A Gift from Evan

Part 10: Takin' The Initiative

~ Five days earlier ~

I let myself into the Summers’ house from the back and stop dead in my tracks when I see B having breakfast at the counter. I close the door and we look at each other for a bit ‘til I speak up.

"Can we talk?"

She stops mid-chew for a beat, then swallows. "Lips moving; sound coming out... I think we’re talking," She says.

Damn.

Guess she’s still mad about last night. I knew I shoulda talked to her straight after – but pretty much the second I came, my body just shut down and I musta dozed off. I put a pack on the table in front of her and she stares down at it.

"Lady at Rite Aid said that this was the best they got," I explain. "Ninety eight percent if you take ‘em in 24 hours. And... And I’ve only ever been with one woman ‘sides you and we used rubbers." I sit next to her and take a deep breath. "B, I’m real sorry about last night. I got way ahead of myself and-"

She gets up, pockets the pills and goes to put her bowl in the sink. That kinda kills the sentence I had going on, so I just stare as she washes the dish and leaves.

I bang my head on the counter and sigh. I spent like two hours this morning walking around town and thinkin’ about what happened... And yep, the reaction I got was pretty much the best case scenario. Worst case probably being that B was gonna go postal and chop off my dick. Thinkin’ about it, that woulda probably been easier to handle – least I’d know then that she was super mad. Right now, I don’t know what she’s feeling.

It hit me that she’s only ever been with one guy before. Angel. B’s not really the kinda girl who’s into a casual fuck, so this must be ripping her to shreds. I’m such a tool.
---

So, I decided I'd give Buffy some time to cool off before trying to apologise again. I went back to the dorms to wash up and change into something a little more college-type. Ran into Trey who reminded me about the initiation later, so I'd figured 'what the hey' - I had time to kill. But then when I went down to Krusty Hall, there was no one there - well, there were people there, just none that knew anything about the frat.

I waited about a half hour for Trey to show up, which sucked ‘cause I was missing a class. Walsh’s. When 2:30 hit, I gave up and went along to Psychology. Slipped in all stealthy-like in through the back, but the Hawk caught me anyways.
---

"Nice of you to join us, Mr. Thomas," She says. "Miss the start of another class and you’re out."

A no nonsense kinda lady. Be still my heart.

I take the first empty seat I can find and wait for my heart rate to go down ‘fore I reach for my book bag. I take out a notepad and pen and try to catch up.

"Here," the girl sitting next to me says, sharing her book.

"Thanks," I say. "You haven’t missed much," she goes on, whispering. "We’re talking about how the phallic stage of child development affects adult relationships."
I ‘uh-huh’ and she says, "I’m Justine."

"Evan."

I say back still scanning the room. I catch Red’s eye and she shakes her head at me.
Terrific. It’s been less than twenty four hours and she already knows. I can’t see Buffy though.

The rest of class goes by pretty uneventful. Save for Justine trying to swap digits to get together for some 'study meet'. Why she can’t just say she wants to bang, I dunno. What is that about girls sugar coatin’ their intentions? It’d save time if we all just said what we wanted, right? I fake-number her and go after Red.

"Willow!" I call, getting her attention. She waits ‘til I catch up to her, with her scowl-face going on. "Ok, on a scale of one to ten, how much does B hate me right now?"
"Oh, I’d say about eleven," Red tells me. She smacks me across the shoulder. Hard.

"You’re all the same!"

Ok... Ow. I rub my shoulder. "I’m sorry-" That I ran into you!

"I'm tired of you men and your man-ness. Buffy's really hurting right now. In fact she's in need of a big mental tidy. Evan, how could you do this to her?" She smacks me again and I hang my head in shame. "I mean, you men. It's all about the sex. You find a woman, drag her to your den, do whatever's necessary just as long as you get the sex."

"No! It wasn't just about bonin' her, Willow. Is that what she thinks??"

"What else is she supposed to think?" I sigh. "I got carried away is all. You’ve gotta understand; I’ve wanted her for so long and last night she was under me, all naked and horny and wet and so, so tasty-"

She puts her hands over her ears, screaming, "Ugh! Ugh! Overshare!"

Ooops.

I exhale my frustration and plead, "Tell me how to fix this, Red." I catch her looking behind me and she waves at someone. She looks back to me and says, "I have Ethno-musicology now. Call her and make with the begging. Also, a little ice cream might help."

"How? I don’t like ice-cream."

She looks at me like I’m retarded. "For *her*."

