Shoot Me, Please-1/1-*15*
Title: Shoot Me, Please
Author: Eena_Angel2001
Email: eena_angel@hotmail.com
Rating: 15
Category: BTVS/Supernatural
Pairing: Willow/Sam
Disclaimer: Whedon owns Buffy, Kripke owns the boys.
Summary: There’s a reason why Slayers aren’t welcome at the Roadhouse, and it has nothing to do with their sacred duty . . .
Spoilers: Season 7 for Buffy and Season 1 for Supernatural.
Notes: For the Supernatural Fic-A-Thon, written for krazybabe, who wanted:
Four pairings you wouldn't mind reading:buffy/dean, faith/sam (spn), willow/sam, john/joyce
Max rating you will read:nr21
Three things you do *not* want in your fic:wincest, buffy paired with anyone other than dean, angst
Three things you *do* want in your fic: food fight, faith(her n buffy being close), banter
There was an end bit of a French fry and a glob of ketchup nestled up against her left boob. Gross, right? She agreed, and she would remove it-if her hands weren’t currently occupied with being held above her head.
Willow sighed and glared at the gun pointed her way. She hated guns, with a passion, and while she normally would have done something magical to get rid of the damn thing, she knew that she couldn’t possibly get rid of all the guns in the room before someone was shot. She figured there were at least five of them, if not more. Problem was, from her position, she could really only see the one pointed her way. The others were pointed at other members of her group, members she couldn’t see because they were currently somewhere scattered behind her. She couldn’t guarantee that she would be able to guarantee their safety if her magic made any of the gun-toting people overly trigger-happy.
Of course, at this point she wouldn’t necessarily feel bad about that happening.
Willow looked into the eyes of the man holding the shotgun at her gun. He looked fairly young, probably about her age, was fairly tall, and his eyes lacked that gleam of crazy she usually saw in the eyes of bad guys. There was the odd chance that he was a sociopath who could fake that “sane” look, but she was going to work on the assumption that he wasn’t faking it. So if he wasn’t faking it, which meant he was sane, and that meant he could be reasoned with. Just start slowly, in a reassuring voice, and do your best to explain-
“So, we gonna do this the whole night? ‘Cause I got plans.”
Willow’s mouth had been opening to start her ‘please-don’t-shoot-us’ spiel, but snapped shut as soon as she heard Faith’s voice. The redhead moaned in exasperation, eyes catching those of the man in front of her, pleading for mercy.
“Just shoot me,” she muttered in defeat.
A very unladylike snort came from somewhere towards the right. Rhona, if she wasn’t mistaken. “That’s very defeatist of you Willow.” Yup, definitely Rhona.
“This has obviously gotten out of control,” that was Vi, from somewhere to the left. “There’s no reason to go ballistic. All that happened was-”
“You ruined my bar!”
Willow winced as the loud, and very much annoyed, shout from the bar owner abruptly cut off Vi’s attempt at placation. Her eyes dropped from the gaze of her captor and slid over to the bit of the bar she could see behind him. It was all overturned tables, broken chairs, shards of glass, and food and drinks splayed all over the place. And all over the gunman, his friends, the bar owner, and Willow and the Slayers. The food fight had been a hellacious affair-no one had been spared.
She wondered if the situation at present would qualify her for POW status.
“Well, the bar wasn’t even that nice to begin with-”
Faith’s sentence was cut off by the far more ominous sound of a gun hammer clicking. Willow felt her eyes widened and it took all her will power not to turn around at that moment and just let Faith know-
“Someone’s touchy today.”
-that it would be better to shut up. Willow shook her head and rolled her shoulders slightly. The strain of holding her arms up was starting to get to her. And the ketchup in her bra was starting to dry and get all sticky. She shuddered just thinking about it.
Rhona, too, was tired of their predicament. “Are we just supposed to stand around like this all night?”
