SITCOA Ep2 Welcome to the Hellmouth

All day the words swum round in Buffy's head, 'With infernal gratitude, T,' Trick, Trick had found the tear in the fabric of the space time compendium and gotten through.

Or had he?

It occurred to her around lunch time, she was sat with Willow eating the very light salad that constituted her human food intake, she had to be seen to eat something, people had started to talk. "I got a problem Will, mind if I borrow your brain?"

"Sure," Willow had watched her friend stare into space for the last ten minutes. "Shoot, we talking personal here or business? Personal my consultation fee is higher."

"Business." Buffy lost the thread for a second as she considered what her friend might mean, personal problem? "Ok, Faith had a bunch of flowers delivered with this card."

She passed the carefully written piece of card over the table to Willow. "Kind of wiggy huh!?"

"KIND OF!" Willow looked at everyone staring at her and felt the urge to 'Yikes.' She leaned forward and hissed. "Trick? Trick got through the hole in the space time continuum?"

"Continuum, that was what it was called, hah." Buffy, catching the resolve face, realized it was time to focus on the important stuff, not the pronunciation. "Yes and no, I mean, it would be the obvious explanation, but is it too obvious, there's stuff here that makes no sense."

"If it was Trick from another dimension, then why would he be grateful to Faith? He wouldn't have the least idea who Faith was, let alone have a reason to thank her." Willow turned the card over and over as she spoke. "In fact if someone told him, wouldn't he be rather more likely to drain her than want to take her flowers?"

"Unless the other dimension sucked for him, pardon the pun, and he looked upon this one as pastures new. Let's not forget he was Kakis..toes, Kakiskisses whatever, the Greek guy's servant. If he slipped through, hey, he's home free here, no boss." Buffy took on a worried look. "But then if Kakistos comes looking for him?"

"More big scary bad guys." Willow was running through a mental list of who might suddenly come back, if it was a rip. "You know we still got that whole revocation ritual thing. This could be more evidence of that."

"The Three, Trick, ok if the guy doing it likes names that begin with T." Buffy concentrated hard, then went on. "Somebody knows who Faith is, has a reason for gratitude takes flowers. Somebody knows who Faith is, knows I visit, wants to wig me out, leaves a message I'll freak over. Somebody wants to meet me there tonight, this message was left to ensure I'd go." Buffy sat back proud of herself. "I like when I borrow your brain. It's so productive."

"Thanks." Willow was frowning in a way guaranteed to dissolve a friends happy. "Wouldn't it have been easier for them to leave a message saying meet me here tonight? Does the word trap not spring to mind? I mention that because you know what happens usually?"

"I know," Buffy said in a small voice. "I get drawn off on some wild goose chase and you guys get captured or hurt or both, which is why you're going to get everyone together at the mansion, barricade yourselves in with weapons, and kill any vamp who isn't on our side who comes calling."

"While you go walk into the trap.......alone." Willow had the resolve face again. "I'm going with you......ok I'm at the mansion."

"Good," the Slayer smiled, the look receded. "Walking into traps is what Slayers do. Its our job, not yours."

"So tell me," Buffy asked lowering her voice, and rapidly changing subject. "Did you manage that free time at Oz's last night after the meeting? Cause Angel reacted so very, very nicely to Spike coming back....."

Willow blushed. "Yeah, his parents were out actually so.....yeah."

"Let's go somewhere quieter, I want to hear all about it........"
**************************************

As soon as college finished, Buffy went home, fed, and went back to the hospital. All her friends had been paged and responded, they were at the Mansion, the vampire backup had got on the road at sunset. Things were looking up nicely. Three vamps were going to die.

But not yet.

She stalked the corridors tonight, three stakes in her jacket pockets, and brass knuckles in case flower guy was human. She hoped he wasn't.

She felt the tingling sensation ten feet from the door and strode straight into the room.

He was black, he was fine looking,*Denzel meets Wesley!*, he was wearing a stylish grey suit, he wasn't Trick.

But he was a vampire, and a powerful one. The force rippled out from him, he had a century of like behind him at least.

He smiled, showing a set of perfect white teeth, his hair was cut real close, a goatee seemed to suit him perfectly. His eyes were hooded, though, his gaze intense, as he took in the combination of black leather jacket, black tee and red leather pants with boots. Then he spoke with a slight southern drawl, his voice deep and strong with no trace of fear.

"Well hullo sweetness, I'm so pleased to meet you at last," the vampire bowed faintly as he added. "I pay homage to you my Queen!"

