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Turn and Face the Strain: Chapter Nine
Random fact of the day: apparently Asda sells Marshmallow Fluff now, so I have finally tasted this strange, exotic delicacy... It was mostly just sweet and sticky? Didn't taste of much on my toast. This could be to do with the fact I got the white version rather than the pink, but the pink put me off by being called 'artificial strawberry flavour', which I assume means it had seen so few strawberries in its life that the EU wouldn't let it take their name in vain. Not sure it was worth two quid, but we'll see how moreish it becomes.
Anyway, Chapter Nine!
Turn and Face the Strain.
[Sequel to The More Things Stay the Same and As Good as a Rest.]
When Buffy thought about falling in love again, she didn't expect it to be nearly so complicated as it actually turns out to be.
Also, she didn't expect it to be Spike. (She's not sure he did either.)
[Notes + Chapter One: I'm Not a Political Animal, But.]
/
[Chapter Eight: Maybe the Time is Right.]
.
Chapter Nine: Don’t Forget Today’s Trash Day.
When Buffy left the house, she was too distracted by the nagging feeling that she’d forgotten something with Spike to notice that it wasn’t only Kate who was sitting in her car. As she opened the passenger seat and sat down, however, it suddenly became very obvious that the backseat was occupied. Not only that, but it was occupied by two people she’d mostly been expecting to vanish away into the night.
“Uh…” she began, looking back, nonplussed. “Did the government decide you have to carpool now or something?”
A little cramped with all their tallness on the backseat, Riley and Sam smiled awkwardly at her, papers in their hands. “We, um, needed to get caught up on what’s been happening with the case,” Sam explained, gesturing with her manila folder.
“We were gonna go over it last night,” Riley added –
– only for Kate to cut in, “But I basically blew them off to go sleep.” Not looking entirely refreshed, she turned the ignition and pulled her seatbelt on with a few short snaps, then glanced Buffy’s way before pulling out into the road. “They didn’t want to go over everything without us around for questions, so I said they could do it in the car.”
“Oh,” was all Buffy said, looking back out of the windscreen to watch Revello Drive disappear underneath them. She couldn’t quite work out whether she was being apologised to or not, nor whether this was something where she felt like she needed an apology. She’d been expecting the drive to be pretty awkward, what with the whole three hours of time she and Kate would have had to fill with conversation, but now there was going to be shoptalk. Riley and Sam shoptalk, which probably meant acronyms.
Thankfully, not understanding much of what anyone was saying meant that Buffy could mostly tune out the conversation and let it lull her into an appreciation of the countryside, which made a change from her usual surroundings, even over the side of the highway. It was hard to remember sometimes that there was still a whole world out there beyond Sunnydale – and even beyond LA. They’d travelled quite a lot when she was younger, but it had been a while since she’d thought about anywhere much beyond California. Giles was over in England, of course, but in her head that was mostly the same as Giles’ apartment, on a larger scale with some rain falling outside. It didn’t really seem like another country.
She should ask Spike about it, maybe. Maybe she should have asked him the night before, instead of talking all the nonsense she’d actually come out with.
”I love your jewellery too.”
Thankfully Spike was kissing her after that, so neither of them had to respond to her weird declaration. It seemed like the most banal thing to say, especially after she’d just told him, pretty much, that she thought about him every time she shopped for clothes and accessories these days. If he hadn’t worked it out before, he had to know that she imagined him taking things off of her, how they’d look in isolation when her outfit was being deconstructed. But it was too much to then tell him, on top of that, that she considered his wardrobe in much of the same way. How much of a nympho was she?
All the same, it was nice to have a different way of holding his head down to hers, and she liked the feel of the slippery metal links on her skin – because she was, as she had just established, a nympho. “Mmm,” she said as their mouths parted, apparently actually not quite ready to leave this topic. Even with him steady right over her, weight on his elbows and her caught between them, pinned where his cock poked into her stomach, she was slipping her fingers around his necklace, exploring the curve of his neck. “Why did you start wearing it?”
It wasn’t only the necklace, was it? He had rings as well, only one today, which had already been driving her absolutely wild. By the smirk on his face, he knew it too.
“Think you’ve answered your own question,” he said enigmatically, his proximity enough that she could watch every muscle twitch as he raised his eyebrows.
She couldn’t accept that answer, though, because he couldn’t have known… “What made you think I would like it?”
Sometimes she wondered what kind of person she actually was. Always Spike seemed to read her so well, and yet every time he showed her something new that she loved, it surprised her. It made her think that she likely had no way of knowing what she was really like and that – that was worrying. Was she a good person? She really wanted to be, but how was she meant to know? How would she know if she even had the right criteria?
As it was, Spike left her even more confused. “Seen you wearing your bling on patrol,” he said, slumping back to her side with one leg and arm still hooked across her. “Gets you hot,” he added, “makes you powerful.” Now he was playing with her own chain again, still draped down her sternum – and, yeah, possibly he had a point. Certain that he did, he smirked and asked her, “Who wouldn’t want a piece of that?”
But surely that couldn’t be how attraction worked? She couldn’t believe it was, even if the sight of his fingers coiled in gold made them seem even more erotic than usual. Her taste in accessories had nothing to do with her taste in men. Case in point, Spike’s outfits, which, OK, were well put-together for what they were, but hardly in line with her own standards for men’s fashion. “Who exactly do you think I am?” she asked hesitantly, a little worried about the answer.
She probably should have expected the answer she got anyway. “An undersexed vampire slayer who deserves more shiny things in life.” He winked at her, but then challenged, “What do you think of me?”
Thinking rationally, she was certain the ‘undersexed’ part had to be a joke. As it was, however, looking into his eyes while they lay in her big, comfy bed, all she could see was yearning, dissatisfaction, discontent. Maybe – he was as incomplete as her. “An undersexed vampire,” she said, accepting, using his vocabulary of choice and wishing she could make him feel like she gave him enough for when one of them wasn’t around. “Who deserves…” What was it that looked best on him? If she had a yen for shiny things, which it was possible that she did, then what was the equivalent? All right, he’d been flippant, but the answer seemed obvious the moment her silence made his face cloud over. “Who deserves – happiness.” And, boy, did she want a piece of that.
