| Bed of Bones Author: Rivrea Rating: PG
Characters/Paring: Buffy & the Scoobies, especially Giles, with a bit of Buffy/Angel thrown in for good measure
Summary: A hunt for a bizarre demon possibly interfering with a school dance, set in S2, between Innocence (2.14) and Phases (2.15). Written for semby in the Old School BtVS/AtS ficathon.
Author's Notes: 1) Title "borrowed" from one of my favourite BtVS dialogue lines ever in the episode Restless (4.22): "I walk. I talk. I shop, I sneeze. I'm gonna be a fireman when the floods roll back. There's trees in the desert since you moved out. And I don't sleep on a bed of bones."
2) The demon was vaguely inspired by Ray Bradbury's short story "Skeleton", from his collection The October Country.
3) The phrase "stepping stones to salvation" is a rip-off from a similar phrase used in a similar context in Pat Barker's fabulous novel The Eye in the Door. Yep. I steal. A lot.
*****
"While you might already have found out about the latest disturbing occurrence--"
Buffy was looking attentively at her friends, even trying a smile in reply. Turning about and storming out of the library was out of the question, but raw fear was seeping through her body, chilling her to the bone.
"What Giles intends to say," Xander interrupted, "is something like, 'Gee, have you already heard on the school grapevine that we've got another freakish dead body?' Freakish dead giant jellyfish. Whatever."
"Jellyfish?" she repeated with a sense of giddy relief. Morbidly bizarre talk of marine fauna at least didn't point to renewed vampiric activity.
"Are you talking about some science project gone horribly wrong, or are you kidding me?"
"Unfortunately, Xander's description is apt, albeit impious," Giles said. "The uncle of Mandy Aoki, a sophomore, was killed last night. By having every single bone removed from his body."
The nausea returned, although Buffy now felt sick for a slightly different reason.
"Why would anyone, or anything, do that?"
"It could be a warlock or a demon with an artistic streak," Willow said. "Perhaps to build nifty bone heaps with little skull friezes, like in the Parisian catacombs?"
Everybody was staring at her, open-mouthed or shuddering.
"Sorry, that was callous and strange, but mostly callous. I know Mandy, though," she added. "She sometimes comes to the chess club, and I can't imagine why this … stuff had to happen to her family."
"Let me guess, that's why we've all gathered together in this place. Extended research party, right? Giles, where do we start?"
Barely waiting for his answer, Buffy marched off to the stacks, to pull out book after book until the volumes piled up besides her.
"Is it just me, or does she seem pretty determined?" Oz whispered.
"It does worry me a little that she hasn't even mentioned once how her duties could interfere with that upcoming school dance. I'm obviously not accustomed to my Slayer not questioning her calling," Giles said in a hushed voice.
She could hear his hesitant smile so clearly that she had to blink back a few tears. How was she supposed to prove that she did know what to do with all the power crackling under her skin, in her flesh and veins and bones?
He stroked her bruised knuckles, traced the delicate bones of her hand, encircled her slender wrist with his fingers.
"I venture to say it's maybe related to her not dusting a certain vampire."
This was Cordelia, always louder and more strident than the others.
"Okay, she did save the world when she blew up Deadly Smurf at the mall, but her soulless ex is probably on the prowl out there as we speak."
His thumb came to rest on her pulse, and he seemed to listen to her quickening heart-beat with his entire body.
A tome on flesh-eating creatures slipped from Buffy's trembling hands and tumbled to the floor.
It became very quiet in the room.
*****
"Buffy, what do you think you're doing?"
Giles's shouts reverberated through the sewer tunnel before the echo died down in an angry whisper.
"Hunting a bone-stealing, marrow-sucking demon that loves hiding in dark and dank places full of liquid human waste? A taste that, to be honest, sucks big time."
As soon as she'd blurted out her answer, Buffy regretted the flippancy.
"Look, if you wanna know why I went down here on my own, I just wanted to do my duty."
It was hard to read his facial expression in the flickering shine of their flashlights, but his severe looks seemed to soften, giving way to either curiosity or compassion.
"I'm behaving as you'd expect a Slayer to. No crankiness, no grumbling, simply slaying the monster while keeping everybody else happy and safe."
It took Giles quite a few 'haws' and 'hems' to clear his throat; when he replied, he sounded older than usual.
