Back Here at Home Ch 3 and 4 BtVS/SPN
Title: Back Here At Home
Author: noturbaby
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: none
Fandoms: Buffy the Vampire Slayer Supernatural
Summary: Buffy returns to Sunnydale after her summer as Anne in LA with the Winchesters, but being home isn't as easy as she hoped. Trouble still finds her. Sam and Dean help her the best they can. A second part to my story: How I Spent My Summer Vacation. The first three chapters based on bvts season three episode: Dead Man's Party.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.
Chapter 1, Chapter 2,
The zombie grabbed Giles and threw him against his car, nearly knocking the man out. The watcher punched the undead thing square in the jaw, but it didn't falter. Taking a stake from his coat, Giles used it to bat the zombie about its head. Finally, the undead creature fell away.
Giles took a breath of relief before he saw more zombies creeping towards him.
At Buffy's, a zombie snapped the neck of one of the teenage guests. Another zombie grabbed Xander from behind and they fell to the ground. Sam rushed over and tried to pull the zombie off of Xander; the three wrestled for a moment, then the boys got the upper hand and broke away from the zombie.
Willow tossed Buffy a piece of the broken window frame and the slayer buried it in the zombie's chest. "Okay, not vampires!" Buffy yelled and threw a worried look to her friends.
Sam grabbed the andirons from the fireplace. "Xander!" he yelled as he tossed one to him. Xander snagged the tool/weapon and together he and Sam beat back the zombies until Buffy could shove them out the door.
They had a moment to catch their breath before a crash was heard in the back of the house. "Xander! Kitchen!" Buffy yelled.
"On it!" he replied as he ran. Cordelia followed, right on his heels.
"Buffy, what are these thing?" Joyce asked.
"Zombies," Sam answered before following Cordelia.
Buffy nodded. "How do I kill them?"
Sam shrugged and looked over his shoulder calling, "I don't know, they're the undead."
Giles looked from the stake in his hand to the approaching zombies and came to the grim realization that there was no way he was going to be able to fend them off successfully. "What I wouldn't give for a sharp machete," he mumbled to no one in particular.
Or perhaps to just the right someone, as at that moment a '67 Impala turned the corner.
Dean pointed to Giles and the encroaching zombie horde. "Dad, is that Mr. -"
"It's the watcher. And those look like -"
"Zombies."
With the Impala's pedal to the floor, John eliminated several of the zombie threat. When the car screeched to a halt, both John and Dean raced to the trunk and retrieved weapons. Their shotguns made quick work of the zombies that had gathered near Giles.
"Mr. Winchester, you have impeccable timing," the watcher sighed with relief.
John only nodded. "What made Sunnydale suddenly turn into Night of the Living Dead?" Dean asked.
"I believe it to be caused by a Nigerian mask Buffy's mother has decorating the walls of her house."
John and Dean exchanged looks, and simultaneously said, "Sam!" They rushed back to the car with Giles on their heels. "Call Sam," John ordered though Dean already had his phone in hand.
"What do I tell him? He doesn't have any weapons. How's he supposed to kill these things?"
"Tell him -" John began gruffly
"Tell Buffy," Giles interrupted, "she needs to destroy the mask. The zombies will be trying to get to it. I don't want to think of what could happen if one of the zombies gets their hands on the mask."
Joyce's friend, Pat, finished her third Bartles&James Blue Hawaiian wine cooler and decided she needed to get some air. She opened a window in the Summers' dining room, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. "Oh my, what is that horrible smell?" she asked herself opening her eyes to find herself face to face with a zombie. Thinking it to be one of the party guests she said, "You're not supposed to be out there. You should get back inside."
The creature looked at her, pushed her aside and climbed through the window. "Kids, these days. You should know better than to climb through the window! Use the door." The zombie looked at Pat, then twisted her neck and dropped her on the floor.
Buffy and her mother forced a zombie out the front door and slammed it behind them, when another crash was heard in the living room. "Mom, get upstairs, now!" Joyce listened to to her daughter and rushed up the steps.
Buffy rushed into the living room where Oz was using a broken table leg to keep a zombie at bay. "Willow, get upstairs with Buffy's mom," Oz ordered. Willow didn't argue. She handed Buffy the fireplace poker and ran.
Buffy and Oz quickly realized that they would not be able to fend off all of the attacking zombies, too many were making their way inside. After knocking a few of them to the ground, Buffy grabbed Oz's arm. "Come on!" They, too, made their way upstairs.
