A Plethora of Possibilities
by fantagismo
5
[reviews]
5.
Willow's summation of the situation hadn't been far off. The minute the two girls had entered the club, each and every vampire had looked up towards the entrance, where they could feel the power coming off both the blonde, and the redhead. Darla, the blonde, incidentally a vampire, had looked up from the chair she was sitting in, away from the boy she was toying with, and saw the girls settle for a drink. She thought about the Master, stuck like a cork in a bottle, and she wondered if these girls would give him enough power to free himself. They might not even need the harvest, and Darla could use that to curry favour with the Master, which she definitely wanted, even if he was one ugly son of a gun. Rising, she led the boy to the back, quickly fed off him in the a dark and shady corner usually reserved for other, slightly less messy practices, and made her way over to the bar, wiping the blood from her lips with practised ease. She would wait until one of them was alone - threesomes were overrated.
-------
Willow was trying not to look at the blonde, but she couldn't help it. She wasn't particularly attracted to her, the schoolgirl outfit being a real turn off, but there was something compelling about her eyes, something that piqued Willow's interest. If she had been more magically tuned in, she would have realised that she was being drawn to Darla because her 'freakydeaky-dar' was recognising her as a vampire. However, Willow, at this point, didn't realise she was magically enhanced, and to give the girl a break, she had only just discovered vampires. The facts being as they are, the minute Darla started to sidle over to her side of the bar, Willow was in serious trouble, and all of her instincts were telling her that same thing now. **Of all the things in the world right now, I wish I could get the feeling back into my ass so I can run the hell away! Damn uncomfortable stools!**
"Hi. Can I interest you in a drink?"
**Argh!** "Uh, I'm waiting for someone, that's ok."
"You sure? I'll go when your friend comes, I just thought you could use some company. Not nice to be here, all alone, while everyone else is having fun..." Darla tried to play on the self conscious body language the girl was giving off. Still she couldn't help but notice that this redhead was striking, and not just in her flourishing attributes. She could smell the power, was getting intoxicated from it in much the same way that Willow had felt strange earlier. **I wonder if she's even aware of it,** Darla mused, and decided to test it out.
Gesturing towards the bartender, Darla ordered a cranberry juice, and while Willow was trying to look for Buffy in the rafters, opened her wrist with a flick of a fingernail. The vampires looked up again, those who had shared in Darla's blood, intoxicated by the potent and powerful blood of an older Vampire. Quickly she let a rivulet of blood mingle with the cranberry juice on the bar, and by the time the redhead had glanced back nervously at the blonde, the deed was done.
The vampires went back to their tasks, smirking at Darla, waiting for the tainting to begin.
-------
"Giles?"
"Buffy?" They had been talking about the duties of the slayer, and the possible outcomes of the Harvest. Buffy was beginning to change her opinion of the watcher; something in the way he talked, and desperately tried to prepare her for the ordeals of the Hellmouth reminded her of Merrick, and that thing was that he seemed to genuinely care. He had hesitated at various rants about her duty, and he had listened to her worries, and even gone as far as to listen to her spiel about Cordelia. They were forging a connection, and she was starting to trust him. Besides, he was kind of funny, in a peculiar, very English way.
"What is a slayer?"
"A slayer is the girl, one chosen in the whole the world for every generation...."
"No, not that. I mean, why me? Where did this come from?"
"The origins of the slayer? Well, that's difficult to pinpoint. There have been obscure references to the first slayer, some thousands of years ago, but the matter of how is a guarded secret that I'm not privy to, I'm afraid."
**Privy? Toilet??** "What about other people? Other slayers? They must have asked these questions, right?"
"Well, there are the Watcher's Diaries - if anyone had asked these questions before, it may have been recorded in there." Giles paused, looking at Buffy thoughtfully for a minute.
"What? Do I have something on my face?"
"No, not at all. I was just musing on the origins of your questions. May I ask why you are so curious on the history of slaying?"
"I don't know. Maybe it could be the this pesky desire I have to live? I'm sick of running from stuff Giles, and I'm really fed up of running into things blindly, without any clue of how things are going to turn out, even if it is my loveable calling card. I want to know, Giles, I want to know about slaying, about me, about the slayer. I want to-" She was cut off by her spider sense kicking into gear. She could sense something powerful in the air, and it was not something good.
"Uh, Giles? I think there's something in here, something nasty," Buffy quietly warned, and then thought of Willow. **Damn it, how long have I been gone for?** "I've just got to check something," she muttered, walking to the railing on the balcony.
