FIC Not Even Jimmy Olsen (2/6) (BUFFY)

[blairprovence]

Probably no one else at school is at the center of so many wild rumors as Buffy is. Chief among them is her propensity for violence - she's got a rep worse than Mike Tyson's. Admittedly, I haven't seen her beat anyone up myself - I always seem to be absent the nights she makes a spectacle in the Bronze, and I've missed all the incidents at school as well. But several kids I know were present when she beat up the cop at '97 Career Day. (Although, in all fairness, the cop had pulled a gun on her first. I never did hear what that was all about.) I'd heard rumors about Parent Teacher night, too, and there was that time last year when she supposedly killed her mom's boyfriend, though he eventually turned up alive again.

I think.

And then, of course, there was the end of spring semester, when she ran away and was wanted for murder for awhile, though that apparently just went away somehow, too. There were various other instances as well, but, frankly, some of the stories were really hard to take seriously. I mean, she's only about five foot three, and she probably weighs about 100 pounds soaking wet - she looks about as dangerous as one of the Olsen twins. But while I haven't seen her in action personally, her resulting reputation's effects are clearly evident - even steroidhead superjocks give her a wide berth. And while plenty of people are willing to pass rumors about her violent tendencies behind her back, you'll find few people who are willing to discuss them to her face.

Same goes for the rumors about her love life, which are even more unsavory, though I find them a lot less believable than the ones about her fighting. The most insidious one is about the purported sexual relationship between Buffy and the British librarian, Mr. What's-his-name. Graves or Giles, isn't it? I can't remember. I've seen him around campus - he's pretty good looking for an old guy, but waaay too tweed dependent, and the idea of him with fashion-plate Buffy is really amusing. I don't think anyone actually claims to have personally seen them kissing or anything - those kinds of stories are more the friend-of-afriend -of-a-friend variety. But everyone in school has seen how much time they spend together. They're always walking down the halls, sitting out in the courtyard, chatting in the caf, etcetera - and her entire little group practically lives in the library, while the rest of the student body wouldn't go there if you paid them.

Although, in my mind, the time the group spends there is more of an argument against a relationship between them - it's not like they'd want Xander and Willow to spectate while they went at it in the stacks. But there is something pretty strange about their association - I just don't have any idea what it is.

Aphrodisia actually asked Cordelia about it a couple of weeks ago. We'd been discussing the romantic possibilities inherent in Scott Hope, whom Buffy dated at the beginning of this year. I guess it was pretty brave of him to ask her out in defiance of all the unsavory rumors, but whatever they had had together didn't even last to Homecoming. We were wondering aloud why they had broken up, and Aph asked Cordelia what the sitch was. She'd just shrugged, so Aph had asked if it was because Buffy was sleeping with the librarian. Cordelia's eyes had nearly bugged out of her head as she choked on the sucker in her mouth. But all she'd said after she'd finished coughing was "Oh, please" as she rolled her eyes, which I took to be a negative response. I mean, after all the time Cordelia spent with them in the library over the last year, I'd assume she'd have to know.

My own theory was that Buffy had been pretty seriously involved with the older guy I'd seen her with sometimes at the Bronze. Whenever they'd been together out on the dance floor they'd seemed totally into each other to the exclusion of everyone else in the place. He'd stopped coming around last spring, though, and I had never known his name. Cordelia answered questions about him with an impatient glare and shake of the head - Aph's theory was that she had made a play for him and failed, but I didn't really think so. Honestly, I think she actually looked a bit frightened whenever the subject came up.

 But tonight Cordelia didn't appear to be feeling frightened - or happy, or sad, or any other kind of emotion, except perhaps a vague sense of general annoyance. "God, this is boring," she muttered, glaring into her coffee cup.

