RATING: PG
CONTENT: “Hell” and “damn” are used a couple times. My writings are pretty innocent.
SPOILER WARNINGS: Of course Becoming, and a couple events from Phases and Killed by Death are mentioned.
SUMMARY: The Slayerettes try to pick up the slack that their AWOL slayer left behind.
DISCLAIMER: I own nothing. These characters belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, the WB and a whole lot of other people that aren’t me. So don’t sue me because you might make me cry, and you wouldn’t want that on your conscience, would you?
“Have I mentioned that I don’t want to be doing this?”
“Many times.”
“Sh!”
“We’re in a cemetery. Only the dead will hear us.”
“The dead walk, you know. At least in vampire form.”
Silence.
“What was that?”
“What was what?”
“Nothing.”
Silence.
“Oh, God!”
“What?”
“My nail polish bubbled! This looks horrible!”
“You’re worried about your nail polish? For the love of- Ooh, that does look pretty bad.”
“See?”
Xander stopped in his tracks, looking around them. He was expecting to see something jump out at them any second. “How can you not hear that?” he hissed.
Oz also stopped. “Hear what?”
He listened for a minute, then dismissed it with a wave of his hand. “It’s probably nothing.”
Willow groaned and looked at him with annoyance. “Great, Xander, you just jinxed us. Now we’re all going to die. Haven’t you learned by now?”
Xander ignored that comment and turned to his fellow Slayerettes. “You know, I got smacked around enough whenever I would tag along with Buffy. I’m not looking forward to getting smacked around even more with going slaying with you guys.”
“We’re not looking forward to this any more than you are,” said Willow, taking a seat on a large stone monument a couple feet away. She placed the bag of extra supplies on the ground next to her, leaning it against the monument so if something happened, she could just reach down and grab something to use. No one could say she wasn’t prepared.
“So then why are we doing this?” asked Cordelia with a sigh.
“Name another choice.”
“Um, not to do this?” She looked to Willow. “And last week you were in the hospital with a head injury. Comatose, need I remind you of that one? Now you’re going to kill vampires. And you-” She turned on Xander- “are in a cast. That can’t lead to anything good.”
Xander rubbed the back of his neck with the hand that wasn’t broken, trying to suppress the headache beginning at the base of his skull. “So we’re going to let the vampires run free while Buffy has run off to God knows where? Yeah, no guilt there.”
“See, you wouldn’t be having this monster guilt trip if you hadn’t spent half your nights this semester going out with Buffy to slay the undead,” Cordelia shot back.
“As opposed to staying home to do all my secret ritual beauty treatments? Doubt it.”
“What thing?” Xander asked, suddenly self-conscious.
“You know... That thing.”
“No, I don’t know. What thing are you talking about?”
“Forget it.”
“No.”
“Will you just let this go?”
“Make me.”
“Is that a dare?”
“Okay,” Oz said loudly. Last thing they needed was to end up watching another makeout session between those two. “So what are we doing here?”
Cordelia rolled her eyes. “Like I would know.”
“We've gone out slaying before,” Willow reminded her.
“Yeah. And what did we do? We walked into this cemetery, walked around a little, found Buffy, and I got attacked by Angel.”
Oz frowned. “When did this happen?”
Willow shrugged. “A while ago. I don’t think you were around for this. So, um... What would Buffy do?”
Silence reigned for the moment as they tried to figure out how to answer that one. Buffy just had a way of knowing where the vampires were going to be, and going after them. None of them had that skill.
Finally Xander spoke. “She usually just walked around a little. We waited a lot. Half the time nothing happened.”
“So we’re in this for nothing,” Cordelia commented with an eye roll. “Great. A waste of a night.”
“This isn’t for nothing,” spoke up Oz. “This is a just in case type of thing.”
“Yeah, I mean, there haven’t been all that many obituaries in the paper this week,” Willow pointed out. “I mean, considering the Hellmouth and all. Maybe this is just a down period for them.”
“Again bringing up my point of then why are we here?” asked Cordelia.
Another exchanged look between Oz and Willow. This wasn’t going to be easy. “Do you want to go home?” asked Oz. “Because we can handle this.”
There was a look on her face that let everyone know that her answer to that one was yes. But instead of saying that, she sighed and said, “I’ll stay.”
“Maybe we should split up,” Xander said. “I mean, how many vampires are going to attack a group of four people?”
“A very stupid one?” said Oz.
“So do you want to split up and meet back here in an hour?” suggested Willow.
Xander looked at Cordelia, his assumed partner. “Do you have a watch?”
“As if a watch goes with this outfit,” she said, indicating the clothes she was wearing. Although all of them had to wonder why she’d be wearing something nice if she was going out to hunt vampires. Hey, if Buffy could do this in a skirt, why not?
