially reached them. "So, we're skank and slutboy are we, kinda noticed no-one actually disagreed with those names?"
"Maybe we should get costumes made up, do the whole superhero thing, with capes and a searchlight signal?" Faith added in her most cheerful voice.
"Xander I'm sorry, I shouldn't have behaved like that it's just, it came on so sudden." Willow was sitting next to Oz, as usual, who had said nothing and made no change of expression, as usual. She was struggling for appropriate words, and not finding them.
"Xander, Faith, I never looked past the image you present to see if it was real, and, I knew mom had a lover my age and never cared, if I thought it was wrong I should have objected when it started, not just when I found out it was you, I just, I never questioned it, you were just my funny Xander, and it never occurred to me that you might be more than that, might be smart Xander that my mother and sister thought sexy and bedable."
"Was all that one breath, because, wow, I'm impressed." Cordelia was still in total bitch mode. It would take more than an overnight cooling off period before she calmed down.
"Faith, you're my sister, and I never gave you a chance, can we try to be friends?"
"Sure thing red, given that your old's want me to move in with you and all it would get wicked nasty if we're not." For that matter there had been no discussion of whether the Xander and Sheila are bedmates thing was over or not. Not that Faith cared particularly, she was no relation to the older woman, after all, and so even a threesome wasn't out of the question. Willow would get steamed about it though, well, she would just have to see what came up, wouldn't she?
"Ladies and gentlemen, it seems, despite my initial skepticism, that the demon Balthazar is in town with his minions, and must be removed as expeditiously as possible." Wesley said. "Today I did a bit of research and have found his base of operations. I feel we should make haste to dispatch him and his fellows."
"Well, lets go kill things." Buffy said.
Faith was being shown around the Rosenburgs house by the proud owners, Xander and Willow following behind. The red head noticed how much interest was being shown in their antique collection, her mother currently handling some figurines. They looked old, she had never paid any interest really, but at least mom wasn't in bed with Xander. Faith was handling one of the statuettes with interest, looking at it from various angles, including the bottom.
"Its fake." She pronounced decisively. The room fell silent as everyone looked at her. "See the base, on the originals there is a tiny pinhole to allow air out during cooling, this is much bigger, so it was mass produced."
"We paid $1700.00 for it." Sheila Rosenburg said, looking more stunned then the rest. It had been her money, after all.
"Well its worth about $50.00." Faith suddenly sounded like a professional dealing with amateurs, more so then she ever did when fighting vampires. "I know a good appraiser who can double check for you, and get the cops onto whoever cheated you for that matter. I have his card here somewhere."
"Faith, how did you learn about antiques?" Willow asked eventually, as her mother examined the black and gold card in her hand. The dark slayer suddenly looked nervous, finally having to carry through with a decision she had made. She would be honest about her past with her new family.
"It's a geisha thing." She said, shifting her focus from the eyes of one to the other as she spoke. "The difference between a $50 whore and an expensive professional who gets $2000 a night is how intelligent a conversation you can give, mainly. I mean, no one screws well enough to justify that kind of price difference."
Seeing that Xander was the only one following the conversation said something to Faith, actually several things. He had kept his mouth shut about what he had learned about her, which should not have been surprising after being able to keep his involvement with Mrs. R unknown to her own daughter. Second, the other two had either not suspected her previous employment or not expected her to talk about it. Well, in for a penny in for a pound, as her business partner said.
"See, Boston has a lot of rich people from old money in houses from way back. So the client I would expect me to be in awe of the place and all the old stuff in it, and if I was they would usually show the place off before, after, hell sometimes during all the fucking."
Willow was looking sympathetic, Xander was holding her hand, and Sheila Rosenburg was in her professional element. Studying these sorts of social interactions is what sociologists do, after all, and she had interviewed prostitutes in the Philippines as part of her work for a development agency. Faith was cynical and emotionally scarred, but nobody's fool, and therefore was playing to the older woman as the decisive element, if she went along none of the others would be a problem. So be a nice case study for the professor lady Faith, tell it like a documentary account and everything should be cool.
"And learning about antiques made your services more valuable to the men who paid for you?" The academic asked.
"Women, my clients were all women, and yeah, the money mom was raking in was major. Not that I saw any of it, she spent it all up her arm." The slayer was back in her Boston mentality for the moment, Mrs. R was exactly the kind of woman she had spread her legs for in those days, after all. "A child prostitute who was both gutter trash AND able to recognize Louis the XIV furniture and discuss its restoration as well? Money, a lot of money, cause either was a turn on and knowing when to shift from one to the other kept mom stoned enough to not beat the shit out of me very often."
Both the Rosenburg women, 'isn't that the other Rosenburg women now, Faith my girl?' were thrown, mainly by the older woman client/young girl prostitute thing if experience was any guide, most people were unaware that sort of thing went on. In truth it was probably only a tiny part of the market, but it had been her part of the market. Time for a change of subject.
"So anyway that's how I learned about antiques, which is how I make a living these days."
"You're and antique dealer, Faith the antique dealer?" Willow asked, trying to get a grip on the new reality.
"Too young and shiftless to be a proper dealer, but I find stuff and sell it, estate auctions, garage sales, and when old people die their things are sometimes given to charity so them too, all good places to find unnoticed treasures at low prices. Its not like I don't have all day to devote to it, after all."
The mayor was discussing business with Mr. Trick when the bomb went off. He was indestructible, but his vampire assistant was not, nor were the artifacts and records he used regularly to keep his deals with demons recorded, do dark ceremonies, etc. With less than 100 days to his ascension he was in big trouble. Probably not disastrous trouble, not yet.
The anonymous reports filed with the FBI, the IRS, and the Governor of California were actually more of a problem, since they started investigations he had no way of stopping into things that could not stand up under investigation. Or for that matter, lie flat on the table under investigation. Things like there never having been an election for the Mayorship AT ALL, his having the identity of a man born in the 19th Century, the town having a per capita death rate of Stalingrad during the battle, things like that.
Federal agencies were now trying to find out who this man was, really, how he came to have power, and had he done his taxes properly or not. The demonic Ward Clever was suddenly finding out he was a big frog only in his very small pond.
The Scooby's had been more than a little angry at Harris the younger for blowing up the Mayors office without even bothering to consult them. Bringing in the Feds was unheard of 'we have to keep this from the public' being the traditional line that kept being trotted out.
"We have to protect the public, if that means getting some value from out tax dollars then so be it." Personally he thought the sight of the august mayor being led away in handcuffs for 'electoral irregularities' i.e. there hadn't been any elections, was worth the trouble and talking to Spooky and the Ice Queen again. Willow and Oz were excited about being introduced to the Lone Gunmen though, even if it was by email.
"So, Xander, what are you planning to do now?" They were, as was habit, lying on the bed rather than in it. Their friendship had developed rapidly due to his outcast status, and even now, with the Cordelia gone to LA and Willow having cooled down a fair bit it was still not back to the old days. "Still planning on that cross America trip?"
"Planning on learning the use of a wood lathe actually." With his 'involvement' with the elder Rosenburg woman public he was more willing to talk about her advice to him with others, in particular the simple fact that while his academic scores were low, he had a real gift at making things with his hands, and no mean businessman. He had been helping the dark slayer turn her antique sales into a proper business, with Wesley the licensed dealer for the moment, given her age. "I got the idea from all the fake antiques actually."
"What, you want to do fakes?" She didn't believe he would, he just wasn't the living by fraud type.
"No, but there's definitely a market for high quality hand made wood furniture, and with the restoration business as well I don't see why we can't make a go of it."
"We?" She asked.
"I handle the business end of things for you anyway, I was thinking of a partnership." He was running a finger around her left nipple as he talked, which was distracting her. "On one condition."
"Name it."
"Teach me to fight."
"Deal."
"So, what's Mrs. R like in bed, really?"
"Wonderful, very different from you of course." There had been no serious talk of a threesome, Willow was still not really over the shock of learning about the twosome, finding her sister in bed with her mother would drive her totally over the top. Even given that there was no biological connection, it was a no go, especially with Xander/Faith becoming more a romantic and less a 'friends who fuck like weasels' sort of thing.
"So, what do you think our chances are with B now that Fang is out of the way?" The slayer asked. She was definitely having romantic feeling towards the man in her bed, and thought sharing would bring them together but competing for the blonde would be a disaster.
"Better than they were." He kissed her again. "We really should go slow, of course, but how about we start with just inviting her out socially, she really missed Deadboy, you know."
"Slow and steady?" It wasn't like it would be a surprise, Faith was 'out' as a bisexual for a while now, and she had jokingly flirted with the elder slayer for a while without rejection. Buffy seemed slightly flattered, if anything.