“Don’t you ever shut up?” this was a man’s voice, and she was going to say that it wasn’t the one with the mullet. Willow had heard that guy talk before, and his voice wasn’t as gruff or manly as this one. No, Mullet-Man had a softer, whinier kind of voice-one that was reminiscent of Andrew’s voice. So this wasn’t Mullet-Man; it had to be Sexy-Man. Faith had named him, just seconds before Rhona and Vi picked a fight at the pool tables that quickly escalated into a bigger mess. And Faith, being the senior Slayer and responsible adult that she was, had proceeded to toss bodies, chuck food, and generally be destructive instead of helping Willow find a way to resolve the conflict from turning into an all-out brawl.
And if you couldn’t tell, Willow had failed.
She returned her eyes to her supposedly sane captor and tried her hand at pleading again. “Listen, we’re really sorry about the bar. And I swear, we will pay for all damages-”
This brought a squawk of outrage from Rhona, and a cry of protest from Vi. “We didn’t even start it!”
“-And again, I apologize for my associates. If I promise that they’ll behave, can we please put all the guns away? They’re making me anxious.”
Supposedly-Sane guy faltered for a second. She could see some hesitation in his eyes before he looked over her shoulder, and probably to Sexy-Man or Bar-Owner-Lady. Willow shifted uneasily as she waited for their silent communication to come to an end. The Slayers had, thankfully, shut up for the first time since this whole mess started. After what seemed like an eternity, she saw Supposedly-Sane guy lower his gun just a tad bit.
Willow dropped her hands right away, left hand going to massage her aching right shoulder as she dared a look over her shoulder. The others had started to lower their weapons as well, though she noted Bar-Owner-Lady was still looking might pissed off. A quick glance towards the Slayers showed they weren’t doing anything unnecessarily provocative. They seemed to be behaving. Good. It only took them the better part of an hour to get to this point, but she would take it.
She flashed Supposedly-Sane guy a shaky smile, one that he sort of returned. Feeling a bit better after that, Willow decided now would be a good time to start explaining what had happened. “Again, I am so sorry about all this, but it wasn’t our intention to cause a scene. We were just sent here to look for someone named Ash-”
“Sent by whom?” This was definitely Mullet-Man. She could recognize the slight whine to his voice.
Willow licked dry lips and thought of the best way she could try to answer that. “Well, we are representatives of the Watchers’ Council-”
A hammer was cocked on one gun and within twenty seconds, all guns were back up and pointed right at Willow and her Slayers. Faith snorted at the action, turning her head to the side to catch Willow’s eyes. “That went well. You know, I’m thinking we should have just done what B said we should do-”
She couldn’t stop her eyes from rolling at this point. How kidnapping someone was supposed to avoid problems was beyond her. She briefly wondered where and when Faith and Buffy had become such great friends. The two of them were constantly backing up the other one, and it was starting to get on Willow’s nerves. Especially when dealing with the diplomatic stuff, which Buffy and Faith both sucked at.
“Would you guys stop doing that already?” Vi sounded annoyed. “Seriously, not here to hurt you. Okay, we also weren’t here to start a bar fight, but that only happened because some of your patrons have no idea of what passes as polite compliments to young ladies.”
Supposedly-Sane guy was looking kind of lost. His eyes drifted of Willow for a second and she guessed he was giving her companions a quick one over. Understanding shone in his eyes, probably whence remembering the way Faith had cleared the bar of most of its patrons, and then the confusion was back.
“Isn’t there only supposed to be one of them?” She didn’t think the question was directed at her, so she didn’t answer. There was some grumbling from behind her and finally an answer came from a woman, who she assumed was the blonde Bar-Owner-Lady’s daughter. She had heard the younger woman refer to the elder as ‘Mom’ several times during the melee.
“There’s more than one now, Sam. Everyone knows that.”
Sam seemed kind of confused, a little miffed at the response. Then, from Sexy-Man: “Oh, right. Sammy, there’s more than one Slayer now. Some shit went down a couple years back, and now there’s a ton of them.”