Oz took off his watch and handed it to Xander. “Break it and I’ll kill you,” he warned.
Xander raised his eyebrows. “Hostile much?”
“Sorry. It was a birthday present I actually like,” he said with a shrug.
“Okay, so at 11:30, we’ll meet back here.” Willow stood from her seat on the monument and stood next to her boyfriend. As an afterthought, she reached into the bag she was now holding and handed Cordelia and Xander a few extra stakes and a small bottle of holy water, just in case.
“Cool,” Xander said, trying his best to strap the watch onto his own wrist- not an easy task- letting Cordelia hold the slaying supplies. Finally he gave up and put the watch in the pocket of his jeans. “Stay breathing.”
Cordelia hit him. “That wasn’t morbid at all!”
Willow and Oz were the first to head off while the other two started onto yet another argument. “So where do we go?” Oz asked.
“Um...” She didn’t have the slightest clue. “I don’t know. Maybe the park or something? They hang out there sometimes.”
“Then again, that means we’re leaving Xander and Cordelia to hang at the cemetery.”
The two of them stopped. Decision time. “Xander’s done this before,” Willow said. “He’ll be okay.”
“Didn’t he say he got smacked around or something, though? And then there’s the cast...”
He had to remind her of that, didn’t he? “Pray.”
“Can I ask what the hell possessed you to volunteer us for this?” Cordelia asked as she and Xander walked toward the mausoleum.
“What else would you have been doing on this beautiful Tuesday night?” Xander said, his words dripping with obvious sarcasm.
“I don’t know... Going out to a party, or the Bronze. Maybe take in a movie. I hear Ever After’s good-”
“Chick flick!” said Xander loudly, hiding it in a very fake cough.
She ignored that. “And you could be... I don’t know. Maybe looking for a job?”
He turned to her. “Oh, so now I need a job.”
“Well, your lack of funds was excusable during school. Between the helping Buffy, and the swim team and all-”
“And the visits to the hospital to get rid of all those steroids,” Xander interjected.
“Yeah, that, too. But now that you have the whole summer to sit around and do nothing, that just isn’t acceptable,” Cordelia said, standing still in front of the building.
“Hey, you know, I might just like slacking off.”
“I figured. Do you also like being broke?”
In the split second that it took him to prepare a comeback to that, Xander forgot it when he heard the rustling. “Did you hear that?”
“Great. Now you’re hearing things again.”
“Seriously,” he said, lowering his voice to a whisper. “Listen.”
Another rustle, and Cordelia’s dark eyes widened. “Did you hear that?”
“I’ve been hearing that!” he whispered. “Hand me a stake.”
She nodded and handed him one that she was holding. Xander took it and moved forward, more towards the mausoleum. It seemed to be coming from there. Here it was. Vampire hunting season was officially open.
Cordelia moved forward a step behind Xander, not willing to be left too far behind for too long. Who says you couldn’t learn anything from horror movies? And then she thought she heard something behind her, but before she could react, that same something grabbed her in a choke hold and pulled her back, forcing her to drop the supplies she was still holding. She was able to get out a strangled scream, though, and grabbed onto his arm to try to get away.
Xander turned and saw the vampire seemingly trying to drag Cordelia away. So he ran toward him, but Cordelia had managed to retain something she had learned from that self-defense class. She lifted the vampire’s arm just enough to twist out of his grasp, and by then Xander had reached him-
And was immediately backhanded across the face, knocking him back a few steps. The slap was then followed by a punch to the jaw-
Meanwhile, Cordelia looked around for what she had dropped and found the bottle of holy water. She grabbed it, pulled the cap off and splashed it onto the vampire’s face. He screamed and put his hands to his face, giving Xander the opportunity to get revenge for those punches.
Xander couldn’t sock him and stake him with only one usable arm, so he just went the direct and longer-lasting route by plunging the stake into the vampire’s chest. It took seconds for him to turn to dust, and suddenly the fight was over.
Cordelia picked up the rest of the supplies besides the now-empty bottle and frowned. “You know, one week... One measly week I would like to be able to not have some kind of endorphin rush that comes from a vampire attacking me somehow.” She looked up to the sky and said, “Is one week so much to ask?”
While Cordelia went on her little rant, Xander kicked the vampire dust with his shoe. “Cool,” he said. “I got him.” That was something to be proud of. He hadn’t killed a vampire since... Teresa. That wasn’t a pleasant thought, now, was it?
He felt one arm around him, and Cordelia made a face. “Ow,” she said, and touched the bleeding area where the vampire had punched him.
“Don’t touch it!” he said, jerking away in reflex. This seemed to startle her a little, and Xander knew he had to make up for that one. She wasn’t trying to hurt him. “I guess he was wearing a ring,” Xander told her.