Whether she could get them anywhere close, of course, was another question entirely.
“Buffy?” Kate was asking then, pulling her back into the conversation in the car. “You’ve seen what’s been going on down in Sunnydale; you got an opinion on this?”
Oh yeah, Buffy remembered, blinking and looking back to the other inhabitants of the car. Work stuff. Work stuff that engaged her brain. She had that these days.
Anya had warned her that Brian’s lawyers’ was actually well known for taking demon clients, but Buffy tried not to let that worry her, even as they pulled up outside the swanky, shiny office building. OK, so maybe they were in the heart of the financial district, the entrance removed from the road and a nice stone sign telling her Wolfram and Hart like it meant something, but she wasn’t intimidated. Even if the place did cater to demons, that didn’t mean that Brian was one or that he even knew about them. Perhaps it made her less intimidated, actually, because if there were demons she could always beat them up. They might even recognise her.
She and Kate had arranged to meet at Angel’s hotel after everything was done, even though Kate had made a face like she didn’t really want to do that. Buffy wasn’t quite sure what that had meant, but she’d been ignoring it for the time being, like the way she was ignoring how nervous Kate looked around the Wolfram and Hart sign, so she kept on ignoring as she re-confirmed and left the car, waving before she headed into the big glass box of likely doom.
As she walked through the lobby, Buffy tried not to be impressed. She looked around, trying to get the lay of the land, but mostly all she saw was money. The floor was so clean, not a speck of dust around the legs of the waiting couches – and that took time, attention, more than the average establishment bothered with. They never got the floor so clean in the half-hour they had at the end of the Doublemeat day. And the upholstery, that was all new; had to have been replaced less than a year ago, would probably be replaced in less than a year as well. The colours were strong, the fibres vacuumed, not at all like her furniture at home, which was getting drabber and drabber, even with relatively little use.
The receptionist, also, he had to be well paid. She could tell as she approached the desk. His suit was so nice – not really expensive-nice, but well-made and well-cut. His hair was cut well too, and he had enough money in the bank that he was still smiling, even as the guy in front of the desk was speaking in a really rude tone.
“You will show me to Miss Morgan,” he was saying. From the back of him she could tell he was short, British, almost familiar. His voice was finely edged, like he was having a very bad day, but that was no excuse, Buffy didn’t think. She couldn’t quite tell who he was, though, and why he was in a law firm. Was he a watcher? An ex-watcher? He was standing firmly, like he could hold his own in a fight, but she couldn’t always assume that every British guy she met was from the Council. She’d almost terrorised that coffee-shop owner that time…
“I’m sorry, sir, “the receptionist was saying, seriously professional. The idea that Brian was the sort of guy who could afford this place was starting to freak her out. “Ms. Morgan’s booked out for the rest of the day. If you would like to make an – ” That got him the slam of a hand on the desk, but he didn’t even flinch. Buffy did. “Now, sir, please…”
The man did not please, apparently. “You will telephone Miss Morgan,” he said, voice even more edged than before, “and tell her that Captain Holtz is here to see her. Is that clear?”
Holtz…? Buffy had forgotten the name, and apparently what the back of his head looked like, but now it was coming back to her. It was him: short, British… David? Devon? Daniel. She would recognise him the moment he turned around – and he her, she presumed, even though she had a feeling she didn’t want him to do that. Not after the whole blood-swapping business that had happened with Angel when they’d been here the last time.
Thankfully, it seemed like most of his attention was fixed on the receptionist, who was indeed now phoning the woman Daniel wanted to see. “Yes,” he was saying, nodding at the receiver. “I understand. Of course.” And then the call was ended and he had his smile back on his face, eyes not even drifting to Buffy where she stood, a few feet away. “Thank you for your patience, Captain Holtz,” he said, warmly gesturing Daniel towards the waiting area. “Ms. Morgan is currently detained, but she wants me to let you know how important your visit is to her; she hopes it’s not too much of an inconvenience to ask you to wait for a few minutes.” He was coming out from behind the desk now, thankfully turning Daniel away from Buffy even more. “I’m to assist you in any way I can; would you care for some refreshment?”
“No, thank you,” Daniel was saying stiffly as they walked away. Buffy approached the desk, acting cool, but even so she found it a little strange. Whatever else he’d been, Daniel had at least been cordial when she’d met him. And observant, too. Now he seemed lost in his own world.
The receptionist, however, seemed to have only got the memo about him being violently dangerous. “Are you sure?” he asked, apparently striving for contentment. “I could bring you some coffee?” Daniel shook his head, bowing it as he sat down. “Or – tea?” the receptionist tried, as if he’d just realised this might be the answer. “Would you like some tea?”
This, for some reason, was enough to make Daniel snap. “No, I would not like any tea,” he barked, as if this was the most hated word in his vocabulary. Buffy jumped and turned back to the desk, not letting him see her face as she listened to the rest of his rant. “Nor any other concoction you might presume I would enjoy. I care not for your sweets or your syrups or your bubbling monstrosities – if you must bring me something, may it be a glass of pale ale, or else water, nothing more. But I would far rather you left me alone.”
Well, Buffy thought; someone wasn’t happy with the modern world, were they?
With an, “Of course, sir, absolutely,” the receptionist very quickly reappeared behind the desk, looking, for the first time, flustered. As his embarrassed blush set of his red hair, Buffy realised that he could only be around her age, if not younger, which suddenly seemed quite unfair. She didn’t think she’d be cut out for the same sort of job, but it was yet another reminder that her generation was quickly streaking away from her, like Xander’s shiny car and Willow’s increasingly unintelligible textbooks.
Still, that wasn’t something to worry about right now. “Hi!” she said brightly, trying to act like she belonged.
The receptionist jumped. “Oh, gosh, I’m sorry…” he began, before he seemed to think better of letting her know that he hadn’t realised she was there. “How can I help you?”
“I’ve got an appointment with Brian Goldstein?” she replied, and immediately the name was being tapped into a computer. Suddenly thinking that she was probably meant to have the lawyer’s name, like the elusive Ms. Morgan, Buffy then explained, “He’s not a lawyer or anything, but he’s the guy I’m meeting; I don’t know who…”
“That’s no problem at all, Ms. Summers,” the receptionist was then saying, smile filling his face once more and a certain blankness in his eyes. Everything back under control. He looked older. “If you take the elevator to the sixth floor,” he directed, pointing to a row of them on the far wall, “then Callie at the desk will show you through.”