"Your whole scream and leap on them thing will just frighten her off, trust me." Serious seduction, Faith style, being fast and obvious for the most part.
"Well, we'll see." Her hands now running over his chest. "Should we try one on one with her and then suggest the real thing or what."
"I lean towards telling the truth from the outset, but lets play it by ear." Xander said, while nibbling Faith's. "Why don't we go to the beach together tomorrow, she needs to work on her tan anyway?"
"Call her now, you should finish talking to her before I finish you." She reached for the phone as he started working his way down the side of her neck.
"If not?" Back to kissing and licking he went.
"She finds out what she's missing."
Buffy, it turned out, wanted to talk to someone about her problems, and eventually did find out what she had missed out by rejecting Xander in favor of the souled vampire. She accepted the invitation immediately after that.
Xander Harris is exhausted, aching in muscles he didn't even know he had, and feeling satisfied with his entire life. It is a cliché that reality is often as good as fantasy, and finally getting that threesome with Buffy and Faith made a believer out of him. The reality was not 'as good' as the fantasy.
It was so much better he is still having trouble believing it happened. The two slayers are, after all, superhuman; with greater strength, flexibility and stamina than normal humans, and MY GOD didn't they prove it tonight. Faith had made sure she and Buffy went first, and he realizes now it was because she knew how much she has been holding back in sex with him. Buffy might have fucked him to death if they had gone first, her only experience being with a vampire who could take her going full on without being damaged. Well, ok, he would have survived that ride, but as a mere mortal he would have been in no shape to do anything useful with Faith afterward.
Faith is feeling triumphant, she has achieved an ambition and it was sensational. Elizabeth Anne 'Buffy' Summers is every bit as good in bed as had been hoped, Xander rose to the occasion - several times - rather than wilt under pressure, and she had fun while coordinating it all. She had wanted Buffy from the moment she saw her, without any real hope of ever having her, and now she was in the extra large bed Xander built for them her on the right, Xander on the left, and the elder slayer between them. Maximum coolness.
Buffy is snoring. This is the first time she has been totally relaxed in longer than she could remember, and she just flaked out.
The red head is cuddled up to Tara, having come out, to herself most importantly, far sooner than in alternate realities where her mother had not dropped the 'I'm sleeping with Xander' bombshell. There was a lot of painful reevaluation after that for her, in particular about why she had started obsessing about the blonde slayer at the expense of her oldest friend. There was so much she had totally failed to notice, about Xander, her family, and in particular why she was all jealous rage over Faith.
"Tara, I want to introduce you to my friends, I want to say to them 'this is the woman I love' I'll understand if you don't want to come out, especially to people you don't really know, but you mean so much to me and it would really be wonderful and I know they'll love you too so please say yes."
One of the things the larger Wicca loves about her girlfriend was the ability to say things like that in one breath. There are so many things to love about the more powerful witch it is hard to remember them all, but that is one of them. She kissed the red head gently, smiles at her, and lies back on her side of the bed.
"Yes." No stammer there, her better half relaxes her and it does not happen between the two of them. Yes, she will meet the Scooby gang, and yes, she will introduce the red head to the religious side of Wicca. The woman she loves has been taught the power side, but not the control side, apparently someone had the silly idea that the two are mutually exclusive. There is danger here, power corrupts, and Willow is potentially very powerful. She must be disciplined, and not just with the fur lined handcuffs and riding crop her mother gave her just before she died either.
Although that will definitely be a part of it. Girls just wanna have fun, as a great philosopher once said.
The elder Summers really did not know quite what to make of her involvement with her daughter's watcher. Ok, yes, he was good in bed, and ok, he was amazingly supportive of her and all that. When, last year, the whole evil fighting group was in chaos she was the only adult he could talk to about it all, and since they were already lovers - god bless that cursed chocolate - it was simpler than it might have been.
Giles had felt, with justification, that for someone with the job title 'Watcher' he had missed noticing an awful lot. The thing with Mrs. Rosenburg was forgivable; it was after all none of his business as long as all parties were happy with the arrangement. But allowing a situation to develop where the boy was being criticized for lack of fighting ability, when he could so easily have supplied the training was inexcusable. Or better yet he might have noticed Xander's organizing ability and encouraged him down that path, thereby minimizing the risk to him and obtaining a much-needed skill for the group.
Instead he had missed it all, and allowed a situation to develop that had damaged the slayer's chances of surviving and protecting the world. And the whole 'let Faith rot out there in the motel' thing, that could have gone very badly. It was only Xander's temporary exile that had given the Boston slayer someone to hold on to, some real emotional link to the struggle. It had all gone right by him without noticing, and then hit him head on like a battering ram.
And now he slept next to his slayer's mother, who was now a bit wealthier than she had been thanks to the management skills of one Alexander Lavelle Harris. She wondered about the boy who had been making her friend Sheila so happy for over a year now, then added Faith, and finally dearest Buffy. Who was part time manager for two businesses as well as part time student in Business at UCS.
Who had been well on his way to the sidelines labeled a useless burden. Enough of this though, she had work to wake up to tomorrow, and someone warm in her bed to sleep with. She had never enjoyed sleeping alone, the actual sleeping part being harder for her than when she had someone there. There had been her husband, of course, a guy or two before and after him, an offer from Sheila she had politely turned down, and now Giles. It was definitely a pattern.
Joyce Summers had accepted a reality about herself a long time back. She enjoyed sex, and really hated sleeping alone, let alone waking up alone. She had heard plenty of her feminist friends attack the idea of 'needing a man', and thought at least some of them missed the point. She didn't need Xander's help to run her business, but it was nice and why not accept it. She didn't need Giles in her bed, for orgasms or sleep, but for her anyway, a man in the bed beat a vibrator on the nightstand every time.
They were warmer to sleep with for one thing.
Wesley Wyndham Price fired the crossbow and dusted the vamp threatening Cordelia. Doyle was with Angel on the other side of the room, or rather at a 90-degree angle to him working down the room. The watcher himself was perched under a skylight, sniping at anything that threatened his companions. The former Queen C was releasing the intended sacrifices, and mainly being ignored, the now dusted vamp being an exception.
Sane, reasonable people were in bed at this time of night, but sane, reasonable people do not hunt things that go bump in the night teamed up with vampires and demons and Cordelia's. Vampires and demons maybe, but Cordelia? Still, they need a fourth and they were desperate.
The two non-humans in the team were attempting to disrupt things at least as much as they were trying to kill demons. They had entered the building from the ceremonial area end, thus saving the potential victims and killing the demonic priest first. After that it was just running up the body count, Angel with an axe, Doyle a sword, and Price with the crossbow and a pair of pump action twelve gauges.
The Englishman was enjoying himself hugely. While still Faith's watcher he was also on something of a roving assignment, since Giles and Xander could handle day to day matters in Sunnydale and he had skills that were useful to others. First and foremost Angel lacked a proper researcher, and in this line of work that was suicidally dangerous. Secondly he was better with ranged weapons than anyone else they knew, thus his current perch. It was good to be useful.
Reilly Fin was finishing up the paperwork after another very long day. When Professor Walsh was relieved, along with the pro Walsh faction, he was suddenly left as senior officer. Amazing what a single surprise inspection can accomplish really, and the former head of the operation really should have expected it. After all, they had files on Xander Harris, they KNEW he had taken down the Mayor the same way.
And if a Professor of psychology with access to those files couldn't predict the result of imprisoning Oz with the intent of experimenting on him, then trying to kill Buffy and Faith, then she was clearly too incompetent to be in a position of authority anyway. Xander's most obvious trait was his willingness to do anything to protect his friends. Anything at all. What was Walsh thinking?
He was tired and even the bad coffee was not keeping him from nodding off and his mind was wandering. The inspection had found the ADAM project, and the whole pack of cards had fallen apart from there. She might have lied her way out of the accusation made so far, it was her word against theirs at that point. But ADAM was a private venture funded by fraud, and then the inspection had stopped being a formality. The MP's were called in and Maggie had been taken away in handcuffs.
"Walsh, did you always have delusions of grandeur or did your petty Stalin tendencies just take over recently?" Had been one of General Jackson's more polite comments. Like a good power crazed megalomaniac she had kept neat files on everything, including documentation of her orders concerning Oz, Faith, and Buffy. "For example, what made you think that ordering the murder of two United States citizens who are crucial to the security of the WHOLE WORLD was within your rights? Or ordering the secret Genetic Modification of your troops, or stealing money from other areas to fund that monster downstairs?"
"The slayers were undisciplined and a threat to the project, my orders were being questioned and my authority undermined."