 "Well, if we're not interesting enough for you anymore, Cordelia, your little loser friends just came in the door," Harmony sniped. She was in a real winner of a mood this evening, because her father had refused to replace her recently totalled Miata with the shiny new Mustang she'd wanted. On the whole I had to come down on her father's side of the argument, since this was her fourth car in as many years. My own deceptively stylish hunk of junk practically lived in the repair shop, despite the fact that I somehow managed not to hit anything at all with it.

Reflexively, Cordelia glanced toward the entrance, where - sure enough - Buffy, Willow and Xander were threading their way through the crowd by the door. I looked back at Cordelia in time to see her expression darken as Willow laughed at something that Xander said to them. But then her face quickly smoothed into the accustomed emotionless mask she wore whenever his name came up.

"Do you think he's replaced you with Willow Rosenberg?" Harmony wondered snidely, her voice dripping disdain for the redheaded girl. Willow's rep is almost as weird as Buffy's. Some people even say she's a witch.

Cordelia's mouth tightened into a thin line, but I thought I saw a glimmer of pain in her dark eyes. "Willow's with Oz," she bit out, shrugging her shoulder toward the Dingoes' guitarist, who had noticed his girlfriend's entrance and greeted her with a nod from onstage. The three of them waved back at him as they made their way toward one of the couches in the rear of the club.

"Oz is in a band," Aura pointed out, "which is marginally cool, even if he did flunk out last year."

"I guess she wouldn't dump a guy like that for a loser like Xander," Harmony agreed maliciously, leaning in toward Cordelia. "I mean, why would anybody do that?"

"Oh, get a new theme, Harmony - even the coffee finds this dull by now."

"Ooh, are we still a bit touchy about being dumped by our own personal Urkel?"

I missed Cordelia's reply as I caught sight of Jonathon out on the dance floor, his arms around a tall brunette - which was a weird enough occurrence without taking into account that I was almost positive his dance partner was Sheila the Skankgirl - the one who'd stabbed a teacher with pruning shears a while back. I had been under the impression that she'd dropped out of school and left town last year sometime around Parent Teacher night. But there she was, slow dancing with the nerd of nerds. Huh.

I turned back to the table in time to hear Cordelia begin some comment about the inauthenticity of the blondness in Harmony's hair, but she was interrupted by the arrival of someone new at our table.

Speak of the Devil, it was Buffy Summers' mystery guy.

"Cordelia," he greeted her, ignoring the rest of us.

"What do you want?" she replied in a monumentally peeved tone as Harmony, Aura, Aphrodisia and I took in his admitted studliness.

"I'm looking for Buffy."

"Now there's a shock," she replied. "You're behind the times, though. Newsflash - I'm not living in Buffy's Loserland anymore."

He didn't appear affected by her audible disdain. "I think she mentioned that."

"Well, do me a favor and remember it, 'kay? Just in case you get...possessed...by the sudden urge to make her life hell again, you can take me off the target list."

That barb clearly hit home, though I didn't really understand why. He flinched, and Cordelia's mouth curled into a malicious smile.

"I'm Aura," Aura blurted, holding out her hand. "And you are...?"

"Leaving," he offered without even glancing down at her eager face. "Never mind, Cordelia, I see them."

"Goody for you," she muttered, once again concentrating on her coffee. She was the only one at the table that did not turn to appreciate the fine view of his retreating backside.

"Are you mental?" Aph hissed at her. "That man is a God!"

"That man is a psycho looney!" Cordelia hissed back, her knuckles white around the coffee cup. "If you're smart, you'll remember that, and if you're not...well, I think Donna Karan rules as corpse-wear."

"Chose Buffy over you, did he?" Harmony ventured smugly.

Cordelia slammed her cup down onto the table and shoved her chair back. She stood up, glaring down at Harmony with fire in her eyes, and I found myself thinking - irrelevantly - that it was the most alive that I'd seen her in days. "Is your life so incredibly lame that the only thing you can find to talk about is mine?" Cordelia asked, unsnagging her purse strap from the back of the chair. "My God, Harmony, get a hobby! And be sure to let me know when you've found one, because until then, I'll be doing all my breathing elsewhere."