Clearly she wasn’t important enough for coffee, Buffy thought as she thanked him and walked away. But that didn’t matter; she was jittery enough as it was.
Shaking off the non-encounter with Daniel, and reminding herself to tell Angel about it later, Buffy called the elevator and took it on her own. It was again expensive in that way that only the moneyed part of LA could be – silent, clean and somehow elegant for a moving box – and it did indeed take her to Callie, who was even more efficient than the receptionist guy. Her smile and manner as they walked through corridors wasn’t only professional but polished to a warm shine: she said something that made Buffy laugh, but no matter how hard she tried, later, Buffy couldn’t remember what it was. Her outfit made Buffy feel like she was wearing rags.
Very quickly, however, they had arrived at a meeting room and Callie was introducing her, again as Ms. Summers, before vanishing and leaving Buffy standing in a room with Brian and the lawyer guy whose name she’d already forgotten.
Brian, who had to be Brian, was the first one out of his chair, coming over to shake her hand. Buffy hadn’t been quite sure what she’d been expecting from him, but at that moment, in the overwhelmingly plush surroundings, it was such a relief to see that he was who he was. Because, what he turned out to be was a fairly Joe Average middle-aged man. He had a beaten-up brown leather jacket and beige chinos, bad shoes and single-tone dark hair that didn’t quite match the grey coming in on his eyebrows. His fingernails, she noticed as she shook his hand, were neat and short – but had the disconcerting appearance like he’d cut them with a toenail clipper, all squared straight at the end of his fingers with two unfiled triangles of white around the curve of his pink thumbnail.
“Hi, nice to meet you,” he said, almost putting her at ease as he smiled actually genuinely, nervously. He had an accent like Ross in the pilot of Friends, or something like that. New York or New Jersey, maybe, but mostly more contrasting with the California standard she’d been expecting. “I can’t believe I saw your picture all that time and we never met face-to-face. I’m Brian.”
“Buffy,” she replied finishing the handshake. On her best, I-want-your-money behaviour, she smiled back and added, “I think Mom wanted you all to herself.” Was that flattering? Hopefully that was flattering. “When you went out that time she told us some story about you guys bonding over a sale in the gallery. Like you’d only just met.”
It mostly seemed to just surprise him. “She told you about – hunh.” He looked taken aback, blinking beneath his bushy man-eyebrows. Not that he was bad looking, really; he wasn’t even that out of shape, stomach more flat than round underneath his tucked-in grey button-down, which was as wrinkled as her shirt was. “That was it, how we met,” Brian explained and Buffy looked up again, surprised. “I was trying to sell her… But I didn’t know Joycie –”
“Ahem,” interrupted Brian’s attorney then, just when Buffy was getting interested. He had one eye on his ultra-glam Omega-maybe watch and Buffy assumed he had to be bored, because there was no way a little extra time chitchatting would work out badly for his paycheque. “Shall we get down to business?” he requested all the same.
“Sure,” Brian agreed, scratching at the stubble behind his jaw. It brought Buffy’s attention to a strange scar he had there, not quite concealed, like a cobweb of white on his neck. Quite suddenly she remembered the main reason she was meant to be cautious while in the building, which wasn’t the aggressively expensive décor and shoes on the lawyer-guy’s feet. It was Brian, comfy Brian, and the mark that looked a little like a burn, or some sort of ritual marking. The sort of thing you picked up by dealing with demons.
What did she know about this guy? Buffy tried to remember as the lawyer started recapping his own version of events. He ran an art gallery, or had run, anyway, so it seemed as the attorney started using the past tense and mentioned something about a further sale later on. He’d done whatever in small town Sunnydale, in any case, which was hardly what anyone would call a sensible business decision – what market for art was there, after all, in a one-Starbucks, two-independent-wannabe-Starbuckses town?
Why had she never asked her mom about this? In all their conversations about demons, why had she never brought it up? The Sunnydale economy didn’t exactly thrive, and it certainly didn’t do what it did on a diet of pre-Columbian sculpture and ancient artefacts. Maybe there was more to the typical Sunnydalian than a short memory and a blasé attitude towards death, but Buffy couldn’t quite be sure where the art came in for most of the human population. Giles and Anya had art lines at the Magic Box, and they seemed to do OK, but she was pretty certain even without the two days a week Anya was closed in the morning and open through the night that quite a lot of their trade came from demons.
“Given the nature of…” the lawyer was continuing, and Buffy tried to focus on the documents set in front of her, originals of the rumpled copies she had in her bag. They were written in legal gobbledygook, complicated enough that even Anya had only been able to get so far as to circle certain clauses and write three question marks next to them. Spike hadn’t been able to focus on all the fine print, which had been funny, but her laughing had made him pout and her distract them both from his reading of the other parts. On her own, she hadn’t really been able to work out what was going on.
Because of that, most of her hopes were pinned on Brian. If he was a decent guy, then presumably there wouldn’t be any problem, because it seemed to her like everything was straightforward: her mom had sold him her share, pretty much, but hadn’t been able to sign the final pieces of paperwork. It had to have been that way, because she was pretty sure her mom wouldn’t have wanted to get romantically involved with someone she was still business partners with, even if it had only been one date.
If Brian wasn’t a decent guy, of course, things would get more complicated. And difficult. And Buffy would likely have no way of dealing with that successfully, so she was clinging to the potential for decency at the moment, remembering the card and flowers he had sent after that one date. It was possible that was an indicator of his general character, and the fact that he and her mom had worked together for so long and she’d still gone out with him was another thing in his favour.
“… and we can see from clause 22.6…”
Of course, it was also true that her mom had had something of a blindspot when it came to guys, like Buffy had been telling Kate the other day. It didn’t really seem as though Brian was the number-one greatest choice available in the single, middle-aged man bracket – the outfit he was wearing really did include a lot of brown, and his posture next to the poser, late-twenties attorney was absolutely beta-male. Not that that couldn’t be a good thing. There were things to be said for reduced levels of testosterone, especially for mommas who’d got using to making dollars, Destiny’s Child independent woman style.