"So you sent us into the wrong direction, to throw us off the demon's scent… Which is both admirably heroic and abysmally stupid, but I’m beginning to learn that these are often synonyms."
If it hadn't been for the dry humour and the blatant concern in his voice, she'd have felt like slapping him.
"What exactly did I do wrong -- again?" Buffy sighed.
"Hasn't it crossed your mind that we could still have encountered the demon, but without you to protect us? Or that we've got important information for you?"
Her face was suddenly flushed with shame, but she wasn't sure if he could see her blush in the near-darkness.
"Willow and Oz dug up a relevant fact in the thirteenth volume of Nutter's Encyclopaedia of Demonology. You can only kill a Bone Hunter by breaking his spine just below the neck. Your axe should be sufficient, but how long would it have taken you to find this out by trial and error?"
"Learning by doing is totally overrated," she mumbled before taking a deep breath and daring to speak at last.
"Giles, I … I let Angel escape."
Her cheeks were burning now, and her tongue seemed to swell in her parched mouth, threatening to choke her.
"Not 'let' as in 'wasn't quick enough to hunt him down', but 'let' as in 'didn't lift a finger to stop him'. I knew I was wrong; I knew he was the wrong person right it front of me; and yet it would've cut me to the bone to kill him."
His broad hands slowly crept upwards on her bare shins, and his roughened palms rubbed her dimpled kneecaps for a moment. Smiling, she bent down to him until she could trace his cheekbones, jaw-line and chin with strands of her damp hair.
Buffy didn't flinch when Giles squeezed her shoulder, digging his fingers into her arm, both encouragement and punishment.
"We describe it as a sacred calling," he said softly, "but I think 'crippling' and 'back-breaking' would be more appropriate."
They went on together.
*****
"If I haven't forgotten everything we learnt in biology--"
"You don't forget anything, Will!"
Buffy groaned, rather loudly to drown out the music in the assembly hall.
"Anyway, adult humans have about 206 bones in their body. I guess I can feel them all tonight."
"But we put up a decent fight after we arrived in the nick of time, like the cavalry for John Wayne."
Buffy flashed Xander a grin when Cordelia chimed in.
"If by 'putting up a decent fight' you mean cheering our heroine while throwing pebbles at a six-foot monster, I'll agree with you."
"Those pebbles were of the good," Oz said. "They skipped beautifully on the sewage."
"Could we not discuss cloacas at a fun event, even a non-classy one?"
Abruptly, Cordelia dragged Xander on the dance-floor, which was gradually getting more crowded. As Willow, too, held out her hand to Oz, Buffy grabbed her by the elbow.
"Just a sec. Do you know how Mandy's doing?"
"Obviously, she isn't here," Willow smiled sadly.
"But from what I've heard, her friends from tenth grade are taking really good care of her. So, don't you worry too much. It wasn't your fault this Bone Hunter demon thingie attacked her uncle before you even knew it was in town."
"Oh, don't you dare worry about me. I'm peachy and keen!"
Buffy gave her a slight push and shoved her among the dancers; she was watching her friends from afar, waiting for the song to blank out her thoughts, for the beat to hum in her breast.
Desire aches in your bones, she realized as she pushed down her panties, struggling against the urge to snatch the blanket and cover herself again.
"Are you?" Giles sat down beside her and offered her a glass of fruit punch. "'Peachy and keen,' as you put it so nicely."
"Dunno," she shrugged. "Been there, done research, axed a demon, learned my lesson about finding the balance between self-reliance and teamwork. And yet, my soulless ex, as Cordy puts it so nicely, is maybe having a drink at another fun event."
"Would you feel better if you went on patrol later?"
"I'd never thought I'd say this, but actually, yeah."
She clenched the glass so tightly that Giles loosened her grip before it might crack under her fingers.
Her fingers inched down his chest and stomach, rib by rib, but he stilled her hand on his hipbone. 'Please don't,' he rasped. 'Not quite yet.'
"Don't you want to dance? Or would you prefer to sit in a corner and keep the tweedy middle-aged librarian company?"
"C'mon, Giles, admit it. You're only hiding because they're playing disco instead of punk rock."
"Bloody right. Off you go, then."
When she turned over, half bashfully, half playfully, to lie flat on her belly, he began to lick the hollow of her neck and then kissed his way down her spine, from vertebra to vertebra.
Stepping stones to salvation.
Buffy stood up and danced.
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