"Murder is illegal Walsh, look it up if you don't believe me. As to the slayers, they're civilians, they're supposed to be undisciplined, and since you are a civilian too what gives you the right to order soldiers to do anything? Does the phrase 'chain of command' mean anything to you? As a civilian employee of the Defense Department you aren't in the chain of command at all, you couldn't legally ORDER my driver to take you to the supermarket."
That had been a month - or was it more, he was exhausted and not thinking clearly - and he was the newly promoted head of the project. With the chaos involved in the scandal no one was sent to take over and he was keeping it together anyway. He had definite ideas of how to proceed from here, including bringing the Watchers on side for the irreplaceable intelligence information their records provided. Now if he could just persuade the Scooby's to accept their help, and in turn provide it to the weapons and tactics development arm...
The farm boy drifted off to sleep in his chair thinking about what stopping the mutual sniping and recriminations between Initiative and Scooby's might produce.
The demon's head exploded in a green spray and Xander moved to the next target. It was the leader and he wanted a visible and spectacular end to it to scare the others. Reilly had arranged sniper training from the Marines, which inevitably emphasised taking down the leaders first. That is what nearly 100 years of western doctrine emphasises, kill the organization and an army becomes just a bunch of guys in baggy clothes with rifles. The next demon to start taking charge took a round in the chest and went down like a bag of wet cement.
It was a standard crossfire, in an L shape with the manoeuvre elements - Buffy, Faith, and two Initiative squads assigned to them - at the long side, with Price, Xander and a Marine scout/sniper team on the short side. Wesley, as the more experienced sniper, had the binoculars and was acting as the spotter for Harris, since the high-powered telescopic sight on the rifle gave too narrow a view to detect targets. The hill they were on had a good view of the killing ground that this patch of desert had become.
"Are we having fun yet?" Faith's squad leader, a sergeant named Billy Bob, asked. A poor white guy from the south, like a disproportionate number of those in the combat elements of the US armed forces, he regarded this as an opportunity to do gods work. A religious man from Plains Georgia, he found the whole situation both unsettling and reassuring.
Reassuring because he was here killing demons from hell in the company of two of gods Chosen, Faith and Buffy. Unsettling because neither girl was someone his preacher would have approved of, yet they had been selected above all others for this task by a higher power. Given that God presumably knew what He was doing, it meant Billy Bob's preacher didn't, also unsettling.
"Five by Five." Faith said, a phrase that got odd looks from the Initiative troopers, since they had been trained in basic radio procedure and actually knew what it meant. It refers to the quality of radio reception, meaning loud and clear, as opposed to weak and clear, or loud and lots of static, etc. She clarified herself. "Better when I can get in amongst it, but I'm fine, yeah."
Faith occasionally found it jarring to realise she and Buffy were religious icons. She had been casually using the term 'the Chosen two,' enjoying being special, without quite realising what it would mean to someone who grew up in a house with the sign 'God is the head of our house' over the door. Which corporal Rodriguez had done, for example. His brother was the Catholic priest who had blessed them, their weapons, holy water.
The cliché'there are no atheists in fox holes' became a clichéfor a reason, after all.
They were east of Sunnydale dealing with an attempt to raise a major demon. If they failed it would be in town within an hour, probably faster than that, and could need an air strike to deal with. Which was pre-arranged, they were here to test the new ammunition in a setting where failure would not mean the end of the world. Their line of retreat was pre-selected and hummvee's were waiting, as was a flight of A10's with cluster bombs and anti-tank missiles.
"If it comes apart, extract the AO and let the air force handle it." Had been the orders from Reilly, and they had had enough combined operations by now that Buffy, in particular, no longer automatically did the opposite out of reflex.
The ammunition was working fine, a new armour piercing incendiary round, available only in 7.62mm since the standard 5.56mm for the M16 simply did not have the punch needed against many common demons. Since rifles in 7.62 NATO, a.k.a 308 Winchester, had not been standard issue in nearly forty years the troopers had needed almost as much re-training as the slayers.
The demons were reacting as predicted, charging at the humans rather than trying to escape the slaughter. The noise was incredible to the Scooby's, who still had little experience with firearms let alone the sound of two-dozen at rapid fire. Some demons struggled on with arms missing, with other pieces of themselves missing, but not past the second hit. They were slipping and falling on the muck beneath them now, muck made up of blood soaked ground mixed with the internal organs of gut shot casualties, etc.
"At em and up em." The dark slayer yelled as she stepped up into the path of two demons and a vampire that had reached the firing line. She was sweeping a battle-axe at them, cleaving arms, legs, and heads as more took the place of the fallen. The firing died off for a second as the rest of her squad stepped up to the fight, firing in bursts now with the enemy this close. Rawling gutted a Feyoral demon that was literally touching the end of the gun barrel as he fired.
Then it was over, and the silence was partly real and partly her hearing taking time to readjust. There was a carpet of demon corpses, bits of demon corpses, and generalised blood and guts over the area. Given that it was pitch black and they were wearing NVG gear, they had to take it on faith that the green blood they were seeing actually was green under normal conditions. Slowly the two squads, each with an attached slayer, moved forward in a skirmish line. Occasionally a shot rang out as someone made sure a dead demon was actually dead. Only the occasional terse voice on the radio head sets punctuated the still night.
Breakfast was crowded, with Faith, Xander, Buffy, Giles, Joyce Willow and Tara all present. The Wiccan's had come over from their dorm room at University, the rest had spent the night at the house. Joyce was looking at the trio across the table with a determined expression before speaking.
"What exactly is going on with you three? I mean emotionally, because I care about my little girls feelings and I want to know what she means to you two other than someone to share your bed." The elder Summers was not mad with joy at the idea of her daughter 'being with' another woman, and the threesome thing coming right after the loss of her first love made her suspicious.
"I've loved B from the instant I saw her. I never wanted anyone that way before or since." Faith said calmly holding the blonde's hand as she did so. "And Xander?" The older woman asked.
"He's my friend, my partner, and I love him too. I love them differently, but I do love both." The dark slayer said, watching the faces of the others as she did so. Seeing a need to clarify something, she added. "Xander was a lover, then a friend, and I now love him too, but the friendship is the crucial thing with xman."
"Why?" Giles asked quietly. He had a fair idea of the answer already, but wanted it said by someone else for Joyce's benefit.
"Because being Xander Harris's friend means more than being the love of most people's lives." Willow announced. "He's been my friend since for 13 years, even when I didn't do much to deserve it, when most people would have abandoned an ungrateful person like me. He'd trade his life for mine without thinking about it."
"Mom, Xander saved my life on the second day of school, and that time I died he brought me back, and there's other stuff too." Buffy was holding both her lover's hands now. "Mom, I honestly don't know where this is going but I'm not being pushed into anything I don't want to be a part of. Be happy for me mom, I haven't questioned you and Giles being together."
Seeing the look of amazement at that comment she looked contrite and added.
"Much, recently." She looked up from the table top and finished. "Ok, so I threatened to rip his arms out if he hurt you, I really do want it to work with you ya know."
"Is it b, b, b, because their both girls?" Tara stammered out. She was holding her girlfriends hand, they were openly a couple to everyone here, after all. Acceptance of her sexuality was important to the shy girl. "Because if that's the problem than we have to l, l, l, leave now."
"I don't mean it that way." Joyce said hastily. She was the only heterosexual female that her daughter dealt with on a routine basis, making her a member of a sexual minority group and it was throwing her more than a little. "I'm not used to this ok, and I'm having a hard time coping with it all. I've gone from the perfect family to having my daughter in a mental institution because she's talking about fighting vampires."
They were listening carefully, not having heard this side of things before.
"Buffy is released, but still gets into fights, my marriage falls apart, and she burns down the high school gym. So we move to beautiful Sunnydale for a quiet life, and things are fine for a while." Xander finished eating and refilled everyone's coffee from the 8 cup coffee maker in the kitchen while she spoke, removing the excuse to stop to handle those things. "Everything seemed fine for a while, a little strange but fine, then suddenly my little girl is accused of murder, announces she's a vampire slayer, proves she is by killing one in front of me, and I throw her out into the street when she decides saving the world is more important than talking to me."
Breakfast was down to coffee and toasted fruit bread with jelly, laid out by the former zeppo with smooth efficiency. He had read a lot of science fiction as a kid, particularly Heinlien, and, as his skills became apparent and his confidence improved, remembered a bit from one of his books about what a human being should be able to do.