“And the Council’s been building an army ever since,” this from Mullet-Man.
“That’s bull,” Faith retorted. “We ain’t building no army.”
“Then what are you doing?” Mullet-Man countered.
“Same thing we’ve been doing since the Council started-we’re training,” Faith replied evenly. “Just training a lot more of them at one time than ever before.”
“Fascinating,” came the very sarcastic response from Mullet-Man.
“I’m sensing some trust issues here,” Rhona said in an amused voice. “Why did Giles send us to get a guy that hates the Council?”
“’Cause if he only sent us after people who liked the Council, we’d have a lot free time on our hands?” Faith snickered.
“That’s God’s honest truth,” Mullet-Man apparently wanted back into the conversation. And he must have given some signal that the danger was over, because Sam started to lower his gun. Sam gave her a very curious look as he hesitantly took a few steps back. He had a ton of questions on his mind, she could see it clear as day. And from the look he was giving her, she pretty much knew what was weighing most heavily on his mind.
“Not a Slayer,” she assured him. “I’m their Watcher. Well, I’m Vi’s Watcher. The other two are way too annoying to have Watchers of their own, so I get the delightful job of babysitting them on occasion.”
There were two slightly outraged “Heys” from behind her, which she ignored. Sam just flashed her a knowing grin. “I understand the feeling.”
“Is this the point where I say ‘hey’?” Sexy-Man still sounded grumpy, but as she turned around to face him, she saw that he had also lowered his gun. Sexy-Man leant back against the bar, which had made it out of the fight with minimal damage. Willow gave another quick glance around her and mentally added up some numbers in her head. She winced when she reached a suitable number, knowing that Giles was going to be very annoyed at the amount of damage they had inflicted on potential allies.
“Who exactly are you people and why are you looking for Ash?” came the demand from Bar-Owner-Lady.
Faith opened her mouth to reply, but a quick glare from Willow stopped her from saying anything. Once she had given the other two Slayers a ‘BEHAVE’ look, Willow turned around to answer the question. “My name is Willow Rosenberg. This is Faith, that’s Rhona, and that’s Vi. We’re part of the new Watchers’ Council, and we were sent here by Rupert Giles to ask Mr. Ash for assistance.”
“Assistance with what?” asked the daughter.
“Can’t say,” Faith replied with an over exaggerated wink. “Very top-secret Slayer business.”
“And we don’t actually know,” Willow continued before Faith could add anything else. “We’re stationed out of Ohio, and we deal mostly in matters with the North American continent. Mr. Giles is currently in London, and there have been a string of odd occurrences in Europe that have left him a little puzzled. We were out on a hunt when the call came requesting that we stop by here. He told us that Mr. Ash was a very intelligent man who has a natural ability with solving riddles, and that he would greatly appreciate Mr. Ash’s assistance on the matter in Europe. That’s all he said, pretty much word-for-word. I realize it’s kind of cryptic, but the man is a Watcher. Being cryptic kind of comes with the territory.”
“You’re a Watcher,” Sexy-Man drawled. “How come you’re not all cryptic?”
“Because she’s the new breed,” Rhona interjected before Willow could reply. “Listen, it’s been a long day, and I’m kind of tired-”
“Can’t imagine why,” Bar-Owner-Lady spat out, waving around the bar with her right hand.
“-And if you could just let us know where this Ash guy is, we could get started on getting out of your hair,” Rhona continued as if she hadn’t been interrupted.
The daughter perked up. “You all, leaving? Sounds good to me. That’s Ash.”
She was pointing in the direction of Mullet-Man, and Willow couldn’t cover her surprise. Neither could Faith. “You shitting me?”
Mullet-Man, Ash, looked offended. “Every damn time,” he grumbled as he put his very big shotgun down on the bar top. “This keeps up, I’m going to start taking it personally.”
Willow blushed red with embarrassment. “Sorry, it’s just we were expecting . . .”