“It’s not pretty,” Cordelia told him, and used the sleeve of her shirt to wipe away a little of the blood. This was a surprise to see her so caring. Last time he had seen her like this was when Willow was in the hospital, and she had seemed to be trying to keep away from that since then.
“Thanks,” he said.
“I think Willow’s got a first aid kit in that bag,” Cordelia said. “We should probably find her, at least put a Band-Aid on it or something. Or at least to say we’re getting the hell out of here.”
Xander nodded, and took her hand. “I think I’ve had enough vampire experience already anyway.”
The two started off in silence the way they had seen Willow and Oz head off in. And for once the silence didn’t feel awkward, which was nice.
“Great,” Cordelia said suddenly. “Why did I do that? Now I’ve got blood on my shirt!”
“Truth or dare.”
Willow bit her lip. “Um... dare.” The truth questions hadn’t let her come out too well, so she was going for the dare this time.
Oz didn’t even have to think to come up with something. “I dare you to get on top of that platform by the slide and sing ‘I’m a Little Teapot.’ Hand gestures and all.”
Her eyes widened in shock and fear. “You know I don’t sing!”
“I’m the only one here,” Oz said with a smile.
“And any vampires that might be around.”
“So they think they’re getting dinner and a show.”
“You know, being that high up... It might cause the head trauma to act up.”
“Liar. It’s a dare, Will. You have to do it.”
How was she going to get out of this one? No way was she going to sing. “Okay, truth,” she said.
Oz apparently decided to let her off easy. “What do you think happened to Buffy?” he asked.
Wow, no embarrassing questions about her. And this was something she had thought about a lot, so it wasn’t a big deal. “Her mom told me that she ran away. So I’m figuring between the practically zero vampire activity and that none of us have had any dead bodies dropped on our doorsteps by Angel, it’s not good.”
“You don’t think the restoration spell worked?”
“I don’t know about that one. But I think she might have had to stake him. And the rest of the vamps are running around crazed or something.”
Oz nodded. “I can deal with that answer.”
“Truth or dare?”
“Truth.” He’d learned his lesson from having to stand on the monkey bars and scream “I’m the king of the world!” at the top of his lungs. He wasn’t doing any more dares.
“Darn! I had a great dare planned out!” Willow smiled.
“Which is why I picked truth.”
She looked thoughtful. “Um... Where do you see yourself in ten years?”
“Pessimistically, probably playing in rave clubs in L.A.- although our music isn’t exactly something big on the rave scene- and living in a cardboard box somewhere. Probably right outside a McDonald’s so I can just walk to my day job.”
“And optimistically?”
Oz smiled at her. “Now that’s a whole other truth or dare question altogether. Truth or dare?”
“Dare.” She still didn’t like truth.
“Get up by the slide and sing ‘I’m a Little Teapot.’”
“Oz, you can’t use the same dare twice.”
“You can if you never did the dare. Come on, Will. I want to see this. Then I’ll come up with a dare that doesn’t include singing.”
The phrase “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” was suddenly coming to mind... Well, there was no one around. “Fine,” she said.
Willow stood from her sitting position on the swings and walked over to the play set. She climbed up onto the platform next to the slide, and started feeling all the horrible emotions that came with performance anxiety. Of course, if Oz knew this, he never would have had her go up there. But she was a big girl. She could do this.
“’I’m a little teapot-”
“Louder,” Oz called.
Funny, she never figured him to be a sadist. She took a deep breath and raised her voice. “’I’m a little teapot, short and stout. Here is my handle-” One hand on her hip. “Here is my spout-” The other in the air. “When I get all steamed up, hear me shout. Tip-” She tipped. “-me over and pour me out.”
And the all-too horrible sound of applause that wasn’t coming from Oz. Willow looked in horror to see Xander and Cordelia standing near the twisty slide. She felt her cheeks flush immediately as Xander whistled. The ultimate humiliation. She’d never live this one down. “Encore!” he called.
“Oh, God,” she muttered, and came down from the platform as quickly as possible.
Cordelia smiled when she got down there. “Never talk about my singing again.”
Now her ears were burning. Great. “What are you doing here?”
Oz came over to her and put an arm around her. “I thought you were adorable,” he said, kissing her cheek.
“Can we go now?” asked Cordelia. “Tonight has sucked.”
Willow nodded, feeling normal temperature return to her face. She went to the swings to get the supply bag and before she could heft it onto her shoulder, Oz took it so she didn’t have to carry it. “Let’s go then,” Willow said.
The silence lasted five seconds before Oz asked innocently, “So do we do this again tomorrow?”
The vote was unanimous. “NO!”
end
AUTHOR’S NOTE: The Wilow/Oz section... The dares and questions were real. I lived through that part about two days ago.