Oh. Right.

"Anything with Fudge in the title should be okay."

"Yes ma’am." She touches my shoulder all sympathetic-like, then walks off to meet the person she was waving at. Ok, so talking and tasty-treats... I can do that. Just gotta grab some grub first; haven't eaten since yesterday and I'm starting to feel it.
I head down to the cafeteria and the line’s crazy long. Just as I’m about to leave and go find a Mickey Ds, I see Buffy walking my way. She sees me and ducks real quick in front of some guy in the line.

"Ex boyfriend or loan shark?" I hear him ask her.

"Both," she says and I catch her doing her half smile to him. "Ugly break up."
Damn.

I hear ya, B. Loud and clear. I turn and walk away.
--

Now y’all probably wont believe this, but that night, the whole thing got me a little sad, y’know? I took Red’s advice and went out for Fudge ice cream.. ‘Cept I didn’t save it for Buffy; I ate all four tubs by myself. And I’m not ashamed to admit it, I even cried a little.

Yep, you read right; I, Faith Lehane, put on some Country music and sobbed my eyes out into a pillow over Buffy Anne Summers. Go figure, huh?

Anyways, when I was done getting the boo-hoos outta my system, I konked out and fell asleep. Was having wicked awesome dreams, until...

--

"Rise and shine!" I hear, and open my eyes about a split second before I’m thrown up in the air. I feel something go over my head and realise that I can’t see for shit.

"What the fuck??!" I holler out. "Let me go!" I struggle for all I’m worth and just hear a buncha dudes laughing around me. They smell like they’ve been drinking and this is officially not fun. Just then, it gets fuckin’ cold and I guess that we’re outside. I get tossed on my ass on the ground and someone’s about to get beat the FUCK up. I pull whatever’s on my head off of it, get up and see a bunch of guys standing around still laughing.

"Easy, player." I see Trey grinning down at me and the other guys next to him chill from their happy-high.

Guess the ninja stance is universal, ‘cause he tells me to, "Relax; we're all friends here. Told ya we was initiating you tonight - you forget?"

I look at him all wide-eyed. "What?! When you said ‘two’ I thought you meant like two in the afternoon."

"Yeah, sorry Slick," he says, pointing me to the line with two other Alpha-wannabes. Easy to tell us apart, we're in our night shit; whilst Trey and his boys are suited up in Army gear.

"Forrest, this is the guy I was tellin’ y’all about," He tells the bald guy next to him. I guess that guy’s the leader ‘cause he steps forward.

"Welcome." Dude says to me. Then he turns to all three of us cold, kinda pissed off guys standing in line. "Gentlemen, my name is Forrest and I will be your host this morning. You have all been selected today because our Alphas have seen qualities in you that make them think you’re worthy of joining our team. Now why would you want to join us? I hear you ask. Because being an Alpha is currency; an all access pass to all the booze, money and mattress-able girls you will ever need."

Now the guys next to me are grinning like fuckin’ idiots. I on the other hand, get pretty much all those things just fine anyway.

"Tonight we’re going to test your skills out in the field. You pass the test, we introduce you to the power in our operation."

I yawn. Can I go back to bed?

"What’s the test," a guy next to me asks.

One of the frat boys in cammo pipes up. "A little recognisance procedure. We’re going to test certain skills to see if you have what it takes to be an Alpha."

"Basically, you gotta have initiative," Trey cuts in, lookin’ all proud of himself and ribbin' the guys on either side of him.

I don’t get it and by the looks of things, I ain't the only one.

Forrest gives him a look like he’s some sorta moron, then says, "The mission? A simple bag and tag operation. We have reason to suspect that there may be Witches in our midst. I’ve been told of a coven that is going to be meeting on campus tonight to practice dark arts. Our leaders want us to round them up, carry out a series of tests on them and see if all this hoo-hah has any substance."

"So you wanna catch some Sabrina-wannabes, toss ‘em in a lake and see if they float?" The Einstein next to me tries to break it down.

"Exactly," Forrest says back. "So, you in?"

"I’m all up for a little witch-hunting," Einstein replies.

Why don’t you two just get a fuckin’ room and be done with it?
Trey hands us out some masks and over-size fatigues and tells us to get changed into them. The other guys do that real slow making sure no-one's checking out their junk and shit. I just strip down - and yeah, I go commando - and get changed.

