Chapter Text
You sucked on your Popsicle, it was was scorching hot as the yellow ball of gas in the sky heated up your scantily clad skin to almost boiling point. This wasn't new for you though, ever since you moved from your last place, you'd noticed it was a lot hotter here.
You fanned yourself with your left hand, you shuffled a bit in your seat, the lounger was cheap but serviceable until you got the money for something better, everyone had told you not to move to sin city but you didn't particularly care, you did what you want whenever you wanted.
Rubbing a bit more sunblock, you hummed to the sound of your favorite song playing through your earphones, you hoped nothing would disturb you now but as if it read your mind, your song paused itself and your phone starting buzzing, you sighed and put your phone to your ear.
You recognized the number but only vaguely it was your cousin who you'd never actually met or even knew about until last year and your mom started getting back in touch with the family, apparently there'd been a rift about thirty years ago, completely sundered the family apart.
"Howdy honey, what's up?" You sing songed out, you told yourself you'd be mad at someone interrupting you, but come on this was your fave new cousin, she and you were close.
"Hey Y/N, everything's a-okay, I just need a place for me and a few friends to crash, is that okay?" She said her voice betraying her, everything did not sound fine.
"All right hun, anything for you but you're not a-okay, is it something you can tell me? and do you need the place tonight?" You lowered your voice in case anyone was listening, you couldn't be too careful, no one could.
"No, sorry but I can't, not yet anyways, it'll only be for a week or two. We'll be here tomorrow night, I gotta go now, thanks, you're a lifesaver, bye."
Just like that the line went dead and you reclined back in your lounger squinting at the sky and wondering what could have gotten Buffy in such a huff but you couldn't deny her anything.
Walking into your one bedroom apartment that you could barely afford, you glanced around wondering how the fuck were you going to fit people in here. You could get a few camp beds you supposed, you knew that Buffy only had a small circle of friends but the ones she did have went everywhere with her, they were her family as much as you were, probably more so, you sighed, yeah you wanted to bond but you really didn't want four to five strangers in your house.
You slumped down on your cream couch and sighed again, why did you agree? You were going to have to buy camping beds unless they bought their own but even so you were the host and you realized that you were very poorly equipped for guests.
The traffic made you want to throw things, preferably at crappy drivers, it was jam-packed as per usual, you slumped your head on the steering wheel, feeling the vinyl against your head, you cursed and mumbled all the way to the store, you handed out way too much money for a three camp beds, you weren't going to pay for more than that, you still had a couch that someone could crash on.
Back home, you put them all up in the small living room and managed to push the sofa against the wall to make space for them in the center, they wouldn't fit into your bedroom which was completely taken up by a second - or possibly tenth - hand double bed.
They arrived a little earlier than stated but you were actually grateful, faster it starts, sooner it's finished. Their mini van was a battered blue one, you wondered where they'd found it but then remembered that you weren't exactly raking it in either.
To your surprise almost everyone hugged you, the redheaded Willow ran to you and gave you a squeeze, the dude with the eye-patch Xander gave you a one armer, then patted your arm and asked where the fridge was, and shit you forgot to buy extra food. Buffy had been the last out of the van, she looked great all perky and tan, she gave you an awkward sort of hug, the kind that was supposed to be nice but neither person is entirely into it.
There were a few others with her, a tall man with a smooth ass accent, ooo you liked that and another guy with a fairly similar one, you thought they may have been relatives, father and son perhaps but he was bleach blond, you weren't sure what to think of him as he sauntered after Buffy, the tall one was called Giles and you thought you might have misheard when the other proclaimed himself to be Spike.
Who the hell did Buffy hang out with - or the more pertinent question was why? you meant you liked them but they were all so different, you couldn't figure out what connected them all.