The problem was that here he didn’t seem to have much idea about what was going on either – or, at least, that was the way Buffy was interpreting his looks in her direction. It really didn’t fill her with confidence.
Especially as the attorney affected a particularly bored tone. “So, what this means in real terms,” he said, his voice thick with disdain, it sounded like, for anyone who even hinted they might like a translation, “is that the new sale renders the former agreement void under paragraphs – ”
“Wait, what?” Buffy interrupted, drawing the slow blink of the attorney’s eyes up to hers. Her hands went slick on her chair arms, but for that moment she didn’t actually care. Void? Had she heard that right? Did it mean what she thought it meant? “You’re not giving me the money?”
A few months ago – heck, a few weeks ago – she would have been willing to accept this. She might have even expected it. As it was, however, she had given up what had been promising to be a very fun and relaxing day to come all the way to LA and now they were trying to tell her…
Right, well, that showed her Brian’s true colours didn’t it? Thank god her mom hadn’t got any more involved with him. After all this time, after what had happened, he was going to try and keep her mom’s money, everything she’d worked for. How dare he?
Turning her cold, alpha-female (dammit) fury on him and his friendly, comfy-dad outfit, Buffy swore, the anger making her feel like herself, “You sonofabitch! After everything she did for you?”
Strangely, however, Brian wasn’t crowing, or mocking, or anything like that. He was frowning, apparently a little frozen by her outburst, before he looked down at his papers, shuffling through them quickly with his fingers. “What the hell…?” he said, like he still didn’t quite understand, before he was looking at his attorney with a slight tremble in his fingers. “James, can we talk outside for a minute.”
By all means, the lawyer-guy’s, James’, hand gesture seemed to say, the light glinting on his watch again. He looked smug, like he’d just rigged a particularly difficult card game at Vegas, but he was following Brian out, leaving Buffy to stew on her own.
Her mind was blank as the whispering started, her heart still racing with anger. This wasn’t fair, it just wasn’t. This wasn’t why her mom had invested in her workplace. That had been to secure her future, their future, even when the insurance companies and the mortgage brokers sucked everything else up, like they had. This was – it was meant to mean a change, for something better. What the hell was Buffy supposed to do?
And Brian – how was she supposed to remember Brian, the flowers guy? He’d been the one good thing about Joyce’s last few days, the reassurance that she’d had a good memory to go with, even if she’d died alone. This couldn’t be happening.
”When the hell did you decide that?”
Suddenly, Brian’s voice was audible through the door. Buffy turned around, not even daring to hope.
“Mr. Goldstein, it is my job to make sure that you, as my client, get the best –”
“As your client, I pay you to make sure I don’t get screwed over by some demon; I don’t pay you to rip off Joyce Summers’ daughters!”
“Now, please, the contract states –”
“I don’t really care what the contract states. The deal went through and you’re gonna give her every red cent of…”
Buffy refused to get her hopes up. This wasn’t the solution to all her problems, because it simply wasn’t. There were all the debts she’d really just been putting to one side, like the water bill; it was probable this money couldn’t do anything but fill in the leaks in her financial situation, let her pay Giles back and make her feel like she could talk to him like an equal again rather than a needy, begging dependent; it probably wouldn’t change her quality of life at all. Maybe her mental life. Maybe…
After a brief return to murmuring, James the lawyer came back inside the room. Brian was gone, it seemed, but this fact seemed not to faze his attorney in the slightest. Maybe it wasn’t just money here; maybe there was something they put in the coffee. “It seems,” he said, “that at Mr. Goldstein’s request we will have to adjourn our meeting for today and reconvene with new documentation in the near future. You’ll get written notification, of course.”
Picking up her bag from the floor, Buffy stood up and turned her back on the papers. “OK,” she said, not sure whether it was appropriate to smile. Her stomach was in knots. “Shall I…?” She gestured towards the door.
With a sigh that implied his superiors were not going to be happy, the lawyer held it open to let her go.
“Buffy!”
On wobbly legs, Buffy was leaving the front entrance when she heard her name being called. Still under the porch-like shade of the building’s overhang, she turned to see Brian standing over at the far end of the steps, slumped by a silver, bollard-like ashtray with a cigarette between his fingers. Apparently he was a smoker, on top of everything else, which she wanted to list as a negative, but knew that with Spike she wasn’t quite allowed to.
Part of her wanted to walk away, not see him again until the new pieces of paper came in the post and she could be certain things would be all right. The larger part of her, however, knew that she should thank him for not being a creep and reminded her that she was meant to be making more friends. Even if they weren’t her type. They didn’t need to be her type, especially since, in Brian’s case, that would mean her type was like her mom’s type, which wasn’t allowed to be true.
“Sorry,” he said as she approached, deflecting to the cigarette, which he stubbed out in the tray. “I’ve been giving up.”
“It’s OK,” she said, waving her hand. “My…” For a moment she meant to explain about Spike and the weird fetish she’d developed for the smell of tobacco, but she really didn’t have the words, and it only took her a second to realise that was really inappropriate conversation with a guy she’d only just met. “Thanks,” she said instead, trying to get that part out of the way. “For what you did in there.”
Now he was waving her off, though he did it with a shrug. “It shouldn’t have been a problem,” he said. “If I could’ve got my head around it earlier, you wouldn’t have had to come all this way out of town.”
It was true, but Buffy shrugged, deciding to let it go. There was another question she knew she should ask him, after all, even if she wasn’t quite sure how to put it. Curiosity was going to make her ask eventually, however, so she went with it, watching Brian’s expression in the afternoon sun. “So, do you work with demons often, or was that just a euphemism?”
Brian coughed once, then looked at her appraisingly. “How the hell…?” he began, confused, before he shook his head. “I was gonna ask if you wanted to go for coffee, catch up a little. Now I think we might have more to talk about. Obviously we’ll stay in public areas, walk instead of taking my car; I don’t want you to think…”
Then Buffy laughed, feeling the smile on her face. “Sounds good,” she said. To think that he actually thought about how not to seem creepy. Even if she could take him in a fight with about three fingers and a blindfold on, it was sweet.