“What? A tweed suit, cob-pipe, glasses, and a stuffy British accent?” Ash finished for her.
“Well, it’s what we’re used to,” Vi chimed in defence of her Watcher.
Ash was still looking offended, but continued on with the matter at hand. “So, Ripper needs a favour, that it?”
Willow felt her eyebrows raised at the mention of the old nickname. Rhona and Vi looked lost, while Faith just sniggered. “Well, yeah, I guess. You knew him back then?”
“I know of him, and what he did back then,” Ash corrected. “Doesn’t much inspire trust in me, if you catch my drift. Actually, anything to do with the Council doesn’t inspire trust. Didn’t get out unscathed the last few times I wandered into Council territory.”
“Yeah, but they were a bunch of pissants back then,” Faith replied breezily. “Way different now. Still a few of the old pissants, but the new generation is in charge. And we tend not to hurt those we ask for help. Past experience shows that it makes those people less liable to help in the future. And trust me, we need all the help we can get.”
Sexy-Man laughed and Willow gave him a look. “What? It’s true.”
Rhona rolled her eyes and flicked a piece of lettuce off her shoulder with a disgusted look on her face. “Listen, just give him the card so we can get to a shower. The mustard on my back is starting to crust.”
“You can’t just leave,” Bar-Owner-Lady growled. “Look at my bar!”
“We’ll pay for it,” Vi reminded her.
“No, you’ll clean it up,” Bar-Owner-Lady retorted. “And while you’re busting your asses on that, I’ll be adding up your bill for this mess!”
Faith gave the woman an unimpressed look. “And who’s going to make us?”
“I am,” Willow answered firmly. Faith shot her an angry look. “Don’t give me that face. If the three of you had just stopped when I told you to-”
“But the guy with the hands-’
“It wasn’t our fault-”
“We’re sisters! We stick together-”
Willow raised a hand and waited for all the squabbling to come to a stop. “We’re lucky the cops weren’t called,” she told them, emphasizing the word ‘cops’ when she looked Faith’s way. “So we’re going to listen to what, um-”
“Ellen,” Sam supplied.
“Ellen said, and clean up her bar before we head out,” Willow continued. “It’s the least we can do.”
All three Slayers grumbled unhappily, but there were no further protests. Knowing they were beat, and knowing Willow wasn’t joking around, they all nodded her heads. The daughter smirked at that, and made her way towards the kitchen. “I’ll get the mops.”
“And you and me need to chat, Watcher lady,” Ash pushed away from the bar and headed towards where the pool tables should have been, beckoning Willow to follow him. “We need to discuss this super, secret Europe puzzle a bit more before I agree to anything.”
Willow nodded and made to follow, sashaying past Sam and Sexy-Man to follow Ash. Sam offered her a smile as she passed, one she returned, much to the amusement of Sexy-Man. “Dude, she helped trash the Roadhouse. Stop making flirty-eyes at her.”
Both Sam and Willow blushed, and the redhead quickened her pace to follow behind Ash. Behind her, she could hear Sexy-Man and Sam getting involved in a bit of a squabble. She dared a look behind her, saw Sexy-Man laughing in Sam’s face about something or the other, before she turned back to Ash.
“Ignore them,” was his advice. “Those brothers are minded to be heart-breakers. Just ask Jo, and if she don’t pop you in the mouth for asking, you can tell you all you need to know about why it’s easier to stay around from the Winchester boys.”
“What? I didn’t-I don’t even like-it’s not,” Willow sputtered in embarrassment.
“Sure, whatever you say,” Ash cut her off, a smug smile on his face. “We’ll just leave it be, then. So, tell me about this super secret European puzzle that’s got the Ripper’s boxers all knotted up in a bunch.”
Willow felt mildly annoyed by that, but she pushed it aside in favour of getting some actual work done tonight. “Well, from what Giles has told me, there have been a series of weird weather patterns, topped with . . .”
