This Is How It Goes

This Is How It Goes

Chapter 1: Subconscious Hijacking

Author's Notes: I've been working on this story for a long time. It is, for all intents and purposes, my child. A child that grew far too much far too rapidly, much like Hagrid's Norwegian Ridgeback (for all you Harry Potter fans). It's a long, complex, emotional rollercoaster. It follows Season 3 to an extent, but many events have been altered, removed, postponed, added, elaborately fucked with, set on fire, etc., to suit my own nefarious purposes. Anyway, I'd like to see if there's enough interest for me to keep posting. As with many new authors, I am a shameless feedback whore, so if you like it and want to read more, let it be known. Oh, and the fic title is from an Aimee Mann song.

Giles took the familiar handkerchief from his pocket and began cleaning his glasses. "Buffy." He sighed softly, tiredly. "I'm disappointed in you."

He put his glasses back on, pushing them up the bridge of his nose, and peered at his Slayer.

"Any amateur businessman would see the niche for office supplies Nevada is offering us. For God's sake, woman, Staples just went out of business!" He began gesticulating wildly.

"Giles, I know!" Buffy said, exasperated. "All I'm saying is that we should look at llama farming. Did you know the profit margin on those babies? Have you seen my clipboard?"

She gestured with the object in her hand.

Giles' expression transformed as he glanced at her hands. He looked terrified. Buffy stopped moving and felt an inexplicable rush of fear. She slowly looked down at the object her hands were tightening around. It was a sword.

She snapped her head up, wildly searching for reassurance, and saw that the scenery had changed. She was in the clean, grey sterility of Angel's mansion. Acathla was grinning at her sickly. Buffy glanced down at her hands, saw deep red blood, saw her sword running through black fabric and buttons.

"No, no, no ..." she whispered desperately. "This — no, this can't be happening again."

"Buffy." He said her name with such confusion, such innocence.

"Angel ... I didn't mean ..."

His face changed as quickly as Giles' had. It was suddenly sardonic, mocking, contemptuous.

"What, it wasn't enough for you to take my soul? You had to send me to a hell dimension for eternity? Overreacting a little, aren't you, lover?" He grasped the sword running through his chest and yanked it out, grimacing.

"Please, Buff, let me return the favor." He grinned widely and suddenly slashed it through the air towards Buffy's neck.

"No!" she cried out and shut her eyes tight, waiting for the inevitable blow.

It didn't come. Buffy stood with her hands clenched at her sides, trembling. She opened her eyes slowly.

Angel and Acathla were gone. She was still in the mansion, but the shadows were longer and darker, the air colder. She shivered. The walls around her had deep claw marks and violent gouges covering them. Buffy looked closer and saw that they flickered, rippled like the surface of a pond.

"Are you from the IRS?" a voice asked.

Buffy turned her head around and saw a girl standing in front of one of the walls. Long, dark brown hair, about her age, slightly taller, slim. An abundance of leather and dark make-up. Seriously pretty, in a hazardous-to-your-health kind of way. Huge, deep brown eyes, full mouth, face and body composed of elegant, tight lines.

There was an air of coiled energy around the girl. Not fidgety energy, but the type of body language that said, "Look at me wrong and I'll shove my foot so far up your ass you'll be licking my boot." And ... the way she was holding herself, how her weight was balanced on her feet, it felt bizarrely familiar to Buffy. She could see an offensiveness to her stance that other people wouldn't have been able to pick up, could see a solid strength under her clothes. The girl had her arms crossed in front of her chest and was glaring at Buffy suspiciously.

"You better believe I'm not gonna cough up 800 bucks just `cause you bastards thought me special enough to send an agent." The girl leaned to the side, cocked her head. "Even if this one does have a nice ass."

Buffy twisted around, trying to see her ass, and realized she was wearing a bright yellow, not particularly form-fitting raincoat.

"What? You can't even see my ass!" she said, disturbed.

"I got a good imagination." The girl smirked at her arrogantly.

Buffy narrowed her eyes and frowned. "You — you're an actual person, aren't you? That seems — well, it seems kind of ridiculous, but I don't think I would imagine anyone as annoying as you into my dreams voluntarily."

The girl looked at her, re-evaluating. "Who the fuck are you?"

"Who am I? Look, Ms. Too-Cool-To-Pay-Your-Taxes, you're the one who hijacked my subconscious. I'm pretty sure that puts you in the `owing me' column," Buffy said, pointing at the other girl indignantly.