In the kitchen, Xander and Sam were able to force the zombie out the back door. Sam then barricaded the door with a table. Cordelia looked towards the living room. "There's too many. We're trapped."
Sam grabbed Cordelia and shoved her into a closet. "Stay here. Don't open the door for anyone except Xander or me." Cordelia nodded and Sam poured salt in front of the door.
"What are you doing?" Xander watched Sam pouring salt by the closet and the back door.
"Salt deters evil spirits. It should work on zombies, too." He tossed the empty carton. "If she can stay quiet, they won't know she's there."
"You don't know Cordelia. Quiet's not one of her settings."
"Hey," the girl yelled from the closet, "I can hear you!" Xander inclined his head toward the closet as she proved his point.
Sam began rifling through the kitchen cabinets hoping to find more salt, when the Foo Fighters' 'My Hero' was suddenly playing from his phone. At the moment, he was grateful his brother was calling; he'd pay Dean back for the embarrassing ring tone when he wasn't being attacked by the undead.
"Dean, thank god. Buffy's place is being attacked by zombies or something that looks like zombies."
From the closet, Cordelia yelled, "They smell like them, too. Hey! Why is he allowed to talk?"
"Yeah, kid, I know. Let me talk to Buffy. We've got her watcher with us. He says she has to destroy a mask her mom has," Dean answered.
"It's the Nigerian folk art mask!" Giles shouted over the seat back. "Don't let a zombie get their hands on it!"
"Did you hear that?" Dean asked his brother.
"Yeah, destroy a mask, got it. But, Dean -"
"Don't worry, Sam, we're almost there."
Zombie!Pat watched Buffy and Oz run up the steps and followed. She made it to the top just as Buffy was knocking on her mom's door. "Mom, it's me, open up."
Grateful to see her daughter unharmed, Joyce opened the door and hugged Buffy. "Oh, thank god you're all right." Then Joyce saw Pat. "Pat, hurry! You need to get in here."
Zombie!Pat nodded and followed the others into the room. The glowing eyes of the Nigerian mask seemed to hypnotize her.
"Buffy, what are these things?" Willow asked.
"I don't know. Sam thinks they're zombies," she answered as she surveyed the safety of the room. "You guys stay here. I'm going out there to see if I can draw them away from the house." She opened her mom's door only to see zombies creeping towards them. "We've got company. Oz, help me push this dresser in front of door."
"Buffy, what are we going to do? How so we stop these things?" Willow asked as she helped them move the dresser.
"I don't know," Buffy answered. "Right now, I hope Sam knows what to do."
Still wielding the andirons as weapons, Xander and Sam quietly make their way to the living room. "It's quiet. I don't like it," Xander whispered as they looked for the mask.
"Me either. Something's not right."
Once in the living room, they could hear rustling outside. Together they stacked the sofa and coffee table in front of the window. Then, they heard a sound on the steps. "There." Xander pointed.
Sam rushed over and dragged the zombie down the steps and then beat it with the andiron. He looked over at Xander. "We have got to find that mask, fast."
Xander nodded. "I hear ya. Where do we look?"
"My guess, upstairs. Looks like more zombies headed that way."
"What kind of mask is it? A beauty mask? A Halloween mask?" Cordelia asked from the hallway.
"I thought I told you to be quiet and stay in the closet." Sam looked exasperated.
Xander shrugged and whispered. "I don't date her for her brains."
Sam rolled his eyes. "A folk art mask. It's Nigerian, probably made out of wood."
Buffy surveyed her mother's room for anything she could use as a weapon. She picked up a silver hand mirror from her mother's dressing table and tested its heft. "This could work," she mumbled to herself. She faced her mom. "Maybe I can climb out your window and sneak back in."
"I don't know, honey, I guess, but it's a bit of a drop." Joyce went to open her window and had to sidestep Pat. "Pat, excuse me, Pat, Pat?" The zombie pushed her aside in favor of obtaining the mask with the glowing eyes. "Oh no, oh god, Pat!" Joyce cried.
Buffy saw that Pat was reaching for the mask. "That's not Pat, Mom." She dropped the brush and raced to the mask. "Zombie!Pat, this is not a movie and you're not Jim Carrey.".