...Plan an invasion, change a diaper, butcher a hog, write a love sonnet, cook a tasty meal... It eventually finished with the pronouncement Specialisation is for Insects. It sounded good to him and he was working on his skill list. Right now he was ensuring that the main event, Joyce Summers coming clean with her issues, was not stopped by little things like clearing away the dishes. He was a manager, after all, managing things smoothly ought to be in the job description.
"I nearly died that summer, how could I have thrown my daughter out for being a responsible human being, how could I have doubted her innocence of murder charges, how could I have missed all the clues that something massive was being hidden from me all that time?" Giles was hugging her and the other were listening rather than wondering about their own place in things. "Finally she comes home, my house is invaded by zombies, her undead boyfriend returns from hell, and I get turned into a 16 year old by chocolate and have sex on the bonnet of a police car while wearing handcuffs and being cheered on by a crowd from Kmart."
"Tara, no, I am not particularly angry or upset at Buffy for being gay, or bisexual or whatever. Yes, it feels weird to be alternative lifestyle example of the group but I will deal with that." The gallery owner sipped her drink before finishing. "Buffy sleeping with a girl would be the most conservative thing she has done in the last couple of years. Faith has a pulse and Xander is well on his way to being a self made millionaire."
"Xander has a pulse." Willow added automatically.
"How terribly conservative of you dear, I mean really, BOTH of them are alive, how quaint." Tara added, in a terrible attempt at a snobby east coast accent, as she saw the Blonde slayer smile.
"And one of you should really try to find someone for that nice Mr Finn, he must be lonely working all those hours and he is improving all your chances of staying alive." Mrs. Summers was back to mothering mode again.
"There's a few girls in my accounting class who might be interested, let me work on it." Xander said, sitting down next to Buffy. As usual the elder slayer had positioned herself between her lovers, she seemed to prefer it that way.
"He's so boring." Buffy said plaintively.
"A boring man who is determined to make fighting things that go bump in the night optional for slayers rather than an inevitable death sentence. I've talked to him about it, he keeps saying 'slayers are drafted and the draft is slavery, if they want to volunteer well that's different.' He really is determined about this."
"Maybe we should work on this 'a girl for cornfed' after all." The blonde slayer commented.
Fox Mulder was backed into a corner. Actually, he was backed into a corner, in a dark alley, by an alien bounty hunter - the alien bounty hunter? As shape shifters he had no way to tell if there was one or thousands - and some people infected by the black oil. The infected were following orders; the bounty hunter brought them because they were what the FBI agent had found.
A database listing all the alien hybrids, places they were created, unwilling egg donor 'mothers', as well as the black oil storage sites and names and addresses of the infected the were in the community. This was big, even if he had no way of actually making use of it, being just one agent in a small California town that his bosses never believed.
He was thinking about what his obituary would say when another group of people entered the alley. They were moving fast towards the other aliens, and he was about to try to warn them off - how exactly? Shout 'halt FBI, you have to leave so this group of mutated humans and an alien can kill me quietly' - when their faces changed, deformed and with funny eyes. They walked right past him and attacked. He watched the groups fight, cursing the loss of his cell phone to call Scully for help. Five of the fanged ones had the bounty hunter against the wall, and were gnawing on his neck.
"Guys, Guys, ya gotta taste this, man this is EXCELLENT!" One of the unknowns shouted, green blood dripping off his fangs. The green gas the aliens gave off when wounded, which was both highly acidic and poisonous to humans, drifted into his face, and he inhaled with deep satisfaction, like a connoisseur sniffing a fine wine. "Oh man, I feel like I'm tripping man."
"No, no Dave you should taste one of these, whatever they are I HAVE to get more of them." One of the ones draining a black oil victim responded. There followed a swapping of taste treats, as Mulder tried to slip past the bizarre scene and leave. His curiosity was as strong as ever, but anything that regarded the previously well nigh invincible bounty hunters simply as snack food was probably best avoided. Spooky Mulder really did have an instinct of self-preservation, even if it was very poorly developed.
"Hey, human, what are these things and where can we find more of em." One of what were now clearly vampires asked him, not hostile in any way, just curious.
"Ah, well, the green blooded one is an Alien assassin and the other are humans infected with and alien virus that take over the host and eventually mutates it into another alien." Why not tell them, he was planning on telling the world anyway?
The group looked at him for a moment, clearly not as surprised as an equal number of normal people would be.
"And now for the part where you tell us where we can get more of them." The original speaker continued in his most commanding tone. "And does this mean we have to deal with ANOTHER bunch of newcomers muscling in on our action? Because it seems like every week MORE demons arrive from some hell dimension or other, and the competition is getting ridiculous."
"Does one of you have a computer, because I have it all on CD-ROM?" And with that the face of the vampire and alien invasion problems changed forever.
Slayer Central, AKA the back office of ZeppoCo, Xander Harris's office's
Mulder was sitting in with the group, as the guest of honor. He was the unpaid East Coast representative of Angel Investigations, after all, and therefore fully briefed on what was going on in town. He was telling the Scooby's what had happened because they needed to know, and because he didn't quite know what else to do. He had a container of the black oil on the tabletop, one of four he had originally taken for examination by his partner.
Vampires had stolen and drank the other containers, responding by looking happy, satisfied, and seriously stoned. The agent describe it's effect on them was an odd combination of gourmet meal and 'Moroccan Red' or maybe 'Lebanese Blonde' hashish.
"Moroccan Red?" Giles inquired. "Dear me that is the good stuff then, I can certainly see why they are so obsessed with it."
"Call me old fashioned Rupert but I would have thought Buddha sticks were the premium material." Joyce countered.
"Far too harsh for the price." Mulder responded.
"Not if you use a bong filled with a reasonable port instead of water, then you get the..." The elder Summers was cut off suddenly Xander.
"THE MONTHLY MEETING OF OLD DOPERS ANNONYMOUS IS NEXT WEEK PEOPLE." Having been the weirdo's of the high school they were occasionally surprised by what straight arrows they actually were as a group. Then something like this happened and it hit them again. Best to forget the embarrassment of learning about Joyce's 'toy collection' one night. Faith had turned up in and with some things that were kinky even for her, he asked 'where did you get those' and she replied 'I borrowed them', then he asked 'who from, Madam Lash?' and Faith said... Yes, let's forget about that, please.
"Anyway I burned them copies of the disks, and gave them printouts everything in California. Then I sent it all to the Lone Gunmen, its all available on their web site, with a summary in this months edition."
And that was one less problem in the world to worry about. With most of the Consortium, the organization that was collaborating with the aliens, dead, and the survivors being hunted by a different group of aliens opposed to the whole scheme, open season had been declared on the off-planet faction of the whole mess.
ZeppoCo was an umbrella organization that handled Xander's management firm. He was handling Faith's Antiques, Joyce's art gallery, Lorne's' karioke bar, and was contracting out as well. He had bookkeepers who did small and medium businesses, a tax preparation company, and essentially anything else you might want available on sub-contract for clients. He was also doing business plans for some of the students he was doing his Bachelor of Business at UCS part time with.
He was very glad of the late nights spent vampire hunting over the years; it prepared him for his current workload. A great deal of the hours were actually put in by sub-contractors, of course, but coordinating it all was really closer to full time than part time hours.
Still, the look on his parents faces when he showed them his bank balance, and then disowned them, was more than worth it.
Lorimand's cave, later that week.
They were searching for anything of intelligence value before blowing up the cave and sealing the entrance. The demon corpses left from the battle were mainly dissolving, though a few remained to make a slight tripping hazard. Then Faith noticed what private Min was handling so casually, and her heart nearly stopped.
"Min, please put that down very carefully on a nice flat, solid, surface." The tone in her voice had the whole squad alert this being a major demon's lair full of objects used for dark magic, after all. He put it down and backed away, as the dark slayer walked over and then carefully inspected the find.
"What is it, a charm?"
"Its Etruscan."
"What's an Etruscan, some kind of demon?"
"The Etruscans were a major Italian power when Rome was just an unimportant town full of hicks." Faith explained, she really shouldn't have gotten everyone so excited. Looking at the statuettes collected here the slayer was filled with more than a little awe. "This is probably the best private collection of Etruscan artifacts in the country. God alone knows what it's worth on the open market."
After that they went back to the search, finding and removing a long list of artifacts, some of crucial magical or research value. The art collection went to a museum, with Faith credited publicly for the find, a bit of publicity that raised her status in the field, and eventually income.
The research value of certain documents was considered incalculable.
The heavily pregnant form of Buffy Summers waddled though the doorway of her mothers house, over to the couch, and dropped down off her swollen feet. The scan said it was going to be a girl, she was ok with that, it was the whole idea of being a mother that was freaking her out. The idea of being Mrs. Buffy Harris, wife of Xander, mother of his child.