She snorted. "Whatever, blondie. Before this shithole of a fantasy, me and Johnny Depp were just about to get real comfortable." She paused, smirking. "Well, as comfortable as you can get on a bathroom floor." She frowned slightly. "Wearing a fireman suit."

Buffy blinked. "Well, that sounds about 240 times more pleasant than what I was dreaming. Although, I have heard llamas can lower cholesterol."

The girl, ignoring the absurdity of Buffy's statement, glanced around the mansion, her expression growing wary. "Where the hell are we?"

Buffy raised her hand guiltily. "That would be from my head, actually. This is a place I kinda used to visit a lot."

"On purpose? `Cause I've been to sunnier funeral homes," she said, arching an eyebrow snarkily.

"Hey, let's not focus on the badness of this experience. I mean, look, the walls are, uh, pretty," Buffy said lamely.

"The walls are fucking terrifying," the girl said flatly. "And, I'm not a dream expert, but when strangers show up in each other's heads, it gives me the feeling that somethin's majorly off."

Buffy furrowed her brow. "Yeah, that's a pretty reasonable statement." She looked down at her outfit. "And why am I wearing this? We're inside, so logical progression equals no rain."

"It's always raining." The other girl suddenly sounded serious. Her entire demeanor had changed. Her fists were clenched tightly by her sides, her eyes bright and cold. A clap of thunder echoed loudly and Buffy looked up anxiously. The ceiling that used to be there was gone, and the sky above was a pure, unadulterated black.

"Easier to wash away the blood," the girl said, except it sounded as if two people were speaking.

Buffy felt a chill. "Whose blood?"

"Yours, mine, vamps, don't really matter." She stared at Buffy unblinkingly.

Buffy belatedly registered what she had just said. "Vamps? You know about vampires? And these are literal vampires, right, not metaphorical money-sucking-vampires `cause those just aren't as -"

Buffy's eyes snapped open. She was sitting bolt upright in bed, her hands clutching the twisted, damp sheets. Her eyes ran frantically around the room, landing on familiar objects, and she inhaled shakily.

"What. The. Hell." She groaned loudly and put her hands over her face, rubbing her eyes. "Why can't anything I experience be normal? Leonardo Dicaprio, you've disappointed me again."

Buffy heard her mom yelling something about breakfast downstairs. She sighed and pouted.

"This is just going to be the best day ever."

~ — ~ — ~

It wasn't the best day ever. Days with high school in them rarely were, Buffy thought morosely. She moved through class distantly, only dimly perceiving her surroundings. She kept thinking of Angel's mocking face as he pulled the sword out, of the girl's bright, vivid eyes as she talked about blood. Everything seemed to reach her through a haze, everything paling in comparison to her dream.

Last night had caused so many of the emotions she had been furiously suppressing to resurface. L.A. had been her attempt at monotonous normalcy, at escaping her identity and history and melting into the mass of humanity. It hadn't worked.

Since she'd been back, she had been actively trying not to think about Angel, because when she did, it felt as if her lungs stopped working, as if a vise had been clamped on her gut. So much pain, guilt, and this intangible but pervasive sense of "what if?" What if Willow's spell had worked only minutes before? What if there was some other way to stop Acathla? Of course, actively trying not to think about something generally had the opposite effect, but she was managing. Piling her days full of slaying, schoolwork, and the comforting presence of her friends. The dream had shot all of that to hell. Where Angel was, she thought, and her stomach clenched.

And then that girl. Was she really an actual person, a stranger somehow invading Buffy's dreams? That made no sense. Except there was something about her, something in her energy that was familiar. Buffy had felt ... strange around her.

"Are you going Bronzing tonight, Buffy? Dingoes are playing, and Oz has his black hair `cause he wants to be all edgy," Willow said happily as they were walking down one of the halls.

Buffy realized a second later that she was being talked to and blinked, trying to shake the images out her head. "What? Oh — uh, yeah."

"Are you okay? `Cause you seem a bit ... elsewhere." Willow peered into her eyes, concerned.

"No, I'm okay. I just didn't sleep so well last night. Weird dreams," Buffy said evasively. Dark red coating her hands, dripping off the sword.

"Weird as in `why is that purple shrub talking to me,' or weird as in Slayer stuff?" Willow asked, brow furrowed.

"Both, actually. Or, neither." Buffy sighed. "I have no idea, Wil."

