Story: Luck of the Draw (chapter 2)

Authors: Janine

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Chapter 2

PART II

Buffy arrived at my house about an hour after dark having had to make a quick sweep before coming over. My parents were at the exhibit Joyce had been working on so I had been alone in the house and was very glad when Buffy finally got there.

"It's the soloplays, no wait sillibays…that's not it either, it's…it's those long boring S things that nobody understands anyway," Buffy said as we sat around my kitchen table.

"Soliloquy's?" I guessed.

"That's the thing. I mean what does he want to be? Or not be? Or sling? And why do I have to hear about for like four pages?" She asked, making a helpless gesture.

"He's contemplating suicide. During…the soliloquy he's….basically…just weighing the pros…and cons…of it..." I said distractedly. Buffy was running her foot up and down my leg gently and it was distracting me, in a very good way. Of course it didn't take much to distract me in that way anymore.

"If he's gonna do it I wish he would get on with it already," Buffy said, biting on the tip of her pencil as she continued her leg motions. "Who talks to themselves for four pages anyway?"

"Hamlet?" I offered. Buffy smirked and turned her head so that she was looking at me.

"You okay? You're looking a little light-headed?" She asked, scrunching her brow up in an attempt to look concerned, but a smile was slowly making it's way across her face.

"Now that you mention it something is making me kind of …distracted," I responded.

"I might know of a way to help," Buffy offered, leaning forward so that her lips were almost touching my ear. "If you want it that is."

"If you think it would help then go right ahead. Because help is good. Help is a good way to elevate distress, because help by definition is…" I didn't get a chance to finish that thought though and I can't say that I'm sorry. Buffy leaned over and kissed me softly. Within moments we were kissing deeply causing Buffy to raise her hand to my cheek to steady us. She had the most wonderfully soft lips and I was sure that I could spent and eternity kissing them, licking them, sucking on them. "We're suppose to be studying," I said when we broke apart. What we were suppose to be studying I couldn't really remember, but it was something, I was sure of that.

"I know," she said smiling, "but sometimes it's good to be bad," she continued, running her tongue along my bottom lip before capturing them again. "See…doesn't this feel good?" she asked, sliding her tongue over my lips, softly exploring. It felt like we sat there kissing, trading soft caresses for hours, until Buffy finally pulled away. Once we parted she looked up at me sheepishly then moved her chair to the side a bit. "Just a precaution," she said in response to my questioning look.

"You're mean," I told her, glaring at her as she picked up her pencil and started to write.

"Me? What did I do?" she asked innocently.

"That didn't help," I said, "I'm worse off now than before. I don't have a hand book but I'm sure that there's a rule in it about working up your girlfriend then just stopping…to do homework," I said, face still flushed.

"But you said we were suppose to be studying. So I'm studying," Buffy answered, holding up the book as evidence. She was a tease, a big 'ol tease and I was loving it.

"Alright then, I've got an idea," I said, dragging my chair back close to hers.

"A studying idea? Because those are the only kind I'm accepting," Buffy said as I settled in.

"Oh, it's a studying idea alright. But I think we should study biology. We've done enough English for one night, and biology is an important subject."

"What about biology?" she asked.

"The human body, more accurately motor responses. The best way to study this is for you to introduce a stimulus to my body, then assess the response and try to repeat the effect if it was a positive one," I said. "Just to make sure it wasn't an aberration of course," I explained. "Now since I'm the teacher I think that we should start at the top then work our way down. Our first lesson will be…" I said then I leaned forward and brought our lips together again. I rested my hand on her knee and shifted even further forward in the chair so that I was practically sitting in her lap.

"I'm probably going to need extra help, a lot of extra help, tons of extra help," Buffy mumbled between kisses that were becoming increasingly passionate as her hand made it's way to my back stroking it softly.

"I think I can fit you in somewhere," I responded breathlessly as my hand started to creep under her shirt.

* * * * * *

I'm not sure how we actually managed to make it all the way to my bedroom, but we did. On top of that, we actually managed to make it to the bed without breaking anything, which was pretty impressive considering that neither of us were looking were we were going. Sure the phone got knocked under the bed, but it was for a good, great, wonderful, exceptional reason. If all biology lessons went that well there would be much higher marks in the course, I was sure of it. That and there would be a lot of teachers in jail. As we lay post-coital bliss I found my mind drifting back to my encounter with Rio. I had planned on telling Buffy about it when she arrived but I didn't want to start off our evening that way, and afterwards I got a little distracted.