“So, how’re you doing?” he asked as they started walking down the steps. “How’s Dawn?” Buffy tried not to stumble.
.
[Chapter Ten: That’s Where Even Your Best Political Minds Can Drop the Ball.]
Anyway, Chapter Nine!
Turn and Face the Strain.
[Sequel to The More Things Stay the Same and As Good as a Rest.]
When Buffy thought about falling in love again, she didn't expect it to be nearly so complicated as it actually turns out to be.
Also, she didn't expect it to be Spike. (She's not sure he did either.)
[Notes + Chapter One: I'm Not a Political Animal, But.]
/
[Chapter Eight: Maybe the Time is Right.]
.
Chapter Nine: Don’t Forget Today’s Trash Day.
When Buffy left the house, she was too distracted by the nagging feeling that she’d forgotten something with Spike to notice that it wasn’t only Kate who was sitting in her car. As she opened the passenger seat and sat down, however, it suddenly became very obvious that the backseat was occupied. Not only that, but it was occupied by two people she’d mostly been expecting to vanish away into the night.
“Uh…” she began, looking back, nonplussed. “Did the government decide you have to carpool now or something?”
A little cramped with all their tallness on the backseat, Riley and Sam smiled awkwardly at her, papers in their hands. “We, um, needed to get caught up on what’s been happening with the case,” Sam explained, gesturing with her manila folder.
“We were gonna go over it last night,” Riley added –
– only for Kate to cut in, “But I basically blew them off to go sleep.” Not looking entirely refreshed, she turned the ignition and pulled her seatbelt on with a few short snaps, then glanced Buffy’s way before pulling out into the road. “They didn’t want to go over everything without us around for questions, so I said they could do it in the car.”
“Oh,” was all Buffy said, looking back out of the windscreen to watch Revello Drive disappear underneath them. She couldn’t quite work out whether she was being apologised to or not, nor whether this was something where she felt like she needed an apology. She’d been expecting the drive to be pretty awkward, what with the whole three hours of time she and Kate would have had to fill with conversation, but now there was going to be shoptalk. Riley and Sam shoptalk, which probably meant acronyms.
Thankfully, not understanding much of what anyone was saying meant that Buffy could mostly tune out the conversation and let it lull her into an appreciation of the countryside, which made a change from her usual surroundings, even over the side of the highway. It was hard to remember sometimes that there was still a whole world out there beyond Sunnydale – and even beyond LA. They’d travelled quite a lot when she was younger, but it had been a while since she’d thought about anywhere much beyond California. Giles was over in England, of course, but in her head that was mostly the same as Giles’ apartment, on a larger scale with some rain falling outside. It didn’t really seem like another country.
She should ask Spike about it, maybe. Maybe she should have asked him the night before, instead of talking all the nonsense she’d actually come out with.
”I love your jewellery too.”
Thankfully Spike was kissing her after that, so neither of them had to respond to her weird declaration. It seemed like the most banal thing to say, especially after she’d just told him, pretty much, that she thought about him every time she shopped for clothes and accessories these days. If he hadn’t worked it out before, he had to know that she imagined him taking things off of her, how they’d look in isolation when her outfit was being deconstructed. But it was too much to then tell him, on top of that, that she considered his wardrobe in much of the same way. How much of a nympho was she?
All the same, it was nice to have a different way of holding his head down to hers, and she liked the feel of the slippery metal links on her skin – because she was, as she had just established, a nympho. “Mmm,” she said as their mouths parted, apparently actually not quite ready to leave this topic. Even with him steady right over her, weight on his elbows and her caught between them, pinned where his cock poked into her stomach, she was slipping her fingers around his necklace, exploring the curve of his neck. “Why did you start wearing it?”
It wasn’t only the necklace, was it? He had rings as well, only one today, which had already been driving her absolutely wild. By the smirk on his face, he knew it too.
“Think you’ve answered your own question,” he said enigmatically, his proximity enough that she could watch every muscle twitch as he raised his eyebrows.
She couldn’t accept that answer, though, because he couldn’t have known… “What made you think I would like it?”
Sometimes she wondered what kind of person she actually was. Always Spike seemed to read her so well, and yet every time he showed her something new that she loved, it surprised her. It made her think that she likely had no way of knowing what she was really like and that – that was worrying. Was she a good person? She really wanted to be, but how was she meant to know? How would she know if she even had the right criteria?
As it was, Spike left her even more confused. “Seen you wearing your bling on patrol,” he said, slumping back to her side with one leg and arm still hooked across her. “Gets you hot,” he added, “makes you powerful.” Now he was playing with her own chain again, still draped down her sternum – and, yeah, possibly he had a point. Certain that he did, he smirked and asked her, “Who wouldn’t want a piece of that?”
But surely that couldn’t be how attraction worked? She couldn’t believe it was, even if the sight of his fingers coiled in gold made them seem even more erotic than usual. Her taste in accessories had nothing to do with her taste in men. Case in point, Spike’s outfits, which, OK, were well put-together for what they were, but hardly in line with her own standards for men’s fashion. “Who exactly do you think I am?” she asked hesitantly, a little worried about the answer.
She probably should have expected the answer she got anyway. “An undersexed vampire slayer who deserves more shiny things in life.” He winked at her, but then challenged, “What do you think of me?”
Thinking rationally, she was certain the ‘undersexed’ part had to be a joke. As it was, however, looking into his eyes while they lay in her big, comfy bed, all she could see was yearning, dissatisfaction, discontent. Maybe – he was as incomplete as her. “An undersexed vampire,” she said, accepting, using his vocabulary of choice and wishing she could make him feel like she gave him enough for when one of them wasn’t around. “Who deserves…” What was it that looked best on him? If she had a yen for shiny things, which it was possible that she did, then what was the equivalent? All right, he’d been flippant, but the answer seemed obvious the moment her silence made his face cloud over. “Who deserves – happiness.” And, boy, did she want a piece of that.
Whether she could get them anywhere close, of course, was another question entirely.
“Buffy?” Kate was asking then, pulling her back into the conversation in the car. “You’ve seen what’s been going on down in Sunnydale; you got an opinion on this?”
Oh yeah, Buffy remembered, blinking and looking back to the other inhabitants of the car. Work stuff. Work stuff that engaged her brain. She had that these days.