She was already Mrs. Harris, of course, Xander had insisted on it and Faith had totally backed him up on the decision. She had made a counter demand of formalizing her relationship with the other slayer at the same time, she really did love the woman and leaving her out in the cold was not acceptable. Faith refused to use her last name, since it reminded her of her step father, so she was Mrs. Faith Summers, and if other people found it confusing that was there problem.
"Hello dear, how was class?" Joyce Summers asked. She was fresh back from the hospital herself, as a result of Tara's taking Willow as her apprentice. It was not a normal thing to do, apparently, but the older witch found her red headed lovers immense power, combined with her casual attitude to it terrifying. The phrase 'handing a six year old a loaded gun' was used, actually, leading to their first fight. But they patched it up, and the theory portion began with simple 'awareness training', which had in turn resulted in the detection of a weak blood vessel in her mothers brain.
And boy, hadn't it been fun convincing the hospital to do the expensive tests needed to detect that. Fun exceeded only by trying to explain HOW they had known about it afterwards. And then there was convincing them to re-test a few weeks later after some very delicate magical repair work. With more 'how did it get fixed, no one can just dig into the brain to replace a blood vessel in that area without turning the patient into a vegetable?' to follow.
"Mom, I'm going to pass, and I'm going to have the baby, it's just a question of when each happens." Given that the baby and the final tests for this semester were at about the same time, she could easily miss some or all because she was in hospital with people saying 'push, push, that's it'. When she had found out that, in some places, Heroin was still a prescription drug given to women in childbirth in the 1950's she had mentioned it to her mother. Who, instead of being horrified, had responded with a comment about 'when you're in that much pain you'll agree to anything to make it stop.' "Really not looking forward to labor."
"You'll get through it, we all do, and then I will have a granddaughter." The Elder Summers had been working on being able to say that for nearly eight months now. Not that she didn't like the idea of her daughter having children, just that the idea that she was going to be a Grandmother threw her. "Now relax there for a moment and I'll get you an orange juice."
Another evening for a slayer out of action had begun. She was unique; other slayers had had children, but not AFTER being called. It was not supposed to be possible, and investigators for the Paranormal Security Corps, as the Initiative was now called, were following her pregnancy with fascination. As was their equivalent in other countries, such as the one in England that had absorbed the Watchers Council the way The Blob had absorbed those people before Steve McQueen had frozen it with CO2 and...
Ok, so, one too many old Science Fiction movies for the bored slayer. She was starting to resemble Jonathan and Andrew, who were admittedly P Sec's prime gadgeteers but serious flakes none the less. Thank god they had something useful to do with their time, who knew what they might get up to left to themselves.
Nah, stupid theory. How could Jonathan and Andrew, even joined by their Roboticist friend Warren, be a threat to anyone? Now this Glory bitch, she was a problem. The trio as villains? That HAD to be the stupidest idea in the history of stupid ideas. She put it down to being tired, hormonal, and lacking coffee for too long.
Lucien LaCroix stood and looked out over the hellmouth, amazed at the feelings it invoked in him. Fear, for one, an emotion he had not felt for thousands of years. Powerlessness, for another. The only reason he was able to be here at all was that, as his kind of vampire got more powerful with age and he was the oldest known, he was the only one who COULD come here to do what was needed. The enforcers had learned of a threat to their whole kind, but could not come here to deal with it, the way they dealt with anyone or anything that threatened to expose/harm the community.
They needed someone killed. It had been a long time since he had been sent to kill in the service of others. He had been a Roman Senator then, sent to eastern Gaul to deal with barbarian raids. He had had a whole army, three legions. Now he was alone. There is an old, old rule:
The First Commandment of Unarmed Combat: 'get armed'.
In his case he had a similar response. He had been sent alone and unarmed to deal with this menace. First move, get an army and weapons. There was a slayer of the soulless ones posted here. She would be his starting place.
He is watching the fight, fascinated and more than a little alarmed. The slayer has help, a lot of it, GOVERNMENT help. The enforcers will be either horrified at the threat, pleased at a real justification for their power of life and death over anyone who learns of 'the community', or both. He had dealt with secret police of the human kind often enough in his long unlife to be even more cynical than usual about them.
It was an interesting struggle to watch from a distance, which is where he was. A comfortable distance away, looking down on the whole thing. There were soldiers with what was clearly some type of vampire killing ammunition; he had to get a sample. There was the slayer, a black haired girl who moved with the grace and power of some large cat, a panther or tiger perhaps. Two witches, clearly a couple, in the middle of what looks like a headquarters area with an older man in tweed - the watcher presumably - and the soldier's commanding officer and radioman.
The soldiers were moving methodically through this and nearby graveyards, in fire teams of five. The slayer and an additional team were waiting at the headquarters area with vehicles to take them to any team in trouble. The witches were casting location spells, apparently, with results relayed to the hunter teams by radio. Very efficient, very military, so very not what he or any other sane vampire wanted after them.
It was the additional man in the HQ that interested him, the one he had learned, from various sources, was called Alexander Lavelle Harris. A wealthy man, who could leave all this to underlings who were more than capable of handling it. One who had been with the elder slayer almost from her calling, saved her several times, nearly been killed more often than was counted. Who had never been thanked by any of them, but stayed anyway.
Because they were family, the family he had created. The elder vampire sighed to himself. If only his own 'son' Nicholas could be that loyal to his family. He had brought the knight over more than eight hundred years ago, he was a father to him, not this Sire/Fledgling rubbish the soulless vampires here had. And his boy was now a police officer trying to earn redemption, to become human.
Perhaps what Nicolas needed was a younger brother. A younger brother LOYAL to his family, not ashamed of it. It was something to think about. This Xander would trade his life for his 'family' without thinking about it, had demonstrated the fact repeatedly. Perhaps a deal could be struck, LaCroix's help with this Glory for Xander being brought over. One life for many, a secret deal, and no one ever need know except him an his new son to be.
"After all, Slayers don't live very long, and the others will die or quit eventually. I can wait, and Nicholas will have a responsible younger brother." He flew back to his penthouse, one of the advantages of his kind of vamp.
Sunnydale Hospital, maternity ward, a month later.
There was much to celebrate. Glory was defeated, no one had been seriously hurt, and their mysterious new 'allie' had vanished back to Toronto whence he came. The man had a very dark view of the world, and they were glad for his help but even happier to see him gone. Only Xander seemed troubled, but then no one else knew the deal he had struck.
"We never did find this 'Key' Glory was ranting about, did we?" Willow asked.
"Well, the monks hid it where it would be protected, I'm thinking Fort Knox." Was Faith's response. The baby was brought out where they could see her, lying in her clear plastic crib on the other side of the glass. Xander leaned forward and waved at his daughter.
"Welcome to my world, Dawn Harris, I love you."
Xander was looking in his newly acquired street directory to see how to get to 'The Raven', the club his vampire sister to be owned. He was thinking about the first time he had noticed LaCroix, the man - using the term loosely - he was here to see. The 'father' he was yet to have.
It was Sunnydale of course, at night, passing a dark alley, and he had heard Spike trying to threaten someone into giving him money. It was an older man, distinguished and wealthy looking, and the chipped wonder had just automatically assumed he was an easy mark. The zeppo headed over to help, when he saw the blond vamp, in full game face lunge at his victim.
"Annoying child." The stranger said, and slapped the English undead across the face. Harris junior saw a blur and there was a loud crash, as the bleached wonder slid to the ground from the Spike shaped indentation in the brick wall. Then he shook his head and lunged at the newcomer again. Who slapped him with the other hand, leaving another William the Bloody shaped indentation, this time on the opposite wall so that the two faced each other.
"Well I knew the day had to happen." Xander commented. The man turned to look at him, barely bothering to keep any attention at all on his supposed opponent.
"And indeed what would that be Alexander?" Spike attacked again, jumping at the turned back to his 'prey' who barely seemed to move before doing something that sent his attacker into the fire escape above, leaving a head and shoulder indentation this time.
"A new hellmouth art form, I mean it already looks better than that open air modern art display the new mayor has going." Most people would have asked how an obvious non- - human knew him by sight, but Xander was going to let it go for the moment. He would either tell him, try to kill him, or tell him AND then try to kill him, in his own good time.
"I would really have to dip this creature in paint first and I really don't have the patience." LaCroix was not as surprised by the coincidence as he might have been. First, it was the hellmouth and unlikely things happened. Secondly if Alexander was not the kind of man who would run TOWARDS trouble because some stranger might need it then he was not who everyone said he was.