"Send me a postcard from wherever you're vacationing?" Buffy asked finally.

"Sorry," I said, shifting so that our faces were only inches apart. "My mind drifted."

"Drifted? You were in another time zone," Buffy commented softly as she regarded me for a minute with concerned eyes. "You know that if…we didn't have to…I mean I know last night you didn't want …if," she stopped talking for a second and sighed. "We didn't have to make love, it's alright if you're…"

"That's not it," I said, stopping her before she could finish. "Biology 101 was my idea, remember? I wanted this, I want you," I told her never wanting her to doubt that her love was anything but a godsend to me. "I was just thinking about…" I started to say but then trailed off.

"Thinking about what?" she asked moving a little closer and placing her hand on my hip stroking lightly with her thumb. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, but know that you can tell me anything and I'll listen," she continued, watching the movements she was making with her hand.

"When I was walking home from tutoring that woman from the courtyard and the library sidled up to me on the street," I responded.

"Who? Tall, dark, and crazy?" she asked, surprised.

"One and the same. Buffy…she's not…I mean I think that maybe she's just nuts. She said that she had been watching me, and she knows where I live. I tried to tell her that Old Edith's house was my house, because she was really freaking me out and I didn't want to talk to her anymore, but it didn't work. Old Edith would've made me eat rock candy and that stuffs pretty bad, but if I had to chose between rock candy and Lizzy Borden, it would be rock candy all the way, but she knew that it wasn't my house and pointed to where my house was. Then she invaded my personal touch bubble…"

"Did she…"

"No, it wasn't like that, she just stood really, really close. Almost as close as we are now, only I didn't want her this close. So I kinda told her to go away and stop acting like a lunatic, and she was all 'how do you know I'm not a lunatic', and I was like, 'please don't cut my tongue out', and she found that really funny, then she started talking about how we were going to have to play again sometime, because games are fun, and she likes games, and…Buffy, I think she's really unbalanced."

"Does she know who you are?" Buffy asked.

"She knows my name. She called me Willow. I never told her what my name was though," I answered. "I think her name's Rio, but she may just have been playing around."

"Were you even going to tell me about this?" Buffy asked. Her voice was steady but when I looked into her eyes, I could tell she was hurt.

"Yes, of course," I answered. "I was going to but…but I got a little sidetracked," I continued, causing Buffy looked down at our current state of undress.

"Oh," was all she said.

"Yeah," I agreed, and we were silent for a moment.

"Tell me if she bothers you again, okay?" Buffy asked, reaching up to stroke my cheek.

"I will," I agreed. "I think she needs help,"

"What she needs is a good ass kicking," Buffy replied. "Nobody messes with you."

"Cause I'm your girl?" I asked, smiling.

"That's right," Buffy confirmed. "Now…go make me a sandwich woman!"

"What was that?" I asked, reaching out for her.

"No…don't….Will don't, I'm sorry," she pleaded. "It was a joke, please…noooo," she continued as I started tickling her. If the demons of the world knew this little secret we could all be in big trouble, but as of yet I was the only to find this Slayers Achilles heel, and I would use it as I saw fit.

Finally, I stopped when Buffy had turned beet red and was wheezing for air. Half of the reason I even tickled her was because she looked so cute afterwards. All mad but not able to do anything about it because she knew I would tickle her again if she did. I got a certain amount of pleasure from making her impotent with rage that I didn't want to analyze.

"And you said I was mean," Buffy said once she had caught her breath. She was holding her sides and watching me carefully. "Oh, no you don't," she uttered jerking away as I reached my hand out.

"Don't be like that, I'm not going to tickle you," I said trying to coax her back over.

"That's what you said last time, but there was more tickling. You said no more tickling but I distinctly remembering tickling…and laughing." Buffy responded eyeing me suspiciously.

"I'm sorry I shouldn't have done that," I said in a suitably apologetic voice. "Let me kiss it better," I continued, trying out my new sexy 'come hither' smile.

"Okay, but if there's tickling, I'm going to have to introduce you to Mr. Pointy," Buffy responded, sliding back over.