Her heart jumped her mouth when she saw Willow speaking very nervously to a blonde. Her body language was protective, whilst the blonde's was bordering on the naughty touching. Buffy immediately recognised the undead signal, and galvanised the soon-to-be-dead signal considering this **vapid whore!!** slash woman was touching Willow. She motioned for Giles to saddle up just as she angrily saw one of the blonde's hands stray towards the redhead's half covered leg, all the while whispering something into Willow's ear, gradually descending to Willow's neck. Buffy's adrenaline was pumping, raring to go, but then she watched with amusement and a fair dollop of relief as Will looked incensed for a minute, swatted away the hand and moved her body away from the woman, taking a deep drink of the beverage she had in front of her to calm herself down.
And then found herself thrown across the floor - along with the entire population of the Bronze - when a burst of bright light exploded with Willow at the centre of it all. Just as quickly as it had engulfed the room it receded, leaving the patrons of the bar confused and a little concussed.
**Oh my God, Willow!**
Buffy ran down the stairs, almost afraid of what she might find.
-------
Willow was nervous, as she always was around people. This new girl seemed to be very interested in something about Willow, and it was making her very uncomfortable. As she often did when she was uncomfortable, she babbled and said the most horrendously stupid things.
"So, cranberry juice, eh? Good cure for cystitis, don't ya know?" Inside Willow's brain, a diminutive Will was smacking her forehead on her open palm in frustration at the conversation topic. Inside Darla's brain, a little demon was laughing it's arse off.
"I wouldn't know. So anyway, I saw you walk in, and I have to say, there's something very, very remarkable about you."
"Remarkable?" Something in the way she said it made it sound sinister, causing Willow another shudder. "I wouldn't say that. I mean, yes, I'm ok and all, but remarkable? This is just me, li'l old Willow, doing my thing, twiddling my thumbs, waiting for my friend. Who should be here at any min-"
"What a treat. I'm Darla," she purred, as she raked her eyes over Willow's body, leering at her form, "and you should listen to what I have to say." She leaned forward, her hands stroking her leg through the dress, her cold breath tickling her ear. Willow stiffened, and got a whole lot more uncomfortable. "How does it feel to have power? How does it feel to know that people are watching you, tracking you because not only do they want to know what you're doing next, but because they fear it too? You reek of power, such a pretty young thing, but you're simply going to have to learn the hard way that people like you will always attract corruption, dishonesty, and not an ounce of respect. In case you didn't get the subtext, that means me. How does it feel to have my eyes tracing up and down your body, undressing you, fucking you, tasting you, devouring you...?"
Willow's eyes widened - she'd had enough - and she shook herself out of her shocked state, particularly when she felt a sharp pinch on her neck. **Is she trying to give me a lovebite?** She batted away the hand that was drifting along her inner thigh, and shook off the mouth along her neck, wincing a little as the pinch became a bit of a tear. Willow was pissed, and picking up her drink, she turned to the malevolently smiling Darla.
"Too bad for you, you'll never know." It took all of her courage to retort her words, and she took a long gulp of her drink, draining it. She didn't have even have time to put it down when a white light completely tangled all of her senses, and her entire being itself seemed to pour out into the atmosphere around her, enveloping all the processes unfolding around her and imbedding the knowledge of them into her subconscious. Except those processes were now, in some very obscure and peculiar way part of her subconscious. Don't worry, she didn't understand it either. Looking around, she heard the various thuds of people being thrown in various and often theatrical directions, and she saw that the blonde woman was no where to be seen.
What she couldn't help but notice was the few droplets blood emerging from two red puncture marks on her neck, and the coppery taste in her mouth. And that's precisely how Buffy found her too, dazed, confused, and having a very advanced case of the wiggins.
So far, it was an interesting date.
-------
Darla ran out of the bronze, her skin burning and flanked by the other vampires, a couple of which were on fire. It hadn't been sunlight that Willow had literally flooded the place with, but it had been an automatic, not to mention peculiar, witch fu defence, the likes of which Darla hadn't seen before on such a grand scale. She watched as one of her weaker minions exploded into dust. Her scheme really hadn't gone to plan, and now she was facing the very awkward possibility that she would return to the master without having brought him anything to feed on, and then having to explain why she had fed that night, but he wouldn't. Those were the kind of odds you didn't play up against in life, or unlife, or whatever, so she could only see one clear option.
Round up some meat.
-------
Back in the Bronze, a very dazed Giles, Buffy and Xander were converging around a bewildered, not to mention confused Willow. Xander, who had in fact managed to convince Jesse to come out with him had subsequently lost him later when his friend seemed to have some success with a pale blonde. He'd been on the dance floor since then, prancing about like an inelegant ape, but he was having the time of his life when he found himself thrown across the room, only to wind up very up close and personal with Larry. He swear he'd seen a spark of something - something excitied? - right before Larry had pushed him off, but he was already trying to repress that memory.