Anya had warned her that Brian’s lawyers’ was actually well known for taking demon clients, but Buffy tried not to let that worry her, even as they pulled up outside the swanky, shiny office building. OK, so maybe they were in the heart of the financial district, the entrance removed from the road and a nice stone sign telling her Wolfram and Hart like it meant something, but she wasn’t intimidated. Even if the place did cater to demons, that didn’t mean that Brian was one or that he even knew about them. Perhaps it made her less intimidated, actually, because if there were demons she could always beat them up. They might even recognise her.
She and Kate had arranged to meet at Angel’s hotel after everything was done, even though Kate had made a face like she didn’t really want to do that. Buffy wasn’t quite sure what that had meant, but she’d been ignoring it for the time being, like the way she was ignoring how nervous Kate looked around the Wolfram and Hart sign, so she kept on ignoring as she re-confirmed and left the car, waving before she headed into the big glass box of likely doom.
As she walked through the lobby, Buffy tried not to be impressed. She looked around, trying to get the lay of the land, but mostly all she saw was money. The floor was so clean, not a speck of dust around the legs of the waiting couches – and that took time, attention, more than the average establishment bothered with. They never got the floor so clean in the half-hour they had at the end of the Doublemeat day. And the upholstery, that was all new; had to have been replaced less than a year ago, would probably be replaced in less than a year as well. The colours were strong, the fibres vacuumed, not at all like her furniture at home, which was getting drabber and drabber, even with relatively little use.
The receptionist, also, he had to be well paid. She could tell as she approached the desk. His suit was so nice – not really expensive-nice, but well-made and well-cut. His hair was cut well too, and he had enough money in the bank that he was still smiling, even as the guy in front of the desk was speaking in a really rude tone.
“You will show me to Miss Morgan,” he was saying. From the back of him she could tell he was short, British, almost familiar. His voice was finely edged, like he was having a very bad day, but that was no excuse, Buffy didn’t think. She couldn’t quite tell who he was, though, and why he was in a law firm. Was he a watcher? An ex-watcher? He was standing firmly, like he could hold his own in a fight, but she couldn’t always assume that every British guy she met was from the Council. She’d almost terrorised that coffee-shop owner that time…
“I’m sorry, sir, “the receptionist was saying, seriously professional. The idea that Brian was the sort of guy who could afford this place was starting to freak her out. “Ms. Morgan’s booked out for the rest of the day. If you would like to make an – ” That got him the slam of a hand on the desk, but he didn’t even flinch. Buffy did. “Now, sir, please…”
The man did not please, apparently. “You will telephone Miss Morgan,” he said, voice even more edged than before, “and tell her that Captain Holtz is here to see her. Is that clear?”
Holtz…? Buffy had forgotten the name, and apparently what the back of his head looked like, but now it was coming back to her. It was him: short, British… David? Devon? Daniel. She would recognise him the moment he turned around – and he her, she presumed, even though she had a feeling she didn’t want him to do that. Not after the whole blood-swapping business that had happened with Angel when they’d been here the last time.
Thankfully, it seemed like most of his attention was fixed on the receptionist, who was indeed now phoning the woman Daniel wanted to see. “Yes,” he was saying, nodding at the receiver. “I understand. Of course.” And then the call was ended and he had his smile back on his face, eyes not even drifting to Buffy where she stood, a few feet away. “Thank you for your patience, Captain Holtz,” he said, warmly gesturing Daniel towards the waiting area. “Ms. Morgan is currently detained, but she wants me to let you know how important your visit is to her; she hopes it’s not too much of an inconvenience to ask you to wait for a few minutes.” He was coming out from behind the desk now, thankfully turning Daniel away from Buffy even more. “I’m to assist you in any way I can; would you care for some refreshment?”
“No, thank you,” Daniel was saying stiffly as they walked away. Buffy approached the desk, acting cool, but even so she found it a little strange. Whatever else he’d been, Daniel had at least been cordial when she’d met him. And observant, too. Now he seemed lost in his own world.
The receptionist, however, seemed to have only got the memo about him being violently dangerous. “Are you sure?” he asked, apparently striving for contentment. “I could bring you some coffee?” Daniel shook his head, bowing it as he sat down. “Or – tea?” the receptionist tried, as if he’d just realised this might be the answer. “Would you like some tea?”
This, for some reason, was enough to make Daniel snap. “No, I would not like any tea,” he barked, as if this was the most hated word in his vocabulary. Buffy jumped and turned back to the desk, not letting him see her face as she listened to the rest of his rant. “Nor any other concoction you might presume I would enjoy. I care not for your sweets or your syrups or your bubbling monstrosities – if you must bring me something, may it be a glass of pale ale, or else water, nothing more. But I would far rather you left me alone.”
Well, Buffy thought; someone wasn’t happy with the modern world, were they?
With an, “Of course, sir, absolutely,” the receptionist very quickly reappeared behind the desk, looking, for the first time, flustered. As his embarrassed blush set of his red hair, Buffy realised that he could only be around her age, if not younger, which suddenly seemed quite unfair. She didn’t think she’d be cut out for the same sort of job, but it was yet another reminder that her generation was quickly streaking away from her, like Xander’s shiny car and Willow’s increasingly unintelligible textbooks.
Still, that wasn’t something to worry about right now. “Hi!” she said brightly, trying to act like she belonged.
The receptionist jumped. “Oh, gosh, I’m sorry…” he began, before he seemed to think better of letting her know that he hadn’t realised she was there. “How can I help you?”
“I’ve got an appointment with Brian Goldstein?” she replied, and immediately the name was being tapped into a computer. Suddenly thinking that she was probably meant to have the lawyer’s name, like the elusive Ms. Morgan, Buffy then explained, “He’s not a lawyer or anything, but he’s the guy I’m meeting; I don’t know who…”
“That’s no problem at all, Ms. Summers,” the receptionist was then saying, smile filling his face once more and a certain blankness in his eyes. Everything back under control. He looked older. “If you take the elevator to the sixth floor,” he directed, pointing to a row of them on the far wall, “then Callie at the desk will show you through.”
Clearly she wasn’t important enough for coffee, Buffy thought as she thanked him and walked away. But that didn’t matter; she was jittery enough as it was.