"Well, both of us know who to go to when your subconscious gets all paranormal," Willow said, smiling slightly.

"Yeah, yeah. You don't think he'll be all stuffy and British and say things like, `I cannot hope to unravel what goes on in your brain'?" Buffy said, inserting a horrendous British accent.

"If your dreams are of the talking purple shrub variety, then, no, I can't guarantee he won't go all `God save the queen.' But, if there's something else, then book-consulting is in order."

"Yeah. I'll go talk to him after classes," Buffy said. "He'll enjoy having an excuse to do new research. What a shameless dork."

"Well, yes. We dorks are a proud race of people. Who needs shame when you have tweed and ridicule?" Willow asked cheerfully.

"And if that's not a self-assured motto, I don't know what is," Buffy said, grinning.

"So, verdict for Bronzage tonight?" Xander asked, sidling up to them.

"We go, we drink, we be merry. We -" Willow started.

"Try to forget about the fact that my life sucks and I can't even relax while dreaming?" Buffy complained.

"Yup. Although, less with the life sucking and more with the dancing until you cannot dance any more. Did I tell you Oz has his black hair?"

~ — ~ — ~

After Giles' surprise, intrigue, and eagerness to research (in that order), as well as constant reassurances that his books would be able to provide all answers, Buffy tried to push all her dream baggage to the back of her mind. She was going to the Bronze with her friends, and she was going to enjoy herself without all the morbid freakiness that seemed to inevitably find her.

She found Willow and Xander at one of the center tables, one of whom was staring adoringly at the stage as the Dingoes played a number. Oz, who was indeed sporting his black hair, looked at Willow frequently with a soft smile that made Buffy insanely jealous of all of the couples in the world.

"Hey, Buff. How goes it in the rocky landscape of Buffonia?" Xander said, holding out a plastic cup for her. His eyes kept focusing on something on the dance floor.

Buffy shrugged. "Been rockier." She sat next to him and grinned at his preoccupation. "Whatchya looking at?"

Xander jumped guiltily. "Uh, nothing." His eyes flashed to the floor again.

"Well, `nothing' appears to be wearing an entire cow," Buffy quipped, glancing at the leather-clad girl that Xander was currently ogling.

Xander seemed to realize where he was, and began scanning the club frantically. "Cordy's not here, is she? `Cause, regardless of what my actions with vampires may indicate, I actually like my limbs attached."

Willow glanced over at the girl as well, whose face was obscured by the throng of male bodies dancing around her.

"I'll be honest, Xander. I don't really think you wanna pursue that unless you have a burning desire to be beaten up by a testosterone-fueled mob," Willow contributed.

"My to-do list has a couple of things above that. Like, become a transvestite." His eyes were still glued.

They continued to stare at the girl as she grabbed one of her harem and dragged him out of the club. Buffy watched them, brow furrowed. There was a procession of unpleasant tingles running up and down her spine.

"I don't think that guy's top priority is making out," she said, moving quickly from her seat and following them. Willow seemed to be oblivious as Oz began a solo. Xander got up inelegantly and went after them.

Buffy stepped out of the Bronze and looked around frantically, taking out a stake she had stashed in her sleeve. "Did you see where they went?"

Xander shook his head, and then snapped his head around as a crash echoed through the alleyway. "My guess? Follow the violent noises."

They ran towards the end of the alley and were immediately forced to duck as a body came flying towards them. The vampire, game-face contorted in confusion, went flying by them and crashed into the brick wall behind them. He groaned and held a hand to his head.

Buffy whirled around as footsteps echoed towards them.

The girl from the dance floor sauntered forward and Buffy's eyes widened. "What the imaginary heck are you doing here? Don't you belong in my head?"

The girl stopped too, eyes narrowing in recognition. She saw the stake Buffy held tightly and her expression became insultingly incredulous.

"You're the Slayer?" She regained her composure and snorted contemptuously. "Gotta say, didn't see this coming. You're like four feet tall."

Buffy was speechless for about three seconds. Then, assuming her patented, "who the hell do you think you are?" expression, she crossed her arms in front of her chest and glared at the other girl. "First of all, I'm a solid 5'3. Second of all, how did you just throw that vamp like he was a piece of clothing? Which, incidentally, you should look into."

The girl smirked. "I'm a Slayer, dumbass. I'm Faith." She stepped forward and snatched the stake fluidly from Buffy's hand. "You mind?" She swaggered casually over to the still-stunned vampire and staked him.