Giles and Buffy, on the other hand had rushed down the stairs, Giles falling steadily behind her until she was up close to Willow. Exclaiming something that can only be described as a happy noise, Buffy wrapped her arms around Willow in a comforting embrace, and Willow, slowly getting over the shock of what was, by all means, a rather precarious situation hugged her back, eager for the reassurance. However, when Buffy pulled away, peering at Willow's face, she grew concerned.
Buffy pulled away, but not too far. "Giles? Why is Willow setting off my slayer sense?"
Giles pulled off his glasses with a melodramatic flourish.
"I'm sorry! I'll stop it!" Buffy smiled at Willow's outburst. "It's ok, I felt your pulse. I know you're alive and not of the undead, but something's slightly off, and what happened to your neck?" Buffy suddenly realised Willow was hurt. "Oh my God, are you ok? Did she... bite you?"
Willow grimaced and wryly smiled. "A little," then a frown appeared on her face as though remembering something. "Buffy, I think she made me drink something. She ordered me a cranberry juice, and I wasn't really thinking, and I drank it at the end of her little speech when I told her where to go after she had said, well, it was weird, but the drink didn't taste fruity and that's pretty much when everything went, er, tits up, and dammit she said some really disturbing thin-"
She was cut off by Buffy kissing her, passionately, sweetly, tenderly and ferociously. Xander drooled, mesmerised. Giles cleaned his glasses for a few moments, and then cleared his throat. The two girls looked up abashed, but none the less irritated for being distracted from getting some action. Buffy pulled a face at the residual taste in her mouth after her Willow ravishment. "What the hell was in the drink, Wills?"
"If I may interrupt, and if I may I think safely assume that everyone in this circle is aware of the existence of the slayer," cue glare directed at Buffy, "then I think I can shed some light on the situation. Willow, you have been tasted by a vampire, hence the marks on your neck. Sometimes, if a Vampire wishes to create a bond between their intended victim, they will mark them somehow, by feeding from them a small amount, and then giving them a small amount of blood in return." In unison, Buffy and Willow pulled a disgusted face, and then a split second later realised what Darla had put in the cup, and then what Buffy had gained from their earlier exchange. "Ewwww!" Came the subsequent chorus.
"Quite. Well, when that happens, a person is said to be 'tainted', in that a controlled and small amount of the vampire's demon essence will reside in the human's bloodstream. The person retains weaker elements of a vampire's physicality; heightened sense of smell, stronger, faster, better night vision, and so on."
"So why do they do it? Why make a person more able to kill you the next time round?"
"Because it also gives the vampire a kind of sway over their victim. It establishes the connection for the thrall, and it allows them to toy with their intended in ways not possible without the taint. It's rarely done, but it is somewhat of a double edged sword."
All parties looked thoughtful, if not a little wary. Xander piped up. "So what was the bright light kerfuffle about? Was that this tainting thing going on?"
"That, I'm not sure of I'm afraid. But I have some suspicions that will, I daresay, be confirmed in due time. I think the best thing for you all is to get some rest. Try not to worry, Willow, I'll find out what I can about this, and the harvest," aiming a quick nod at Buffy, "and I'll see you all in the morning at school."
"G'night Giles"
-------
Xander, Buffy and Willow walked through the streets of Sunnydale, chatting softly, allaying the unspoken fear between the three with a warm sense of comradery. Willow and Buffy were holding hands, intertwining their fingers through the other's, feeling warm and contented despite the night's events. Xander was the first to be dropped off, and as Buffy walked Willow up to her door, they both felt a shiver of energy running between them. Not wanting the evening to end yet, they lingered a while, talking quietly and easily between themselves.
"Do you wanna come in? I mean, my parents are away and it's still kinda early, and I'm pretty sure Xander left some movies. I could make us some hot chocolate with marshmallows on top?" Willow didn't want to think tonight, she just wanted to spend some proper time with Buffy. She felt she deserved it.
"Sounds perfect."
And so they snuggled together on the couch, watching Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, sipping hot chocolate and making out. Before long, Buffy had phoned her mom asking to stay over at Willow's, and they resumed their routine, with added focus to the plan of making out. Lots more. It was in the early hours of the morning before they actually went to sleep, but when they did they could think of nothing except how good it felt to be lying in bed with the exact same person they dreamed it would be. Sweet dreams indeed.