Shaking off the non-encounter with Daniel, and reminding herself to tell Angel about it later, Buffy called the elevator and took it on her own. It was again expensive in that way that only the moneyed part of LA could be – silent, clean and somehow elegant for a moving box – and it did indeed take her to Callie, who was even more efficient than the receptionist guy. Her smile and manner as they walked through corridors wasn’t only professional but polished to a warm shine: she said something that made Buffy laugh, but no matter how hard she tried, later, Buffy couldn’t remember what it was. Her outfit made Buffy feel like she was wearing rags.
Very quickly, however, they had arrived at a meeting room and Callie was introducing her, again as Ms. Summers, before vanishing and leaving Buffy standing in a room with Brian and the lawyer guy whose name she’d already forgotten.
Brian, who had to be Brian, was the first one out of his chair, coming over to shake her hand. Buffy hadn’t been quite sure what she’d been expecting from him, but at that moment, in the overwhelmingly plush surroundings, it was such a relief to see that he was who he was. Because, what he turned out to be was a fairly Joe Average middle-aged man. He had a beaten-up brown leather jacket and beige chinos, bad shoes and single-tone dark hair that didn’t quite match the grey coming in on his eyebrows. His fingernails, she noticed as she shook his hand, were neat and short – but had the disconcerting appearance like he’d cut them with a toenail clipper, all squared straight at the end of his fingers with two unfiled triangles of white around the curve of his pink thumbnail.
“Hi, nice to meet you,” he said, almost putting her at ease as he smiled actually genuinely, nervously. He had an accent like Ross in the pilot of Friends, or something like that. New York or New Jersey, maybe, but mostly more contrasting with the California standard she’d been expecting. “I can’t believe I saw your picture all that time and we never met face-to-face. I’m Brian.”
“Buffy,” she replied finishing the handshake. On her best, I-want-your-money behaviour, she smiled back and added, “I think Mom wanted you all to herself.” Was that flattering? Hopefully that was flattering. “When you went out that time she told us some story about you guys bonding over a sale in the gallery. Like you’d only just met.”
It mostly seemed to just surprise him. “She told you about – hunh.” He looked taken aback, blinking beneath his bushy man-eyebrows. Not that he was bad looking, really; he wasn’t even that out of shape, stomach more flat than round underneath his tucked-in grey button-down, which was as wrinkled as her shirt was. “That was it, how we met,” Brian explained and Buffy looked up again, surprised. “I was trying to sell her… But I didn’t know Joycie –”
“Ahem,” interrupted Brian’s attorney then, just when Buffy was getting interested. He had one eye on his ultra-glam Omega-maybe watch and Buffy assumed he had to be bored, because there was no way a little extra time chitchatting would work out badly for his paycheque. “Shall we get down to business?” he requested all the same.
“Sure,” Brian agreed, scratching at the stubble behind his jaw. It brought Buffy’s attention to a strange scar he had there, not quite concealed, like a cobweb of white on his neck. Quite suddenly she remembered the main reason she was meant to be cautious while in the building, which wasn’t the aggressively expensive décor and shoes on the lawyer-guy’s feet. It was Brian, comfy Brian, and the mark that looked a little like a burn, or some sort of ritual marking. The sort of thing you picked up by dealing with demons.
What did she know about this guy? Buffy tried to remember as the lawyer started recapping his own version of events. He ran an art gallery, or had run, anyway, so it seemed as the attorney started using the past tense and mentioned something about a further sale later on. He’d done whatever in small town Sunnydale, in any case, which was hardly what anyone would call a sensible business decision – what market for art was there, after all, in a one-Starbucks, two-independent-wannabe-Starbuckses town?
Why had she never asked her mom about this? In all their conversations about demons, why had she never brought it up? The Sunnydale economy didn’t exactly thrive, and it certainly didn’t do what it did on a diet of pre-Columbian sculpture and ancient artefacts. Maybe there was more to the typical Sunnydalian than a short memory and a blasé attitude towards death, but Buffy couldn’t quite be sure where the art came in for most of the human population. Giles and Anya had art lines at the Magic Box, and they seemed to do OK, but she was pretty certain even without the two days a week Anya was closed in the morning and open through the night that quite a lot of their trade came from demons.
“Given the nature of…” the lawyer was continuing, and Buffy tried to focus on the documents set in front of her, originals of the rumpled copies she had in her bag. They were written in legal gobbledygook, complicated enough that even Anya had only been able to get so far as to circle certain clauses and write three question marks next to them. Spike hadn’t been able to focus on all the fine print, which had been funny, but her laughing had made him pout and her distract them both from his reading of the other parts. On her own, she hadn’t really been able to work out what was going on.
Because of that, most of her hopes were pinned on Brian. If he was a decent guy, then presumably there wouldn’t be any problem, because it seemed to her like everything was straightforward: her mom had sold him her share, pretty much, but hadn’t been able to sign the final pieces of paperwork. It had to have been that way, because she was pretty sure her mom wouldn’t have wanted to get romantically involved with someone she was still business partners with, even if it had only been one date.
If Brian wasn’t a decent guy, of course, things would get more complicated. And difficult. And Buffy would likely have no way of dealing with that successfully, so she was clinging to the potential for decency at the moment, remembering the card and flowers he had sent after that one date. It was possible that was an indicator of his general character, and the fact that he and her mom had worked together for so long and she’d still gone out with him was another thing in his favour.
“… and we can see from clause 22.6…”
Of course, it was also true that her mom had had something of a blindspot when it came to guys, like Buffy had been telling Kate the other day. It didn’t really seem as though Brian was the number-one greatest choice available in the single, middle-aged man bracket – the outfit he was wearing really did include a lot of brown, and his posture next to the poser, late-twenties attorney was absolutely beta-male. Not that that couldn’t be a good thing. There were things to be said for reduced levels of testosterone, especially for mommas who’d got using to making dollars, Destiny’s Child independent woman style.
The problem was that here he didn’t seem to have much idea about what was going on either – or, at least, that was the way Buffy was interpreting his looks in her direction. It really didn’t fill her with confidence.