* * * * * *

The next morning I met Xander at our lockers. I hadn't seen him since lunch the day before, and was surprised to find him waiting for me. A week ago it wouldn't have surprised me, but I didn't think that I was on his favorite people's list at the moment. At the moment we had 'issues'.

"Hey," I said as I arrived and reached for my lock.

"Hey yourself," he responded. "Did you have a nice night?" he continued. I had to consider how to answer that question because certain elements were very nice, due entirely to the strong Buffy factor, and other parts were not so nice, due to their loony fringe factor. I suppose I took to long deciding how to answer because he began to speak again. "Why don't we start with an easier question," he said. "Did you spend the night at your own house?" I stopped what I had been doing when he asked this question. It wasn't so much the question he asked but how he asked it that got me. I hated it when my parents said that but sometimes it was just true.

"Why are you acting like this?" I asked, turning around to face him.

"Acting like what? Can't a guy inquire as to his friend whereabouts? Some people would be touched by the display of concern," he responded.

"My night was fine, and I was at home, my own home," I responded, turning back around to get my math book out of my locker. I didn't want to start a fight with him.

"What were you doing? It must have been verrrry engrossing," Xander continued as I zipped up my back pack.

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

"I was calling you for most of the night and there was no answer. Whatever you were doing must have been very interesting for you not have heard the phone ringing. Repeatedly," he answered. At first I as confused about what he was taking about then I remembered that when Buffy and I entered my room we knocked the phone of off the dresser and under the bed. It was a portable so it was probably ringing under there--for awhile--and I didn't hear it.

"The phone must have gotten knocked under the bed. I didn't hear it, that's all," I responded. It was mostly true.

"Sure you weren't just otherwise occupied? I know of a certain Slayer who cut patrol short last night," he continued, not relenting. I stopped walking and turned to look at him for a moment before ushering us into a quiet corner.

"I know you're having a hard time with this, but that's no reason to act…to act like a big stupid jerk," I told him once we were away from prying ears and eyes.

"Who's having a hard time with anything? I'm not having a hard a time with anything, I'm not even having an anything with anything, and I'm not acting like a big stupid jerk," Xander responded, rubbing the arm I had used to drag him over.

"If you're not wiggy then why are suddenly concerned with when, and where, I'm with Buffy? It never mattered before," I shot back.

"Yeah, well before the two of you weren't…"

"Weren't what Xander?" I asked when he trailed off. We stood there for a few seconds staring at each other before he responded.

"Nothing," he muttered then pushed his way past me and continued down the hall. I watched him go until he was out of sight then leaned against the wall and sighed. I loved Xander, but he could be a real jerk sometimes, usually when he was hurting and didn't want anyone to know. It was a defense mechanism he had developed over the years. I knew that he was hurting now, but the problem was he was a really proficient jerk and I just didn't have to energy to deal with that currently.

* * * * * *

I ended up in the library during lunch time doing some cataloguing for Giles. Buffy was in having a 'talk' with her history teacher, and things with Xander were just as tense during lunch so when the opportunity arose we both took off. Giles had noticed things had been a little tense over the past few days and had tried to get to the bottom of it, but I shrugged it off, and luckily he had to go on lunch duty before he could prod anymore.

I was so engrossed in what I was doing I didn't even realize Buffy had entered the office until she placed her hands on my shoulders and started to massage them.

"What's with the sad?" she asked, continuing her motions.

"Who's sad?" I asked, knowing that I wasn't fooling her for a second.

"You are. Why?"

"Xander," was all I said in response.

"What'd he say?" she asked, hopping on the desk beside me.

"Nothing," I responded. There was no sense in both of us being mad at him.

"He had to have said something or else you wouldn't have typed the same sentence over and over again for a paragraph," Buffy said looking at the screen. "Whatever happened, it was about us, right?" she asked when I didn't respond to her previous comment.

"Basically," was all I said. She sighed and hoped down off the desk moving behind me then wrapped her arms around me.

"He's in stage two now, otherwise know as the 'it hurts and I'm going to act like a big stupid jerk' stage. I think you can see why they changed the name," she said. "It'll work out, we just have to be patient, give him time," she continued, kissing me on the cheek.

"I know, I know," I said, leaning back into her slightly.

We stayed wrapped together like that for a moment before I started to get a bit to comfortable and decided to break up the snuggles.

"How'd it go with your teacher?" I asked. Seeing as how she was here instead of with Synder I figured things couldn't have gone too badly.