~*~
Author: Eena_Angel2001
Email: eena_angel@hotmail.com
Rating: 15
Category: BTVS/Supernatural
Pairing: Willow/Sam
Disclaimer: Whedon owns Buffy, Kripke owns the boys.
Summary: There’s a reason why Slayers aren’t welcome at the Roadhouse, and it has nothing to do with their sacred duty . . .
Spoilers: Season 7 for Buffy and Season 1 for Supernatural.
Notes: For the Supernatural Fic-A-Thon, written for krazybabe, who wanted:
Four pairings you wouldn't mind reading:buffy/dean, faith/sam (spn), willow/sam, john/joyce
Max rating you will read:nr21
Three things you do *not* want in your fic:wincest, buffy paired with anyone other than dean, angst
Three things you *do* want in your fic: food fight, faith(her n buffy being close), banter
There was an end bit of a French fry and a glob of ketchup nestled up against her left boob. Gross, right? She agreed, and she would remove it-if her hands weren’t currently occupied with being held above her head.
Willow sighed and glared at the gun pointed her way. She hated guns, with a passion, and while she normally would have done something magical to get rid of the damn thing, she knew that she couldn’t possibly get rid of all the guns in the room before someone was shot. She figured there were at least five of them, if not more. Problem was, from her position, she could really only see the one pointed her way. The others were pointed at other members of her group, members she couldn’t see because they were currently somewhere scattered behind her. She couldn’t guarantee that she would be able to guarantee their safety if her magic made any of the gun-toting people overly trigger-happy.
Of course, at this point she wouldn’t necessarily feel bad about that happening.
Willow looked into the eyes of the man holding the shotgun at her gun. He looked fairly young, probably about her age, was fairly tall, and his eyes lacked that gleam of crazy she usually saw in the eyes of bad guys. There was the odd chance that he was a sociopath who could fake that “sane” look, but she was going to work on the assumption that he wasn’t faking it. So if he wasn’t faking it, which meant he was sane, and that meant he could be reasoned with. Just start slowly, in a reassuring voice, and do your best to explain-
“So, we gonna do this the whole night? ‘Cause I got plans.”
Willow’s mouth had been opening to start her ‘please-don’t-shoot-us’ spiel, but snapped shut as soon as she heard Faith’s voice. The redhead moaned in exasperation, eyes catching those of the man in front of her, pleading for mercy.
“Just shoot me,” she muttered in defeat.
A very unladylike snort came from somewhere towards the right. Rhona, if she wasn’t mistaken. “That’s very defeatist of you Willow.” Yup, definitely Rhona.
“This has obviously gotten out of control,” that was Vi, from somewhere to the left. “There’s no reason to go ballistic. All that happened was-”
“You ruined my bar!”
Willow winced as the loud, and very much annoyed, shout from the bar owner abruptly cut off Vi’s attempt at placation. Her eyes dropped from the gaze of her captor and slid over to the bit of the bar she could see behind him. It was all overturned tables, broken chairs, shards of glass, and food and drinks splayed all over the place. And all over the gunman, his friends, the bar owner, and Willow and the Slayers. The food fight had been a hellacious affair-no one had been spared.
She wondered if the situation at present would qualify her for POW status.
“Well, the bar wasn’t even that nice to begin with-”
Faith’s sentence was cut off by the far more ominous sound of a gun hammer clicking. Willow felt her eyes widened and it took all her will power not to turn around at that moment and just let Faith know-
“Someone’s touchy today.”
-that it would be better to shut up. Willow shook her head and rolled her shoulders slightly. The strain of holding her arms up was starting to get to her. And the ketchup in her bra was starting to dry and get all sticky. She shuddered just thinking about it.
Rhona, too, was tired of their predicament. “Are we just supposed to stand around like this all night?”