Especially as the attorney affected a particularly bored tone. “So, what this means in real terms,” he said, his voice thick with disdain, it sounded like, for anyone who even hinted they might like a translation, “is that the new sale renders the former agreement void under paragraphs – ”
“Wait, what?” Buffy interrupted, drawing the slow blink of the attorney’s eyes up to hers. Her hands went slick on her chair arms, but for that moment she didn’t actually care. Void? Had she heard that right? Did it mean what she thought it meant? “You’re not giving me the money?”
A few months ago – heck, a few weeks ago – she would have been willing to accept this. She might have even expected it. As it was, however, she had given up what had been promising to be a very fun and relaxing day to come all the way to LA and now they were trying to tell her…
Right, well, that showed her Brian’s true colours didn’t it? Thank god her mom hadn’t got any more involved with him. After all this time, after what had happened, he was going to try and keep her mom’s money, everything she’d worked for. How dare he?
Turning her cold, alpha-female (dammit) fury on him and his friendly, comfy-dad outfit, Buffy swore, the anger making her feel like herself, “You sonofabitch! After everything she did for you?”
Strangely, however, Brian wasn’t crowing, or mocking, or anything like that. He was frowning, apparently a little frozen by her outburst, before he looked down at his papers, shuffling through them quickly with his fingers. “What the hell…?” he said, like he still didn’t quite understand, before he was looking at his attorney with a slight tremble in his fingers. “James, can we talk outside for a minute.”
By all means, the lawyer-guy’s, James’, hand gesture seemed to say, the light glinting on his watch again. He looked smug, like he’d just rigged a particularly difficult card game at Vegas, but he was following Brian out, leaving Buffy to stew on her own.
Her mind was blank as the whispering started, her heart still racing with anger. This wasn’t fair, it just wasn’t. This wasn’t why her mom had invested in her workplace. That had been to secure her future, their future, even when the insurance companies and the mortgage brokers sucked everything else up, like they had. This was – it was meant to mean a change, for something better. What the hell was Buffy supposed to do?
And Brian – how was she supposed to remember Brian, the flowers guy? He’d been the one good thing about Joyce’s last few days, the reassurance that she’d had a good memory to go with, even if she’d died alone. This couldn’t be happening.
”When the hell did you decide that?”
Suddenly, Brian’s voice was audible through the door. Buffy turned around, not even daring to hope.
“Mr. Goldstein, it is my job to make sure that you, as my client, get the best –”
“As your client, I pay you to make sure I don’t get screwed over by some demon; I don’t pay you to rip off Joyce Summers’ daughters!”
“Now, please, the contract states –”
“I don’t really care what the contract states. The deal went through and you’re gonna give her every red cent of…”
Buffy refused to get her hopes up. This wasn’t the solution to all her problems, because it simply wasn’t. There were all the debts she’d really just been putting to one side, like the water bill; it was probable this money couldn’t do anything but fill in the leaks in her financial situation, let her pay Giles back and make her feel like she could talk to him like an equal again rather than a needy, begging dependent; it probably wouldn’t change her quality of life at all. Maybe her mental life. Maybe…
After a brief return to murmuring, James the lawyer came back inside the room. Brian was gone, it seemed, but this fact seemed not to faze his attorney in the slightest. Maybe it wasn’t just money here; maybe there was something they put in the coffee. “It seems,” he said, “that at Mr. Goldstein’s request we will have to adjourn our meeting for today and reconvene with new documentation in the near future. You’ll get written notification, of course.”
Picking up her bag from the floor, Buffy stood up and turned her back on the papers. “OK,” she said, not sure whether it was appropriate to smile. Her stomach was in knots. “Shall I…?” She gestured towards the door.
With a sigh that implied his superiors were not going to be happy, the lawyer held it open to let her go.
“Buffy!”
On wobbly legs, Buffy was leaving the front entrance when she heard her name being called. Still under the porch-like shade of the building’s overhang, she turned to see Brian standing over at the far end of the steps, slumped by a silver, bollard-like ashtray with a cigarette between his fingers. Apparently he was a smoker, on top of everything else, which she wanted to list as a negative, but knew that with Spike she wasn’t quite allowed to.
Part of her wanted to walk away, not see him again until the new pieces of paper came in the post and she could be certain things would be all right. The larger part of her, however, knew that she should thank him for not being a creep and reminded her that she was meant to be making more friends. Even if they weren’t her type. They didn’t need to be her type, especially since, in Brian’s case, that would mean her type was like her mom’s type, which wasn’t allowed to be true.
“Sorry,” he said as she approached, deflecting to the cigarette, which he stubbed out in the tray. “I’ve been giving up.”
“It’s OK,” she said, waving her hand. “My…” For a moment she meant to explain about Spike and the weird fetish she’d developed for the smell of tobacco, but she really didn’t have the words, and it only took her a second to realise that was really inappropriate conversation with a guy she’d only just met. “Thanks,” she said instead, trying to get that part out of the way. “For what you did in there.”
Now he was waving her off, though he did it with a shrug. “It shouldn’t have been a problem,” he said. “If I could’ve got my head around it earlier, you wouldn’t have had to come all this way out of town.”
It was true, but Buffy shrugged, deciding to let it go. There was another question she knew she should ask him, after all, even if she wasn’t quite sure how to put it. Curiosity was going to make her ask eventually, however, so she went with it, watching Brian’s expression in the afternoon sun. “So, do you work with demons often, or was that just a euphemism?”
Brian coughed once, then looked at her appraisingly. “How the hell…?” he began, confused, before he shook his head. “I was gonna ask if you wanted to go for coffee, catch up a little. Now I think we might have more to talk about. Obviously we’ll stay in public areas, walk instead of taking my car; I don’t want you to think…”
Then Buffy laughed, feeling the smile on her face. “Sounds good,” she said. To think that he actually thought about how not to seem creepy. Even if she could take him in a fight with about three fingers and a blindfold on, it was sweet.
“So, how’re you doing?” he asked as they started walking down the steps. “How’s Dawn?” Buffy tried not to stumble.
.
[Chapter Ten: That’s Where Even Your Best Political Minds Can Drop the Ball.]
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And :D on W&H - they're definitely scary on many levels. I mean, we tend to only see them when things go wrong, but these are people trained for professionalism by ritual murder!!