"Huh!" Buffy had her hand already going for a stake. "What was that......"

"Why Missy, when I heard about the unfortunate demise of my Sire, I was of course obliged to come lookin' for the Slayer that killed him." He glanced at the unharmed but still comatose Faith. "But hell I never liked the guy, and this little lady did me two favours, not only dustin' him, but putting me in a position to hear about you’all."


"Your Trick's Childe." Buffy did start to draw the stake now. "Don't tell me, you're here for revenge. Sorry Mr..... Hey are you Mr Treat?" She saw the vampire's superior smile disappear. "You are arn't you? That must be so embarrassing."

"Hell girl, you ain't exactly been smiled upon in the namin' matter either, but you see why I didn't like my Sire, his idea of a joke." Treat didn't seem in the least perturbed by the stake that was slowly emerging. "Revenge, hell no, loyalty and service. I'm here to add a little colour to your team. I hear your recruitin' girl, I wanna join."

"HUH!?" Buffy's jaw dropped.

"Oh come on girl, don't tell me you got colour prejudice?" Treat was enjoying himself, with a subtle lick of his lips he added. "I'd love a sweet lookin' girl like you for a boss. If you like, we can get to the my showing my subservience part right now. I got something to kneel on, so just back up against the door and drop your pants and I'll just........"

"You.....cannot......be.....serious?" Buffy didn't back up. She pulled the stake clear, and morphed. "This is a very unfunny joke vampire! You may die laughing!"

"Where's the joke, honey?" The gun Treat suddenly drew was small, no more than a .22, but it was pointed straight at Buffy's right knee. "You see there's the nice, mind-blowing, orgasmic way.......or the hard way. Choice is yours." Treat smiled as his fangs appeared and ridgelines marred his face. "Best make it fast......."
*********************************************
The gun was held rock steady, but then so was Buffy's stake.

"So, you shoot me, so what? I have super healing so a couple of weeks and hey I'm back." Buffy smiled, her fangs gleamed, and brought the stake up for a one handed throw. "But you stay gone."

"True, sugar." Treat was the height of cool. "And you got a bullet in you, a gun but no assailant, but that pales compared to your other problem. Hey! Your bleedin' in a hospital, so they hook you up to machinery and find guess what?" His smile broadened, two could play the fang game. "You're dead."

"An annoyance, granted." Buffy didn't need a complete change of identity at this time in her life, or having to knock out witnesses to escape her old one whilst limping and in agony. "But not as permanent as stakeage. I take it from this approach of yours that you don't get many dates, drop your pants or get shot, nice line but not I would think so popular with the ladies!"

"Don't worry for me, girl, I get plenty, and minions are so uninhibited. You should try making some." At the look of disgust and anger that crossed the Slayer's face, Treat decided he'd taken things far enough. "Ok, forget the act of submission. Shit girl, you're acting like I asked you to go down on me not the other way around, but hell if you don't wanna get off, what do you want?"

"Your answer to a question, why?" Buffy held the stake firmly, ready for an opening. "Why do you want to join me?"

"Immortality, it's something a brother can get used to, and they way you and yours are killin' vamps, seems like I'm on the wrong side for stayin' undead an' kickin'. So...." Treat shrugged. "I figure, hell with her being so cute and all, go volunteer."

"Problem I have a honey, I have a soul," Buffy noted the look of what? *Disappointment?*, that crossed the vampire's face. "Though if I didn't, that gun would have ruined your chances Mr. Girls don't dig on that kind of thing, flowers yes, candy yes, firearm no!"

"Ok," Treat looked at the stake. "My libido overcame my brain, lose the stake, I lose the gun and we talk turkey."

Slowly both vampires let their guard down, but they stayed just as far apart, weapons within easy reach.

"To join, you have to slay." Buffy tried to read her potential recruit's face, and decided never to play poker with him, particularly the strip variety. "Give up feeding on humans, stop being an asshole, got any problem so far?"

"I've farmed before, you're prettier than my last overseer, I ain't never bein an asshole and I've dusted, I'll dust again, but I take it you mean large scale?" Treat read the curious look on the Slayer's face. *Almost there, come on honey here's the hook.*

"Yeah, one vamp won't convince me, got anything in mind?" A mask, not a trace of emotion in sight.

"I keep my ear to the ground, guy who used to run Compton's vamps met with an accident. Now the brothers are fighting over who takes his place." Treat's smile returned. "Guess who I'd like to nominate for that gig?"