“Don’t you ever shut up?” this was a man’s voice, and she was going to say that it wasn’t the one with the mullet. Willow had heard that guy talk before, and his voice wasn’t as gruff or manly as this one. No, Mullet-Man had a softer, whinier kind of voice-one that was reminiscent of Andrew’s voice. So this wasn’t Mullet-Man; it had to be Sexy-Man. Faith had named him, just seconds before Rhona and Vi picked a fight at the pool tables that quickly escalated into a bigger mess. And Faith, being the senior Slayer and responsible adult that she was, had proceeded to toss bodies, chuck food, and generally be destructive instead of helping Willow find a way to resolve the conflict from turning into an all-out brawl.
And if you couldn’t tell, Willow had failed.
She returned her eyes to her supposedly sane captor and tried her hand at pleading again. “Listen, we’re really sorry about the bar. And I swear, we will pay for all damages-”
This brought a squawk of outrage from Rhona, and a cry of protest from Vi. “We didn’t even start it!”
“-And again, I apologize for my associates. If I promise that they’ll behave, can we please put all the guns away? They’re making me anxious.”
Supposedly-Sane guy faltered for a second. She could see some hesitation in his eyes before he looked over her shoulder, and probably to Sexy-Man or Bar-Owner-Lady. Willow shifted uneasily as she waited for their silent communication to come to an end. The Slayers had, thankfully, shut up for the first time since this whole mess started. After what seemed like an eternity, she saw Supposedly-Sane guy lower his gun just a tad bit.
Willow dropped her hands right away, left hand going to massage her aching right shoulder as she dared a look over her shoulder. The others had started to lower their weapons as well, though she noted Bar-Owner-Lady was still looking might pissed off. A quick glance towards the Slayers showed they weren’t doing anything unnecessarily provocative. They seemed to be behaving. Good. It only took them the better part of an hour to get to this point, but she would take it.
She flashed Supposedly-Sane guy a shaky smile, one that he sort of returned. Feeling a bit better after that, Willow decided now would be a good time to start explaining what had happened. “Again, I am so sorry about all this, but it wasn’t our intention to cause a scene. We were just sent here to look for someone named Ash-”
“Sent by whom?” This was definitely Mullet-Man. She could recognize the slight whine to his voice.
Willow licked dry lips and thought of the best way she could try to answer that. “Well, we are representatives of the Watchers’ Council-”
A hammer was cocked on one gun and within twenty seconds, all guns were back up and pointed right at Willow and her Slayers. Faith snorted at the action, turning her head to the side to catch Willow’s eyes. “That went well. You know, I’m thinking we should have just done what B said we should do-”
She couldn’t stop her eyes from rolling at this point. How kidnapping someone was supposed to avoid problems was beyond her. She briefly wondered where and when Faith and Buffy had become such great friends. The two of them were constantly backing up the other one, and it was starting to get on Willow’s nerves. Especially when dealing with the diplomatic stuff, which Buffy and Faith both sucked at.
“Would you guys stop doing that already?” Vi sounded annoyed. “Seriously, not here to hurt you. Okay, we also weren’t here to start a bar fight, but that only happened because some of your patrons have no idea of what passes as polite compliments to young ladies.”
Supposedly-Sane guy was looking kind of lost. His eyes drifted of Willow for a second and she guessed he was giving her companions a quick one over. Understanding shone in his eyes, probably whence remembering the way Faith had cleared the bar of most of its patrons, and then the confusion was back.
“Isn’t there only supposed to be one of them?” She didn’t think the question was directed at her, so she didn’t answer. There was some grumbling from behind her and finally an answer came from a woman, who she assumed was the blonde Bar-Owner-Lady’s daughter. She had heard the younger woman refer to the elder as ‘Mom’ several times during the melee.
“There’s more than one now, Sam. Everyone knows that.”
Sam seemed kind of confused, a little miffed at the response. Then, from Sexy-Man: “Oh, right. Sammy, there’s more than one Slayer now. Some shit went down a couple years back, and now there’s a ton of them.”