Great. Cordelia was leaving, which meant the rest of the evening would probably be yawns aplenty. Screw that, I had trig homework to do. Without thinking, I stood up and said, "I'm leaving, too."

Harmony turned her glare on me, and Aph and Aura looked up with identical expressions of shock, and belatedly I realized that I had accidentally allied myself with Cordelia. I nearly groaned at the realization - after weeks of managing to walk a tightrope between the two of them during their long-running battle, I'd just shot myself in the foot as far as Harmony was concerned. Which meant I now had months of her in bitch-mode to look forward to. Joy.

And Cordelia didn't even seem to be grateful for my inadvertent support. In fact, she didn't appear to be paying any attention to us at all.

She was staring toward the front entrance of the club with a thoughtful frown on her face. "Is that Sheila?" Sure enough, Sheila was leaving, arm-in-arm with Jonathon. "Oh, no," she muttered and glanced behind her. I followed her gaze and saw Buffy and her coterie emerge from the rear of the club - they were staring after Sheila and Jonathon, frowns on their faces. Buffy headed through the crowd to the door, the rest of them hot on her heels.

 

"Thinking of rejoining the losers?" Harmony asked as Cordelia slung her purse over her shoulder.

"Maybe I'm thinking of leaving them," Cordelia snapped, arching her eyebrow significantly toward Harmony. She tossed her hair, turned her back, and stalked away toward the door. Suddenly curious, I decided to forgo groveling for the moment, grabbed my own purse, offered my goodbyes, and followed her.

The evening air was cool and pleasant after the stuffy atmosphere inside the club. Strangely, we found ourselves the only two people standing out in front besides the bouncer, and Cordelia looked up and down the street, frowning in puzzlement. "Where'd Buffy's bunch go?" she asked the burly man next to the door, apparently confident that he'd know who she meant.

Which he did. "Alley," he muttered, jerking his head to the right. Sure enough, I heard a muffled shout from that direction.

She glanced impatiently at me, but I made no move to leave. "Do you have a car?" she asked, and I suddenly realized that she apparently paid even less attention to the things I said than I had assumed.

"In the shop," I told her, as though I hadn't expounded on that very topic for five minutes only an hour earlier. "Pretty much always. I was going to walk home."

"You can't," she replied, looking grim. She glanced toward the alley again, and sighed, grabbing my arm. "Come on."

As we neared the alley I noticed an odd green glow emanating from the entrance. Meanwhile, Cordelia rummaged in her purse, muttering under her breath, and finally withdrew a cross and what looked like a watergun. "Take this," she said, shoving the cross into my hand. "And stay behind me."

I wondered what the hell was going on.

I wondered it even more when we rounded the corner and caught sight of Buffy. It appeared that I had finally gotten my wish - a chance to see her fighting. Of course, I'd expected to see her battle one or two of your everyday humans, not a giant green glowing floating man.

I was instantly assailed by childhood memories of the television show "The Incredible Hulk", though upon closer inspection, the - well, the monster, for want of a better word - didn't really look that much like Lou Ferrigno. In fact, the eerie glow emanating from his (her? its?) body made it difficult to distinguish any features at all. He appeared to be floating about two feet above the cement, manifesting the requisite two arms and two legs, and possessing something approximating blood, if the green goo that dripped down from various wounds to spatter on the pavement was analogous. The injuries seemed to be the result of attacks with some kind of large wooden stick, which Buffy wielded with deadly efficiency, bobbing and weaving to avoid whipsharp limbs while periodically darting in to press her advantage.

I finally noticed Willow crouched to the side of the alley in front of a stack of garbage bags and boxes. She was holding a cross similar to Cordelia's up toward the green man, and I was confused as to what in the world it was supposed to accomplish in the face of such a deadly attack - not to mention what Cordelia expected to do with the watergun.