Both Buffy and the zombie grabbed the mask and neither would let go. Oz jumped on Zombie!Pat's back, but it didn't phase her; she held tight to the mask. Willow and Joyce joined in the fray, both trying to get the mask away from the zombie. While the three served as a distraction, Buffy let go and dove for the silver brush. "Look out!" She ordered as she charged the zombie hoping to impale the brush in its chest.
When they let go, the zombie put the mask on its face and a dazzling white light shone from its eyes; temporarily blinding the inhabitants of the room. But Buffy was already in motion and with that momentum, she and the mask wearing zombie fell through the bedroom window.
Xander and Sam heard the crash from the upstairs and became instantly frightened. They raced up the steps only to be met by a crowd of zombies. "Bad idea!" Xander yelled as he and Sam turned around and raced back down the steps.
"What's happening?" Cordelia whined as she hurried back to her closet hiding place.
"Zombie apocalypse!" Xander announced rushing her into the closet.
Sam turned around to fight off the following zombie horde just in time to see his brother kick in the front door. "Sammy! Down!" Dean fired his shotgun into the crowd of zombies, leveling several.
Giles followed close behind Dean with John bringing up the rear. "Where's Buffy?" The watcher shouted over the shotgun blasts.
"I don't know. Upstairs I think."
From the front door, John tossed Sam a shot gun. "Sam, window, cover me. Anything that moves, shoot it," he ordered as Sam snagged the ammo belt thrown to him. Then he pointed to Xander, "You, barricade this door. Nothing gets in." Just as he shut the door, more zombies appeared on the Summers' property.
Dean and Giles bounded up the stairs with Dean shooting anything that got in his way. "Tell her to destroy the eyes of the mask!" Giles shouted.
Once upstairs, Dean saw the claw marks on Joyce's bedroom door. "Over there."
Dean pointed to the door and Giles rushed to it and immediately pounded on it. "Buffy? Are you in there?"
"Giles?" Willow called from within. "Giles, Buffy and a zombie fell out the window."
Not wasting a moment, Dean raced back down the steps.
Inside the room, Joyce, Willow and Oz worked to move the bureau away from the door to allow Giles to enter. Once inside, he hurried to the broken window and saw the mask wearing zombie looming over Buffy. "It's eyes!" he yelled, "Destroy it's eyes!"
The zombie turned to face Giles. "Giles! Don't look!" Buffy yelled in warning. Again a blinding light shone from the mask's eyes. Buffy turned around as she sought another weapon to use against this more powerful zombie. She found a large garden spade. "Hey Pat!" The zombie faced her. "Your empanadas taste like crap."
At the same moment, Dean burst through the back door. "Buffy! It's-" He watched the slayer;
as the eyes began to glow again, and Buffy buried the point of the spade between the eyes of the mask. The zombie fell to the ground and disappeared, as did all the other zombies. "Never mind."
Buffy looked up at him. "Hey, you made it. Sam said you were busy."
Dean shrugged. "Your watcher needed a ride."
As everyone gathered in the Summers' living room Dean looked at the mess of cups and plates left from the guests. "Dang, Buff, you really threw yourself quite the clambake, didn't you?"
Buffy shrugged, she didn't want to say that she hadn't invited that many people. Oz turned to Xander and whispered, "Clambake, one step above hootenanny."
Xander nodded. "Hootenanny with zombie flavor."
"Exactly."
Devon picked up his broken mike stand. "Dude," he whined and pouted to Oz.
Oz picked up his guitar and found all the strings broken. "Come on, let's get this stuff out of here."
While Devon and Oz packed up the band's equipment, Joyce surveyed the damage to her house. If house full of teenagers hadn't caused enough damage, she wanted to cry over the damage the zombies left in their wake.
Almost as if he could tell what was going through the woman's mind, John asked, "Mrs. Summers, do you have any plywood we can put over these windows?"
She stared at him a moment before her mind focused. "Yes, I think there may be some in the garage." She looked to her daughter for confirmation.
"Yeah, Mom, I think there may be some from the last time something broke the window."
"Good," John answered. "Dean, have her show you where it is while I grab some tools from the trunk. Sam, you help clean up in here."
Both boys nodded and Dean followed Buffy to the garage and Sam went to the kitchen closet for supplies.
Realizing that if the Winchesters were helping to repair the damage they should too, Willow, Xander and Cordelia started to pick up random garbage laying about.
In the garage, Buffy found the plywood by the far wall. When she turned to Dean, she found him grinning like he was fighting the urge to laugh. She put her hands on her hips in annoyance. "What's so funny?"
"Just you. What you're wearing."