"You." Buffy knew enough about LA's vamps to know that was a very risky proposition. They used guns, automatic ones. "And so?"

"The survivors of that process will be lead into your arms, we slay, I stay." Treat spread his hands out all friendly. "We got us a deal girl?"

"Yeah, why not? Not like I trust you an inch, but you may prove me wrong. Two vamps already have." Her vampire face disappeared to be replaced by a half smile. "Just forget about the submission thing ok?"

*Gotcha!* Treat gloated inwardly, but on the outside was all friendship, as he extended a hand for the briefest of shakes. "You won't regret this sweetness. I promise."

"For your sake, I hope not. Now leave me to sit with my friend." Buffy nodded towards the door. "Ring me at the Mansion when you get the job done. It's in the book under O'Rourke."

But Treat didn't leave, he looked down at Faith and whispered. "If you turned her, she'd be up an' walkin' within a day, unless that is you don't want her cured...?"

He impacted with the wall hard, and the sharp wooden pointed object that jammed into his chest made protest at the treatment the last thing on his mind. "Never suggest that to me again, never come to this room again, and don't fucking piss me off again. Do any of those things and I'll kill you, are we clear?"

"Yeah....I guess so......I'm sorry." Sometimes hazel can be even more frightening than yellow, Treat decided that he needed to remember that. It was a relieved vampire who fled the room, but for all that, a happy one -- he was in, one way or another.

"You know something Faith? He's probably right." Buffy took her fellow Slayers still hand in her own as she sat beside her. "And it isn't as if I haven't thought about it, too."

"But then I remember what you were like with a soul, and I realize that wouldn't be such a good idea." She regretted having to say it, but it was true. "Add a demon to that mix, Faith, and you'd probably just try and destroy the world and I'd have to kill you again, and I don't want to have to do that....thinking I'd done it once was enough."

*But then,* she thought, as silent tears started to flow. *Maybe I did kill you. Perhaps you simply haven't got around to dying yet.*
****************************************************

"Do you suppose maybe this time it isn't a trap?"

Willow was sat on a table in the mansion's living room, swinging her red sneaker-clad feet, as she looked around at the decor, which was positively medieval since Buffy had insisted on hanging a dozen huge hand-and-a-half swords on her wall. As a reminder, and also in case any more zombies came calling. Nice to have a means of decapitation within easy reach.

"Oh come on, Will." Willow might have her crossbow on the ground, but Xander didn't. His was shouldered with his finger on the trigger guard. "Whenever Buffy goes off on her own, we get hit, like that time I got my arm broke and you nearly died? They're coming. They're just not coming fast."

"Maybe, it has happened a lot." Willow gave an un-Willow-like, evil grin. "Like that time you don't remember when you got turned into a hyena and they left me alone with you in the library."

"Yeah, exactly like that time." Xander kept a perfectly straight deadpan face. No way was he walking into that trap again. "Which I don't remember."

"Xander is, for once, undoubtedly right." Giles stood in the hallway, keeping watch down the drive. "Working out the odds on a case-by-case basis, I have to conclude this is a diversion intended to allow us all to be kidnapped while Buffy's back is turned. We must not drop our guard."

"Or maybe it's not, and we should." Karen added from the sofa, where she was sat by Anya, Angel and Oz, trying to watch TV. Their three unloaded crossbows and Oz's longbow were on the floor in front of them. "Call it third time lucky, or should that be fifth?"

"Sixth," Oz contributed. "If we count when Giles got whacked by the Gorches."

"Maybe the library was cursed." Angel had a lot of musing time tonight, and he was bored, the girls had won control of the remote. "It was built on the mouth of Hell, can't have been all that lucky."

Giles lowered his crossbow a look of perplexity on his face. "You know, that had never even occurred to me. Of course, it would be accursed ground, and to think of all the things that happened there."

"Aha!" Willow exclaimed, jumping up and narrowly avoiding setting off her crossbow, thus triggering a series of unlikely ricochets that would have plunged the bolt into Angel's heart. (Had they been in the library.) "I knew that place had a jinx."

"Hell, now that you mention it....it can't be anything else. We haven't had anywhere near the hardship since it got burned down, nothing as bad's ever happened here." It suddenly occurred to Xander that everyone was looking at him, and why. "I did it again, didn't I?"

"Yeah but it wasn't like you did it deliberately...." Anya began, quick to rally to her boyfriend's defence.

"Xander Harris if you've spread the jinx......I'll..." Willow's impending threat of rathood got interrupted by a shout from the hall.