"It seems the director took some liberties with the film. Apparently, in WWI there was no underground city that housed the world's top scientists so they could conspire against the enemy," she responded

"Who was the enemy?" I asked. I, just like everyone else, had no idea who the 'bad guys' were in the first world war.

"I don't know, the French maybe," Buffy responded, unconcerned. "So, when you take the fact that the underground city was just a big lie into consideration, it becomes painfully obvious that I did no research whatsoever and that I based my essay on a sub-par movie. This revelation usually leads to chats with your teacher, and a zero on your essay, all of which were fulfilled," Buffy added, shrugging.

"I told you not to watch that movie," I said. The director was a no talent who liked to use rapidly changing camera angles to cover up the fact that he had no talent. I had gotten motion sickness watching some of his earlier work.

"I know…and you were right about that camera angle thing," Buffy said. "But you should also consider this. What kind of a world are we living in where a young woman can't turn to television and film as a way skip out of doing actual work? I remember a day when you use to be able to rent a movie and know that it was like the book, only shorter, which is of course why you rented it in the first place. But nowadays, well, you just can't trust Hollywood to present a story accurately. It's all about money these days, with their car chases, and underground cities. When you think about it, it's really a sad day. I mean, didn't anybody think of the children? Next time I'll just have be a sell out and get one of those internet essays like everyone else, but inside I'll be mourning the loss of better time, a time when you could believe in movies. A time when you could use them to hoodwink. I'll be mourning the passing of an era when you could turn on the T.V and say 'hey, I used that movie to cheat on an English paper'," Buffy said concluding her little speech with a shake of her head that was intended to show how truly disgusted she was with the state of affairs of the world today. Once she finished I simply turned around and stared at her. For a long time. "What?" she asked finally, "Is it so wrong to be nostalgic?"

* * * * * *

Mrs. Summers wanted our help later on dismantling the exhibit whose last showing had been the night before--the one my parents attended. It had actually been a lot of fun disassembling it, I had gotten to smash things, and was able to show Buffy how I could make things float. We were there until around nine before deciding sneak out and get some ice-cream. Smashing things was fun, but ice-cream combined with Buffy was better.

"Someone's following us," Buffy whispered as we passed by the playground on our way back from the ice-cream shop.

"I bet I know who it is," I whispered back.

"Our South American stalker," Buffy responded, placing her hand on the small of my back to change the direction I had been going in. "Three… two…one…" Buffy whispered, then she dived into the bushes and emerged a moment later with Rio in her hand. I saw her face as Buffy flung her onto the ground and she was smiling. She was about to get her booty kicked and she actually looked amused. Disturbing, very disturbing. She slowly picked herself up off the ground, then once she was upright raised her leg and kicked out a Buffy who jumped back out of the way.

Buffy rushed her after that and the two of them started trading blows. They were moving so fast it was hard for me to keep track of their motions. I watched as they fought and realized that Rio was holding her own against Buffy. As far as I could tell, they were pretty evenly matched, and for that to be true she couldn't have been human. Which we suspected all along, so it wasn't really a surprise. Finally, Buffy managed to get some leverage and kicked Rio in the stomach sending her flying over near where I was standing.

Rio stood up slowly, her head was down, her shoulders slightly hunched over, and her legs crossed at the ankles. They movement was very fluid and graceful, almost bird like. Once she was standing she flung her hair back revealing her true face to us. Now that, that was surprising. She was a vampire. Her eyes were glowing yellow, her features were distorted. Her fangs were visible through her smile.

Buffy and I traded looks not believing what we were seeing. We had both seen her in the daylight, in the middle of the afternoon no less. It wasn't possible. She couldn't be a vampire. We continued to stand there watching her in a semi-stupefied state as she growled softly before raking a hand through her hair.

"Not bad, not bad at all," she said focusing her gaze on Buffy. "This is going to be fun," she said her face returning to its human state. "but I've got to be going now. Don't you two be strangers, you hear," she added before winking at us and walking away.

"What the…?" I asked, turning to Buffy once she was out of ear shot. There was no doubt that she was a vampire, the transformation back had just happened right in front of us, but it just didn't compute. Vampires couldn't walk around in the day, that's just the way things were.

"I'm right there with ya, Will," Buffy said looking after her. Turning to face me she took my hand. "We've got to find Giles, this is way weird."

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