There was a crash as one half of The Scourge of Europe fell out of the tightly wedged position he was in. His crumpled form lay on the ground for a moment, amid the other garbage, angry beyond reason at the casual disregard for him being shown by the pair. The repeated impacts of head to brick and iron were affecting his thinking too, of course.
"Yeah but it would be worth it, I could get you some house paint from the hardware store down the street and we could have our own little art gallery here." The blonde vampire was staggering to his feet as the newly wealthy Scooby looked around at the scene, trying to imagine it differently. "See, it's a blind alley, so all we have to do is set up a ticket booth at this end and we have a business 'come see where William the Bloody was used as a giant paintbrush', I'm telling you we could make a mint."
"AAHHHHHH!" Was the incoherent shout as the formerly dangerous creature made another attempt to be taken seriously. Suddenly he was flying down the alley to the far end, leaving the third indent in the wall.
"I think not Alexander, although I do admire your entrepreneurial drive." The unmoving form of the bleach blonde vampire lay unconscious, ignored by all. "This has become tiresome, and I have business to discuss with you, could you suggest somewhere we could, negotiate something."
The inside of the Raven was nothing like Willies, which was good and bad. On the other hand it was nothing like Caritas either, which was bad, because if Willies was clearly dangerous Caritas was safe, and this place was dangerous without seeming to be, which was worse.
At least you couldn't spend any amount of time in Willies without realizing you were in a dangerous place. Some of the people here were clearly humans who thought it was just a place vaguely gothic people came to. That a good half of the customers were vampires, if not the soulless ones he was used to, was not obvious. And that made him uncomfortable.
Jeanette, the owner and LaCroix's 'Daughter', walked over to him with a smile on her face, recognizing him from descriptions. He was taken to her 'father's' office, where the 2000-year-old vampire was waiting. The human sat down as she closed the door behind him.
"So, Alexander, you are here to join the family a little early, aren't you?" The vampire who hosted his own talkback radio show as 'The Night Crawler" asked.
"No, I'm here on business. P Sec business." The most ancient vampire looked at him coolly, poured himself some bloodwine, and sipped.
"What business would that be?" The former Roman Senator said at last.
"They know about you, your kind of Vampire, and their trying to decide if they should simply declare open season or not." From research and experience it had been accepted that not all demons were automatically just dangerous vermin to be exterminated. "No, I didn't tell them, but they found out, and now you have to convince them not to put you in the same category as rabid wolverines."
The pause in the conversation held for a few seconds.
"There is a chance they won't?" LaCroix found it interesting that Xander had come to him alone and unarmed to relay this news. Time for another test. "And would you be willing to tell the Enforcers about this, personally?"
"The Enforcers are the only reason you're being given this opportunity, I came here with a prepared presentation for them." The wealthy Harris said. "They are seen as the nearest thing to a government you have. The thinking is that since they kill your kind to keep the secret, they will also do so to keep a peace between our species."
"Get the Gestapo on side and the people will follow like sheep, clever politics." He sipped his bloodwine and looked at his future son. "Alexander, I will have to contact some people, in the meantime I will have Jeanette show you around. Oh, and how is your child, it was rude of me not to ask."
"She's fine, and everyone else is good."
"I hope you enjoy Toronto Alexander, sooner or later you will be spending a lot of time here."
Xander Harris was drunk, which would have been unusual for him before meeting a certain ex-Roman Senator. He was sitting in a demon bar with an old song from Giles collection running through his head. It seemed to sum things perfectly, it got his mood, and he was too plastered to really give a toss about consequences. Since it was a demon bar, what would they care if he were gloomy, it was why he came her to drink rather than Sunnydale, and with the Fang Gang elsewhere there would be no friends of the slayers here.
Eventually he stumbled onto the stage, barely missing the Rapeth demon that had just finished a stirring rendition of 'How much is that doggie in the window?' Something that large, purple and tentacled singing so mawkishly sentimental a number would have gotten a laugh out of him at another time. Not here, not now. He managed to find the tune, Pink Floyd's 'Wish you were here', and began.
So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from Hell,
Blue skies from pain,
Can you tell a green field?
From a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
And did they get you to trade
Yours heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
And did you exchange
A walk on part in the war
For a lead role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here
We're just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl,
Year after year,
Running over the same old ground
What have we found?
The same old fears
Wish you were here
That, far from being anonymous he was, in fact, well known here might have occurred to him if he was sober. That the state of his mental health was a cause of concern to powerful non-humans would not have. That no one else could have negotiated the 'Peace Treaty' with the non-demon vampires was accepted by all the power brokers involved except the former Zeppo himself.
It was the 'only Nixon can go to China' factor, basically. Communist China, or Red China as it was more commonly called, had been isolated for decades when President Richard Nixon decided to bring them out of it. If anyone else had tried there political careers would have been destroyed for being 'soft on communism', but Nixon was known to be pathologically anti-Communist, and therefore he got away with it. He was trusted to negotiate with them because his hate was so well known.
While far from the only, or even most effective, vampire killer around Xander was about the only one without powers or even particularly good hand/eye coordination. His exploits were actually better known among demons than his own friends, since they tended to show up the slayer and friends as a bit dim - he saves the slayers life repeatedly, seriously threatens to kill her, faces down Angelus AND a zombie with a bomb, and they didn't really NOTICE him! - and made the souled vampire look bad. After all, a normal human had had to drag him out of his apartment to save a girl the hair gelled one supposedly was nuts about.
So when the Slayerette famous in demon circles for his rational thinking started coming apart in front of them it meant that the 'kill all demons now' faction of humans was in danger of getting the negotiations invalidated. Given that the alternative was probably the biggest one-sided massacre since 'the old ones' had been driven out even the human haters were more than a little panicky. Cro-Magnon's with spears had been the opponents last time, modern armies with the mix of armor piercing incendiary, and armor piercing high explosive ammunition P Sec and its allies used did not bear thinking about.
A long email to Toronto from one onlooker led to the Enforcers asking LaCriox 'to help them with their enquiry's.' Lorne had a long talk with Angel, who talked to Wesley. From there it went to Fox Mulder, who could be trusted to know more about what was going on than most and not automatically tell the higher ups everything automatically. Demons of various kinds contacted their masters, fearful that this would kill possible 'live and let live' deals.
Everyone was told by his or her higher authorities to keep a lid on the rumors, and mainly did. But, to put it in conventional human terms, if a Secretary of State entrusted with negotiating a crucial peace treaty had responded by drinking heavily and singing maudlin songs in bars, international observers would take notice. And that was Alexander Lavelle Harris's effective position, after all.
The businessman himself went to his and Faith's hotel room and set his alarm for the early flight to Kansas.
Chloe Sullivan was sitting at her desk looking at the front page of the latest Lone Gunman, a investigative magazine she subscribed to. Or, as most people referred to it, 'that paranoid conspiracy nut rag.' She was staring at the face on the cover, with a mixture of pride and amazement.
Her face. Her investigations into the weirdness that was Smallville post-meteor impact were the lead story. The other main story was about the Paranormal Security Corps, a secret government paramilitary unit. The story continued a recent theme, which had detailed coverage of the slayers, the Senate Investigation of the UFO invasion conspiracy - which she had been taping from CNN - and the amazing numbers of intelligent species on the planet. There was a knock on the door.
"Chloe Sullivan?" It was a man about Clark's height, in a suit, and a woman with black hair and a take charge persona. She looked at their faces, back at her magazine, then at their faces again.
"Mr. Harris, Slayer Summers, what brings you to our town?" The blonde girl noticed with interest as the slayer quickly looked around at the use of her name, as if expecting to see someone else being addressed.
"Well Miss Sullivan, we're here to see you and Clark." Xander answered, stepping in to the room as he did so. He and Faith sat down to talk to this girl, splitting their attention between 'the wall of weird' and the reporter herself.
"Why us? Are we in trouble?" Meeting representatives of a secret government agency alone and without witnesses might be a bad move, but the infectious enthusiasm of the teenager overcame such logical fears.
"No, I'm here to make you an offer." Xander said. Faith was looking at her in a way that made clear she might be made a different kind of offer. The small town girl was surprised it did not make her more uncomfortable, and that her first thought had been that she was actually of age in this state. She normally only thought that way about Clark. "There is a shortage of intelligent investigators who are simultaneously able to deduce the existence of the paranormal from the available data, and are not total looney tunes. Your planet needs you."
"And Clark?" Your planet needs you? That would make an interesting cover story title for the next issue, wouldn't it?
"Well the United States Government is negotiating treaties with the various non-human intelligent species on this planet, as you are no doubt aware from your choice of reading matter." The man said, indicating her magazine. "At this stage there is only one, and that is with one of the vampire species with its own police agency."