“And the Council’s been building an army ever since,” this from Mullet-Man.
“That’s bull,” Faith retorted. “We ain’t building no army.”
“Then what are you doing?” Mullet-Man countered.
“Same thing we’ve been doing since the Council started-we’re training,” Faith replied evenly. “Just training a lot more of them at one time than ever before.”
“Fascinating,” came the very sarcastic response from Mullet-Man.
“I’m sensing some trust issues here,” Rhona said in an amused voice. “Why did Giles send us to get a guy that hates the Council?”
“’Cause if he only sent us after people who liked the Council, we’d have a lot free time on our hands?” Faith snickered.
“That’s God’s honest truth,” Mullet-Man apparently wanted back into the conversation. And he must have given some signal that the danger was over, because Sam started to lower his gun. Sam gave her a very curious look as he hesitantly took a few steps back. He had a ton of questions on his mind, she could see it clear as day. And from the look he was giving her, she pretty much knew what was weighing most heavily on his mind.
“Not a Slayer,” she assured him. “I’m their Watcher. Well, I’m Vi’s Watcher. The other two are way too annoying to have Watchers of their own, so I get the delightful job of babysitting them on occasion.”
There were two slightly outraged “Heys” from behind her, which she ignored. Sam just flashed her a knowing grin. “I understand the feeling.”
“Is this the point where I say ‘hey’?” Sexy-Man still sounded grumpy, but as she turned around to face him, she saw that he had also lowered his gun. Sexy-Man leant back against the bar, which had made it out of the fight with minimal damage. Willow gave another quick glance around her and mentally added up some numbers in her head. She winced when she reached a suitable number, knowing that Giles was going to be very annoyed at the amount of damage they had inflicted on potential allies.
“Who exactly are you people and why are you looking for Ash?” came the demand from Bar-Owner-Lady.
Faith opened her mouth to reply, but a quick glare from Willow stopped her from saying anything. Once she had given the other two Slayers a ‘BEHAVE’ look, Willow turned around to answer the question. “My name is Willow Rosenberg. This is Faith, that’s Rhona, and that’s Vi. We’re part of the new Watchers’ Council, and we were sent here by Rupert Giles to ask Mr. Ash for assistance.”
“Assistance with what?” asked the daughter.
“Can’t say,” Faith replied with an over exaggerated wink. “Very top-secret Slayer business.”
“And we don’t actually know,” Willow continued before Faith could add anything else. “We’re stationed out of Ohio, and we deal mostly in matters with the North American continent. Mr. Giles is currently in London, and there have been a string of odd occurrences in Europe that have left him a little puzzled. We were out on a hunt when the call came requesting that we stop by here. He told us that Mr. Ash was a very intelligent man who has a natural ability with solving riddles, and that he would greatly appreciate Mr. Ash’s assistance on the matter in Europe. That’s all he said, pretty much word-for-word. I realize it’s kind of cryptic, but the man is a Watcher. Being cryptic kind of comes with the territory.”
“You’re a Watcher,” Sexy-Man drawled. “How come you’re not all cryptic?”
“Because she’s the new breed,” Rhona interjected before Willow could reply. “Listen, it’s been a long day, and I’m kind of tired-”
“Can’t imagine why,” Bar-Owner-Lady spat out, waving around the bar with her right hand.
“-And if you could just let us know where this Ash guy is, we could get started on getting out of your hair,” Rhona continued as if she hadn’t been interrupted.
The daughter perked up. “You all, leaving? Sounds good to me. That’s Ash.”
She was pointing in the direction of Mullet-Man, and Willow couldn’t cover her surprise. Neither could Faith. “You shitting me?”
Mullet-Man, Ash, looked offended. “Every damn time,” he grumbled as he put his very big shotgun down on the bar top. “This keeps up, I’m going to start taking it personally.”
Willow blushed red with embarrassment. “Sorry, it’s just we were expecting . . .”