Buffy looked down at her dress. She thought her dress had gotten through the melee without much damage. "What's wrong with what I'm wearing?"
"Nothing," he was quick to assure her. "You look real cute. Your hair's all done up and you're wearing a nice little dress. It's funny."
Insulted, Buffy huffed and turned her back.
Dean kept right on talking. "I mean, just look at it from the zombie's point of view." Wondering what in the world he was talking about, Buffy faced him. "They show up all 'Grr arrgh brains' and -"
"Grr arrgh?"
"I don't know, isn't that what zombies say? Anyway, they're all 'brains' and then they get a load of you all dolled up and probably think 'mmm tasty' and then you kick their asses," Dean laughed.
"I'm glad I amuse you," Buffy replied with a slight laugh, finding his version of the zombie ordeal kind of funny.
"Seriously, you just ganked some zombie king -"
"Queen."
"Queen, whatever, and all that happened to you is a grass stain on your ass."
"Oh," Buffy whined and twisted to see her backside. Then she smirked at Dean. "Hey, you're not supposed to be checking out my ass. I'm jail bait, remember?"
Chuckling Dean answered, "Believe me, the phrase has been on constant repeat in my brain since we met. I'm not forgetting. Doesn't mean I can't appreciate what I see."
Xander and Sam worked together to return furniture to its proper location and position. When they finally finished the living room, Xander sheepishly said, "So about before."
"About what?"
"Before when we were fighting and you stood up for Buffy. You were right. We were kind of hard on her," Xander admitted quietly.
"Yeah, but you totally had her back when she asked for your help."
"Well, yeah, she's the Buffster. It'd be kind of hard not to do what she asked in this kind of situation."
Sam thought back to L.A. And how Buffy took charge in that pit of demons. "Yeah, she's something, that's for sure."
Xander grinned. "You should totally go for it."
"What? No, uh, I don't think so," Sam stammered and quickly busied himself sweeping up more broken glass. "Really?"
Xander chuckled. "Yeah, really, Sam." He looked around to make sure they were alone. "It's pretty obvious you like her, so, ask her out."
"I don't know. I'll think about it," Sam said quietly as he wondered how long he'd be in Sunnydale.
"Well believe me, we all like you way better than her last boyfriend."
The following Monday, Buffy waited impatiently for Sam in the Sunnydale public library. She had two more days to study before she had to take her exams. When Sam finally arrived, Buffy noticed he was a ball of energy. "Sam, you might want to cut back on the caffeine."
He barked a laugh. "Yeah? Why?"
"You're bouncing. I -"
"Yeah, well this girl, Tiara, asked me to take her to homecoming."
Buffy stared for a minute. "Tiara?" She shook her head. Who was she to judge names? "So you going?"
Sam huffed. "Yeah right. I don't think so."
"Why not?" teased Buffy grinning at him. "Don't you like her or something?"
She's not you, Sam thought as he looked at Buffy's teasing smirk. "No, she's fine, I like her, I guess. We'll be leaving before homecoming, so I had to say no."
"What? When are you leaving?"
Sam shrugged. "Probably as soon as your allowed into school." Or I would have asked you.
"Oh." Buffy bit her lip and looked at the papers before her. "I'm sorry. I liked having you guys around."
"Thanks. We liked being here. Well, Dean and I liked being here. My dad, though, has got other plans and they don't include an extended stay in Sunnydale." Sam wanted to believe that Buffy looked disappointed.
She put her hand over his. "We'll keep in touch, right?"
"Of course we will, Buffy," Sam replied somehow keeping his voice calm.
"Good, because I'd hate to fail my exams and make my mom and Giles angry just so we can be friends."
They had finished reviewing Buffy's science guide and were half way through her history review, when Buffy noticed the time. "Sam, I've got to go. I have to get to Willow's. She's going to help me with my French exam."
"Okay, but we're still meeting tomorrow after school, right?"
"Yep. One more day until exams and we find out if your hard work has paid off."
"Buffy, you're the one that's working hard. I like hanging out with you, even if we have to spend our time studying."
Buffy smiled at his answer and noticed that Sam was blushing. "I like hanging out with you, too, Sam."
They stood on the corner where they had to go their separate ways, and Sam shuffled his feet, trying to delay leaving. "Buffy, if we were staying, I would have asked you to Homecoming."
Buffy bit her lip and smiled at him. "If you had asked, I would have said yes."
Chapter 4