"Car, coming up the drive!"

"Oh shit." Xander looked up at the ceiling. "God, why did you curse me with such a big unthinking mouth?"

"I think it's alright," a smiling Giles stuck his head round the door to interrupt three people frantically loading, Oz bracing his weapon to fit the string, and Willow, well Willow seemed to be getting ready to slug Xander. "It's a black De Soto."

"Oh!" Willow relaxed, and stepped away from the potential slugee. "That's okay then." The room relaxed, except for one of its occupants, who fitted a bolt in his crossbow. "Angel, didn't you hear what Giles said? It's just Spike."

"I heard." Angel growled. "You guys wait in here, I'll handle this." And with that he brushed past Giles and headed for the door.

********************************************************
Spike and Browne were already unpacking the trunk when Angel stormed out of the building crossbow in hand. Browne saw him first.

"Looks like precious 'as 'is knickers in a twist as usual.," Browne reached for his pistol. "An no sign of 'er Ladyship, either."

"Leave it, mate." Spike's voice was deadly. Browne shot him a startled glance and then picked up his and Spike's bags and headed for the house. There was going to be blood up the walls if the Slayer didn't show soon.

Calmly Spike picked up his sub-machine gun, it was locked and loaded, the letter burned a hole in his pocket, he had a question for his Sire to answer.

"Spike, come out were I can see you." Angel's voice was filled with the authority of Sire to Childe.

As he stepped out from behind, the car gun levelled, Spike realized he didn't give a damn. The crossbow pointed straight at him didn't phase him either.

A harsh growl rose in Angel's throat even as the vampire morphed.

Spike felt the tug, the grip on his loyalty, and ignored it. "Yeah mate, like that's really goin’ to work, why did you send me the fuckin' letter?"

"Cause you fucked Buffy." Angel snarled through his fangs. "Why the fuck are you still here? Isn't Dru who you always loved?"

"Till you took her from me." Spike almost felt his heart beat with the tension, and the pain, you don't point a weapon at your Sire, but he had to. "And unfortunately, Angelus, you miscalculated. It's well over a month till Dru gets to where I'm to meet her. Leaves me plenty of time to decide."

The gun came up, aimed at Angel' heart, the garlic-laced bullets would burn it out. "Why? I thought you got all snively over the people your Childer kill. Don't tell me you've stopped being a pathetic wanker this late in your un-life."

"Because I don't believe that 'screwed her to save the world' crap for a second." Angel spat, unable to comprehend a Childe of his defying him so. "You were just waiting for an opportunity to get even with me for what happened with Dru. I'd rather you and her were off killing than have to look at you again, ever."

"So pull the trigger." Spike smiled as he spoke, maybe his unlife had lasted long enough. "Let's do it."

Angel had a hell of a lot more to lose, like Buffy, so he didn't shoot, and a loud coughing from behind him came as an intense relief.

"Gentlemen please." Giles was nervous to say the least, it wasn't like anyone would shoot him deliberately, would they? "The Three, tear in the space time continuum, potential invasion by hordes of vampires from another plane. Hardly the time or place for you two chaps to kill each other is it?" Then he threw in the question he knew would do it. "What on earth would Buffy say?"

Gun and crossbow came down, neither vampire looked shame-faced, but as Angel morphed he stepped off the path, letting Spike walk into the house.

As Angel went to follow Giles stepped into his way, there was an edge in his voice, a Ripper edge. "What letter Angel? What have you been doing?"

"Well, you see Giles....."

*****************************************************
People were looking at him fearfully. Not like they didn't usually seem wary, the Slayerettes might have slain with him but he was still an unsouled vampire. Currently with a gun.

Browne held out a reassuring hand. "There, there mate, it's all over now."

Browne understood, Spike realized. Browne had killed his Sire, putting him beyond the pale, as far as vampires were concerned, if of course they knew. (Cultural differences, intense paternal abuse and a bloody awful curry, Browne still suffered from indigestion as a result.) So Spike handed him the gun, to an intense sigh of collective relief.

"Come on son, let's go get you a drink." His arm around the suddenly shaking vampire's shoulders, Browne lead his friend off towards the kitchen.

"Hidden depths!" Willow exclaimed, her conversations with the vetala had been brief, and innuendo ridden. "Well I guess the bad luck wasn't all in the library, maybe one of us is the jinx...oh, now that was a pretty dumb thing to say...and why are you guys all looking at me like that?"