The perky blonde's mind was going a thousand miles an hour.
"And what has that to do with Clark Kent?"
"Well C, it's wicked hard to get this stuff past the Bible Belt types in congress, they have a 'all non-humans must die' thing going." The Boston slayer said. "So we have to be careful, not screw up anything or it'll be all out war. First treaty with about the only species with it's own cops, second one with a species that seems to have a major Boy Scout obsession."
"Clark's not a demon." It was partly that she was in some denial about a guy she thought was cute, and partly that she was in denial about missing such a great story while it was right under her nose.
"An, ah, associate of mine hacked into Lex Luthors investigation of him, and P Sec double checked everything." Xander carefully explained. No need to mention Willow's name, having confessed to knowing of the hacker's work was bad enough. "You understand we are telling you this because as a freelance intelligence acquainted with Mr. Kent you have a Need to Know."
"Lex had Clark investigated? And anyway Clark is not a demon." The schoolgirl, like Xander, had not noticed the youngest Kent's arrival in the doorway. Faith had, slayer senses being what they are, but made not sudden moves. They had seen the test results, she knew how strong and fast he was.
"No Chloe, I'm not a demon, and I was never a boy scout." This was the moment he had been dreading all his life. Clark had been torn between running home to warn his parents and speaking up and not only risking government involvement but also losing one of his oldest friends. "I'm an alien."
There was a lot of crying and 'how could you not trust me' stuff after that, but Martha and Jonathan Kent managed to help straighten it out in the end between Clark and Chloe. The blonde girl had even asked Faith's advice on how to get Clark to pay attention to her instead of Lana Lang, the girl he had been wanting from afar for years. Faith had not understood the problem.
"We can't both have him." The reporter had said.
"Why not?" The dark slay had said, genuinely puzzled, and going on to explain what was to her the obvious strategy. Seduce the other girl or Clark, depending on which was easier, then both of you do the third. "Then you both get him, and each other cause LL is seriously hot…why are you looking at me like that?"
At the end of the week they had their second treaty. Ok, it was with exactly one individual, saying very little except that he had the same rights as a human and was accepted as a United States citizen despite not being born in the country and entering by a means not authorized by the department of immigration.
"Think we'll ever see him again?" Faith asked.
"Doubt it." Xander responded.
Faith had had a bad feeling about where the former Zeppo was going mentally for a while, and received some advice about it from some truly unexpected sources. It's not everyday so many demons and vampires want to give the slayer marriage guidance. Eventually she talked it over with the Kents, the most painfully earnest couple she knew. If they could raise an alien to turn out like the Eagle Scout of steel they had to be doing something right.
She was here because Xander was here, and thought she was in Sunnydale. She needed to tell him something, and decided the song Martha had chosen was right for it after all. As she walked up on stage she saw him turn and spill his drink, then look at her as she sat and the music began, 'You've got a friend', by James Taylor.
When your down and troubled
And you need a helping hand
And nothing, whoa nothing is going right
Close your eyes and think of me
And soon I will be there
To brighten up even your darkest nights
You just call out my name
And you know wherever I am
I'll come running, oh yeah baby
To see you again
Winter spring summer or fall
All you have to do is call
And I'll be there, yeah, yeah yeah,
You've got a friend
If the sky above you
Should turn dark and full of clouds
And that old north wind should start to blow
Keep your head together and call my name out loud
And soon I will be knocking upon your door
You just call out my name and you know wherever I am
I'll come running to see you again
Winter spring summer or fall
All you got to do is call
And I'll be there, yeah yeah yeah
Hey ain't it good to know that you've got a friend?
People can be so cold
They'll hurt you and they'll desert you
Well they'll take your soul if you let them
Oh yeah, but don't you let them
You just call out my name
And you know wherever I am
I'll come running to see you again
Oh babe, don't you know that
Winter spring summer or fall
Hey now, all you got to do is call
Lord, I'll be there, yes I will
You've got a friend
You've got a friend
Ain't it good to know that you've got a friend
Ain't it good to know that you've got a friend
You've got a friend
As she walked over to Xander he was crying and the crowd was cheering. He fell into her arms and hugged her the way a drowning man does a floating object.
"Xman, you saved me from that god awful room and a life going down the toilet. You are not alone, Xan, I love you, you're my friend." She hugged him as he let months of worry and frustration out. "You're not alone any more, you have me, you're my friend, please let me be yours."
Another long email went to Toronto. Lucian LaCroix was just going to have to tell his supposed son to be that the deal was off.
Tara sat watching Xander with his daughter and felt the tug on her heart again. A baby, a child, ever since the arrival of Dawn she had been feeling incomplete. It was irrational and emotional but at least it was in no sense mystical. Watching her love's oldest friend entertain his child by just walking up to the wall and pointing to things like photo's and letting her touch them just reminded her of the major problem with her apparently normal ambition.
She and her lover could never have a child that was truly theirs. They had researched spells for months, as she had done ever since realizing she was gay and this would come up as an issue, and found nothing. There was no spell to make a child between them, just the normal way that meant he or she would always be Tara/some male or Willow/Some male.
It was not that she had anything against men as such, she was a lesbian but not a man-hating lesbian. She wanted a child, had always had that as a major ambition, to be the mother of a couple of kids, preferably a boy and a girl. Not that she had a major issue with their gender particularly, but one of each would be nice.
"Window, see Dawnie, window with glass, so you can see through." He rapped the glass gently and his daughter reached out clumsily to touch it too. She patted it a couple of times, then turned to face him and reached out to touch him too. "Nose, that's my nose, and I need it to breathe. Come on, let's see what else there is."
Xander was clearly the only choice for the male part of the baby making process; he was as good and decent an example of manhood as she had ever met except Giles, who had that worrying neglect of Faith against him. Also the watcher was Willow's father figure, and it would be just a little too strange to have his child. And then there was the august title of 'daddy' to bestow, and the young man in front of her was clearly a winner in that department.
"He looks so much happier doesn't he?" Willow asked. The dark cloud that had been hovering over him was gone; LaCroix had called and cancelled their 'deal'. The most ancient vampire had come to the conclusion that his species survival was more important than his personal feelings. The death threats might have had an influence on that decision, you could not be certain with him. "So, do you still want to do this?"
"Yes." Was all the larger woman could say.
The pair moved over to where Faith was exercising with a sword. They were nervous, not so much expecting a rejection – the dark slayer had no problems with Xander's still sleeping with Sheila, after all – as because of the gigantic consequences of what was about to be asked.
"Faith, we want to ask your permission for something." They said together, nervously.
"Ya wanna do a threeway with Xander?" the dark slayer said jokingly. Then she noticed the looks on the faces of the couple and her eyes bugged out. "You want to do a threesome with Xman!!"
There was silence for a moment, as Willow went red Tara stood looking nervous, and Faith stared at them like they had antenna growing out of their heads. Actually she looked at them a more intently than if they had antenna growing out of their heads, this was Sunnydale and that would have been comfortingly familiar, at least. That the Lesbian Care Bears would suddenly develop an interest in men was just too strange. Turning into aliens or bug people or something would have been so ordinary, so normal, so Brady Bunch by comparison.
"We want to start a family well we want to get married and start a family and we have a celebrant for the handfasting ceremony so that's handled but starting a family needs a male and there's only Xander or Giles and having Giles baby like EWW not like I have a problem with Giles but he's like my dad or more like my dad than my dad is and I really think Tara having his child would be a little creepy so we settled on Xander but he's yours cause he always says that to girls at the bronze when they get interested and so we need your permission to have his baby."
"Red, some day we need to test you to find out how you can say things like that in one breath." The Bostonian said in wonder. Buffy was out with her mother doing some Mother/Daughter bonding thing like shopping for children's things, or having their hair done or something. "And don't ya kinda think the Xand-man deserves a say in this?"
Now they were staring at her like she had grown antenna. What was it with Harris's so called friends?
Katrina Kassimatis was an appropriately vanilla woman for the corn fed one to be dating. Or at least by Sunnydale standards she was. She had never had sex with a member of the undead, for example, unlike certain slayers who shall remain nameless. She did not make a habit of picking up women in bars for her, her girlfriend, and her man to share, unlike another slayer who will also not be named here.
Nor had she ever had sex with a member of a different species, like a certain red headed Wicca who, admittedly, had never thought of Oz that way. Nor had she had sex with the school librarian under circumstances that had the amateur video selling quite well under the title 'Further uses for the hood of a Sunnydale police car.' Indeed, the only leather she was into was her shoes, and her boyfriend's handcuffs were never used recreationally, unlike a certain girlfriend of the aforementioned anonymous red headed Wicca.
