Dance With the Dead (BTVS, Book Six)

chapter 19 - Seeing Red

I was mostly avoiding my friends after they had found out about me and Spike and were acting exactly how I knew they were going to act, being judgmental and unintentionally pushing me away, so I was looking for the geek trio alone, kicking in their lair's door, walking in, calling out. "All right. Let's make this quick." I looked around the cheesy lovepad fashion decorations, seeing that it was empty other than me, displeased, walking down the stairs into the lair, looking around. "Fine. But I'm not leaving till we have a little chat." I wandered over to a desk, seeing an iMac and a bunch of papers on it, frowning, picking up some of the papers, looking around more, seeing a variety of geek-type knickknacks and such. "Very little, considering the pummeling that needs to occur." I looked at a shelf where a bunch of action figures were set up, mostly of women in extremely skimpy outfits, poking one of them, making a face, turning away. "I mean, guys, hello. Slayer here. Did you honestly think I wouldn't find you?" I got distracted by more piles of paper and stuff on a chair, sifting through them, picking some up, frowning, continuing to walk around. I saw a white board on which the nerd herd had been using, turning it on its squeak axle to reveal the surface, reading all it said: TOO LATE!. "Well, that can't be good."

A huge circular buzzsaw cut through the white board, coming slicing toward me, cutting through everything in its path, making sawdust and debris fly everywhere. I shielded my face with my hands, diving to the floor just in time to avoid being sliced in two. 

Several more saws appeared, at all angles, moving around the room, some horizontally, some vertically, some diagonally. I stood, doing a flip to duck under one and over another. I grabbed a pile of random papers and stuff, including a very large book, running for the door. One saw got caught in the stairwell just below my feet.

I ran out of the house, falling to the ground as I had to duck another saw that nearly took my arm off, papers flying everywhere. I groaned, sitting up. 

I looked down, seeing that my red leather jacket and shirt had a big gash over my stomach, just deep enough to cut the fabric, but not my flesh. I looked up in annoyance. "Okay. That's gonna cost ya."

  ••••••  

I eventually had to go to Buffy's house to show her what I found, and Dawn was here with us, after I had changed because of my mishap with the buzz saw.

Willow and Tara walked down the stairs toward us, having gotten back together, and were all loveydovey.

"Okay, we're here, ready for action," Willow told us. "Uh, bad guy fighting action."

Willow and Tara exchanged affectionate looks.

"Guys, you didn't have to..." Buffy trailed off. "You know, if you still wanna be alone..."

"No, no, we're good," Willow told us.

"We're better than good," Tara told us.

"Great," I told them.

"Super," Willow told us.

Willow and Tara kissed briefly, then began to kiss more passionately and intensely.

Buffy, Dawn and I couldn't even be mad because we were happy for them.

Dawn giggled. "Aw."

"Okay, all right, we'll stop," Willow told us.

"Oh, you better not," Dawn told them.

"So, um, nerds," Tara told us. "How are them--they?"

"Well, I found their lair, but they obviously knew we were tracing their signal," I told them. "They left in a hurry. Van was gone, but everything else was still there."