Glowing green man finally managed to land a blow on Buffy, a shot to her right side that threw her across the alley and into the opposite wall with a sickening thunk. "Shit," I heard Cordelia mutter as she raced forward, holding the watergun out in front of her. "Hey! Jolly Green Giant!," she yelled. "Back off!"

Greenie had apparently had his fill of fighting crazy women wielding bizarre weaponry. He vanished around the back right corner of the alley in a hurried retreat, trailing green vapor behind him(her?). "That's right, run away!" Cordelia yelled after him, following behind to peer around the corner, probably trying to ensure he had really gone. Buffy began to stir as Cordelia retraced her steps up the alley, and I realized abruptly that I'd been standing there uselessly like some sort of statue, mouth frozen open in horror. "Are you okay, Buffy?" Cordelia asked, making no move to help the other girl up. "He really whacked you."

"Tell me about it," the girl groaned as she rose to her feet. "Why do they always- Xander!" She stumbled over to where Willow was still crouched among the garbage bags. "Are you guys all right?"

"Just peachy," the boy muttered sourly as he and Willow emerged from the trash pile, her hand supporting his elbow. "What was that thing?" I noticed Cordelia's concerned expression as she took in his disheveled condition, but it vanished the moment he looked up and noticed she was standing there.

"Got me," Buffy replied, lending him her own strength as they made their way to the alley entrance. "I think I remember seeing it on an episode of Scooby-Doo, though."

Xander groaned and tentatively felt his forehead, which was already purpling with what was sure to be an impressive bruise. "What about Jonathon and Sheila?"

Buffy pursed her lips in concern and glanced back down the alley. "I sent Angel after them. I'm sure everything's okay."

Angel. So that was MysteryMan's name. Weird.

As if the mention of his name had conjured him up, the man appeared around the left corner at the back of the alley, Jonathon in tow. Nerdboy was blinking groggily under the weak streetlights. "What happened?" he muttered as he stumbled against a cardboard box.

Cordelia grabbed his arm and hauled him toward the alley entrance. "Sheila's out of your league, idiot-boy. You got off lucky." She shoved him toward the bouncer, who caught him and gave him a push through the doorway, before resuming his position against the wall. Once Jonathon was inside, Cordelia turned around, fists on hips, and stalked back toward our little group. "Okay," she began, addressing Buffy in angry tones, "what the hell is going on? Are we having another Apocalypse or something? Because I really think you could have left me a voice-mail."

Huh?

"We don't know what's going on, Cordelia," Buffy replied in exasperated tones. "We followed Sheila and Jonathon out here, and I was just about to take care of her, when green guy appeared and threw Xander into the wall."

Cordelia rolled her eyes. "At least he has good taste in victims. So...I guess you guys are going to the library, huh?"

"Gee, good guess, Cordelia," Xander drawled sarcastically, and Cordelia shot him a dirty look.

"Well, if you want a ride, come on already. But not you," she added, pointing at Angel. "I'm not inviting you into my car ever again!"

"Cordelia," began Buffy wearily.

Angel cut her off. "It's all right, Buffy. I'm going to see if I can find out where this thing has gone, track it somehow. I'll be in touch." He slipped off down the alley, almost melting into the shadows.

Willow turned to Cordelia, her normally gentle expression troubled. "You don't have to be so mean, Cordelia."

 "I'll be as mean as I want to be, Willow," she replied scornfully. "You people may trust him again, but that's because you're stupid. And I'm not. Now do you want the ride or don't you?"

"How could we refuse such a gracious invitation?" Buffy replied drily. "Will, go tell Oz what's the up and we'll pick you up at the door. Come on, Xander." She slipped her arm around his waist and helped him stagger toward the parking lot.

Cordelia glared after them for a moment, then beckoned me to follow her. "Come on. This won't take long, then I'll drop you at home."

I finally managed to force my feet to move and followed after her, my mind racing with millions of questions whose words I couldn't seem to formulate. But, one overriding thought echoed loud and clear inside my head.

What the hell? 

Part 3