So the fact that Ms Kassimatis, or Kassy as the Initiative commander called her, was currently in the position sometimes called 'ride em cowgirl', impressive breasts bouncing, long black hair flying as she headed for her second climax of the night with her head thrown back, this was not wild sex by local standards. Still, it certainly kept them indoors at night. Eventually they lay next to each other on the bed and snuggled, like the quaint, old-fashioned couple they were.
"Have I ever properly thanked Faith for introducing us?" Reilly asked, speaking softly into his woman's ear. Her figure was more hourglass, or maybe hour and a half glass, than the more fashionable 'if you can't see her ribs she's fat', but no one who knew either would ever call them slaves to fashion.
"When I asked how I could thank her she said she would 'teach me the right way to 69 a girl." Kassy commented quietly, the dark slayers tastes not being a secret after all. "She was smiling but I think she was serious."
The now full Colonel was slowly drifting off to sleep, it had been one more 14-hour day in what seemed like a never-ending succession of them. His black haired Greek Goddess seemed like she was leading up to something, and seemed a little nervous about it. He decided to just ask.
"And you're thinking of taking her up on the offer?"
"No. Yes. Maybe." Well at least her wasn't angry or calling her names the way her family certainly would if they ever even suspected her of considering such a proposition. "You aren't even a little possessive about me, should I be insulted?"
"Faith actually has a very strict moral code, or at least since getting with Harris she does." The look of amazement on his darling's face told him to clarify himself quickly. "She hasn't had another man in years, and with Buffy it's true love or at least a good approximation. She always makes clear to her pick-ups that it's just a bit of fun for the night. Compared to what she used to be like apparently she's practically a nun now."
The Marketing student looked at her boyfriend and contemplated the simple fact that the Boston slayer had predicted this reaction, and she was certain she could rely on the farmers son to not suddenly change his mind if she actually did the deed with Faith. Some guys would, but not Reilly. No, it was her own feelings on the matter that she was uncertain of.
Did she desire Faith? Or was it just the idea of doing something rebellious and wild, knowing she had a loving and forgiving man to come back to afterwards? Did this make her gay, or bisexual, or was she just thinking of a little college experimentation?
Would she enjoy it, with Faith or any other woman?
"If I did, and if I liked it, would you expect regular threesomes afterward?"
Reilly stared at her, clearly insulted.
"Expect? No of course I wouldn't EXPECT you to do that, Faith does because that's just how she is but I wouldn't EXPECT it of you." Then he smiled at her, a shifting of the planes of his face in the dimness. "Of course I wouldn't OBJECT or anything."
Nothing further was said, and they drifted off to sleep. They both had a long day ahead of them, and Kassy was wondering if sleeping on the question would help or not.
Xander was, as he liked to put it, 'in the morning office', his ZeppoCo's official office being an after dark thing. He had his laptop on the table of the sidewalk café; various papers weighed down with salt and pepper shakers and the like. Breakfast – full English, bacon, eggs, sausages, baked beans, grilled tomato and toast – had been finished, and he had his second cup of coffee to one side. He did his office work here before going to classes. For a moment he watched the surfers catching their early morning waves, and then went back to thinking.
Faith had mentioned the request she had gotten from the Wicca couple as soon as she had both her lovers present. The idea that Xander would simply perform his stud service and leave them was still hurting her, she too used to being treated like a sexual convenience herself to not see it as an insult.
Besides, there was the small matter of expecting him to help create a child and then fade into the background. They could see how he was with Dawn; the man was totally obsessive about his bouncing, healthy young interdimensional gateway. While they SAID they would never get between him and his child, this was California and lesbian couples pushing strollers wearing 'I'm the mother and so is she' were common enough for the problem to be obvious.
Once Willow and Tara had a child they would inevitably see Xander as an intrusion when he insisted on equal treatment as a parent. It didn't make them bad people, actually it was the assumption that they would be wonderful parents, loving and protective of their child that was the issue. Child custody battles get ugly between otherwise very nice people, after all. It was not sane, rational or reasonable, but it was a simple reality.
Loving your children is not logical, it just is.
"C, c, can I sit down?" Tara asked, having finally located the exact place at Sunnydale beach where the future father of her child ate breakfast. In such a small town it should not have taken this long, but it had.
"Sure, and I was actually thinking that hearing your part of all this would be a good idea." Xander had actually been less angry than Faith, because he felt complimented that they wanted him to father their child/ren. It had never occurred to him, if he had thought about it he would have assumed they would go to a total stranger rather than go to the descendent of such a fucked up family.
Ordering a skim milk late and a blueberry bagel for Tara was a useful place filler. Normally the youngest Harris would have discussed a question this important with Sheila, but the Rosenburgs were in Stockholm for a few weeks. Scully might also have provided some perspective, but her ability deny the existence of UFO's even after fighting her way out of one in Antarctica pointed to a greater than Sunnydale level of denial, so her judgement was a little dubious.
"We had to ask Faith's permission first, I mean, she and Willow a, a, are sisters." Tara was desperate to explain herself, the Scooby's were not quite the family to her that they were to her wife to be, but they were a lot closer to her than her biological family ever would be.
"Ok, so two witches went to a supernatural being for permission to have the sperm of a man who's first child is really a mystical energy field because they were sisters and it would be unconventional?"
"Yes." Clearly this was a major motivation for the larger of the two Wicca. "And we really weren't planning to get your sperm in a jar."
A part of the former Zeppo's mind pondered the fact that conversations like this happened often enough in California that none of the people in earshot was paying attention. He wondered what would happen if you said things like this in public in small town Alabama, then focused back on where he was.
"No?"
"No, artificial conception is acceptable only as a last resort in our religion." Which was not Judaism for Willow anymore, certainly. She was looking down at her freshly delivered coffee, and took a bite from her bagel before continuing. "I, I, I'm gay, but I have had guys before, well, guy, my first girlfriend, Drew boyfriend Gary. We were sharing her until her parents found out and I came here."
"Will you be ok with that?" She was gay after all; it couldn't be comfortable for her to be with a guy. He didn't think Faith was wrong about the potential custody problem, but becoming a dad, and realizing he would actually be around to raise his child, had altered his world out of sight. He could not deny them the joys and frustrations of children just to avoid a potential problem that he could, with some diplomacy, cope with.
"I, I, have to warn you about something though, it was a p, p, problem with Gary." Tara did not usually stutter as much as this, it was actually making her more nervous than the, 'be my child father' thing. "I can't make love to you."
"Then how does the 'natural insemination' happen?" The woman was clearly embarrassed, and just as clearly determined to get this all said now.
"I mean I can't do it with a guy if I think of him as him, I have to focus on the sensations and how it feels inside me and just maximize that." She was speaking quietly, and he had to lean in to hear her. "It has to be like when Willow has the strap on, or the double ender, just something to make me cum, not a person, I can do it and even get off on it but I turn into just this total animal."
"Hey, guy sleeping with Faith here, not a totally unprecedented situation for me."
"No, way worse than that." She said, finally looking him in the eyes. "We here you three together whenever you go off together before or after patrol, you're kinda loud."
"And you're more animal than Faith?" Who was in no sense a quiet lover, or a bashful one, they really would know more details than they wanted to.
"I have to be, it can't be you there in me, it has to just be me using this thing or I can't get off." She was clearly feeling ashamed.
"You think I'll hate you for using me as a sex object."
"No, you are a man, you'll love it, it's Willow seeing me using you as nothing more than a living sex toy that concerns me." Drew had nearly left her over it, and it had been her idea after all.
And Xander realized that Tara shared one characteristic of the old Faith, the 'all men are beasts' belief. Not that he disagreed, about it being fun or that his oldest friend had a jealous and vengeful streak a mile wide.
"So we have to do it as a twosome then, get her to be somewhere else?" This was a personnel problem, he got paid good money to deal with personnel problems. "An orgy with Faith and Buffy?"
"She's Faiths sister remember."
"Faith doesn't have to touch her, they could focus on Buffy, she does that all the time with one night stands." Buffy being more inhibited than Faith – not a major achievement admittedly – and self centred, focusing on her worked better than most options.
"Sounds, g, g, good."
The planning continued through more coffee, and they were both late for class.
Meanwhile, in Kansas, Clark Kent, Chloe Sullivan, and Lana Lang were making progress in sorting out their own 'who gets the guy' issue. It helped that they now knew he was an alien, and had the stamina to deal with both of them if they decided to take Faith's advice on the matter. They hadn't yet, but the blonde school newspaper editor was thinking more and more seriously along those lines.
The peace treaties concluded so far with various demon species seemed to be holding, for the most part. The world was not perfect, but getting better.