"It's cold," I hear one guy saying behind me... Yeah, buddy, the less said about that the better. When were done, the team leads us back into the college through an entrance round the back. We go in through some science buildings, then up to the Chem labs. Oh shit. I hope to God Red’s not one of the 'witches' these guys want us to hunt. That’d be fuckin’ awkward. We stop outside the door and Forrest counts down from three.

Then the guys storm the room, shouting and wave tasers in the air. There’s about four... no, five girls sat in a circle in the middle of some freaky ritual-looking thing. They look up at us kinda startled, kinda pissed.

And fuck.

Red’s one of them.

Fuck.

I stand back and keep quiet whilst the guys surround the girls and grab each of them, trying their hands together. It hits them that the boys aint playin' and they start to struggle.

"What the hell?" One of them says, when Trey pulls out a rope and ties her up. I just stand and stare.

Why’d Red have to be one of them??

The girls are all scared and shrieking and stuff and I just keep thinking that pretty soon Ashton Kutcher's gonna jump out from behind me and tell me that I'm being Punk'd. I look around, but no joy. So, I just grit my teeth and watch when one guy gets rough with this blonde chick, who wouldn’t stay still long enough for him to tie her up. He shakes her and she falls over, bustin' into tears.

"No!" Red calls out. "Tara!" She stomps on the toe of the guy holding her and shakes her hands free, running over the girl on the floor. The girl’s hollering like there’s no tomorrow and Einstein shouts at her to shut up. When Red gets to just about an inch of them, he backhands her across the jaw and she falls down, hard.

Game over.

"Fuck!" I shout out on instinct, running to help Willow up. "You just crossed the line, man," I tell him. I hear Forrest behind me, telling the rest of the guys to "Tag the girls and bag ‘em all".

Seriously, what the fuck?? This is some surreal shit.

"No fucking way." I had to stop them. I take off my face mask, stroll up to Forrest and look him square in the eye. "This ends now. You didn’t say we were gonna be hurting people and I’m not gonna help you out just so as I can get into your lame hey-we’ve-got-a-serious-boner-for-the-army club."

He looks kinda shocked, and the commandos pull back. "Stand down, recruit!" He barks at me.

"No!" I bark back.

"Y’all are gonna let these girls get back to whatever they were doing before we barged the fuck in."

One of the girls makes a break for it and even in the dark, I can see that the rest of them look scared as hell. I turn to them, "It’s cool, ladies. Just some college prank gone super wrong." I move over to Red and the blonde chick holding her. I crouch in front of them. "Willow, it’s me; Evan. I’m sorry that guy hit you. You gonna be ok?"

"She-she n-needs..." The blonde girl starts...

She gonna get that sentence out some time soon? ...

"An ice pack."

"No." Red says, standing up slow. "I’ll be okay." She glares at the commandos and then her and Tara leave us in the room, turning the lights on, on their way out. Man, in the light we must look like total fags. I shake it off and help the other two girls up and leave with them. I walk each one back to their dorms, apologising again and making sure they both get back safe. Then I take my sorry ass back to my room.

What a crazy night.

Seeing Trey after that is gonna be pretty fuckin' awkward, but I *had to* stop them, right? If I hadn't who knows what they woulda done to those girls. We live in the US of fuckin' A and if they wanna be doin' freaky rituals in their free time, then different folks and strokes, y'know?

I fluff up my pillow and lay back with my arms behind my head. Got about five hours before I gotta get back up for class, but I'm too wired to sleep now. So I just look up at my ceiling and count the lines on it.

Just then, I hear a small knock on my door. I look at my watch. 03:17.

Who the fuck?

Probably Trey comin' by to say he's sorry. Or maybe some more army boys coming back for that ass-whoopin' they're long overdue. I get up off the bed and open up.

"Buffy?" My heart does triple time, just seeing her and I take a deep breath. I step aside, so she can come in... but she doesn’t. She just looks at me for a sec.

"Are you ok?" she finally asks.

"Am I...ok?"

"Are you hurt?"

"No." I say..."Well, no broken bones anyways. "Be five by five soon enough."

"Will told me what you did for her tonight," she says, looking up at me. "I won’t forget it."

Then she turns on her heel and goes to walk away. She’s dressed in leather pants and a long sleeve black top; standard slaytime wear.

"Hey, wait up a sec." I walk up to her and ask, "You going patrolling?"

She nods and I say, "Mind if I tag? I could totally do with doin’ some major demon-damage right about now... If that’s cool with you?"

She thinks it over, then says a real small, real quiet, "Okay."

TBC.