“What? A tweed suit, cob-pipe, glasses, and a stuffy British accent?” Ash finished for her.
“Well, it’s what we’re used to,” Vi chimed in defence of her Watcher.
Ash was still looking offended, but continued on with the matter at hand. “So, Ripper needs a favour, that it?”
Willow felt her eyebrows raised at the mention of the old nickname. Rhona and Vi looked lost, while Faith just sniggered. “Well, yeah, I guess. You knew him back then?”
“I know of him, and what he did back then,” Ash corrected. “Doesn’t much inspire trust in me, if you catch my drift. Actually, anything to do with the Council doesn’t inspire trust. Didn’t get out unscathed the last few times I wandered into Council territory.”
“Yeah, but they were a bunch of pissants back then,” Faith replied breezily. “Way different now. Still a few of the old pissants, but the new generation is in charge. And we tend not to hurt those we ask for help. Past experience shows that it makes those people less liable to help in the future. And trust me, we need all the help we can get.”
Sexy-Man laughed and Willow gave him a look. “What? It’s true.”
Rhona rolled her eyes and flicked a piece of lettuce off her shoulder with a disgusted look on her face. “Listen, just give him the card so we can get to a shower. The mustard on my back is starting to crust.”
“You can’t just leave,” Bar-Owner-Lady growled. “Look at my bar!”
“We’ll pay for it,” Vi reminded her.
“No, you’ll clean it up,” Bar-Owner-Lady retorted. “And while you’re busting your asses on that, I’ll be adding up your bill for this mess!”
Faith gave the woman an unimpressed look. “And who’s going to make us?”
“I am,” Willow answered firmly. Faith shot her an angry look. “Don’t give me that face. If the three of you had just stopped when I told you to-”
“But the guy with the hands-’
“It wasn’t our fault-”
“We’re sisters! We stick together-”
Willow raised a hand and waited for all the squabbling to come to a stop. “We’re lucky the cops weren’t called,” she told them, emphasizing the word ‘cops’ when she looked Faith’s way. “So we’re going to listen to what, um-”
“Ellen,” Sam supplied.
“Ellen said, and clean up her bar before we head out,” Willow continued. “It’s the least we can do.”
All three Slayers grumbled unhappily, but there were no further protests. Knowing they were beat, and knowing Willow wasn’t joking around, they all nodded her heads. The daughter smirked at that, and made her way towards the kitchen. “I’ll get the mops.”
“And you and me need to chat, Watcher lady,” Ash pushed away from the bar and headed towards where the pool tables should have been, beckoning Willow to follow him. “We need to discuss this super, secret Europe puzzle a bit more before I agree to anything.”
Willow nodded and made to follow, sashaying past Sam and Sexy-Man to follow Ash. Sam offered her a smile as she passed, one she returned, much to the amusement of Sexy-Man. “Dude, she helped trash the Roadhouse. Stop making flirty-eyes at her.”
Both Sam and Willow blushed, and the redhead quickened her pace to follow behind Ash. Behind her, she could hear Sexy-Man and Sam getting involved in a bit of a squabble. She dared a look behind her, saw Sexy-Man laughing in Sam’s face about something or the other, before she turned back to Ash.
“Ignore them,” was his advice. “Those brothers are minded to be heart-breakers. Just ask Jo, and if she don’t pop you in the mouth for asking, you can tell you all you need to know about why it’s easier to stay around from the Winchester boys.”
“What? I didn’t-I don’t even like-it’s not,” Willow sputtered in embarrassment.
“Sure, whatever you say,” Ash cut her off, a smug smile on his face. “We’ll just leave it be, then. So, tell me about this super secret European puzzle that’s got the Ripper’s boxers all knotted up in a bunch.”
Willow felt mildly annoyed by that, but she pushed it aside in favour of getting some actual work done tonight. “Well, from what Giles has told me, there have been a series of weird weather patterns, topped with . . .”
~*~