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The Bronze seemed significantly less enjoyable than usual, although Buffy wasn't sure if it was because of the "music" (the guy in front of the mic sounded like he was strangling a cat) or the coffee (which tasted like it had been made yesterday and reheated). The vast open space seemed small and stuffy, full of uncomfortable smells that made her twitchy and anxious. She looked sourly around the room from her perch on the couch and gave the laughing girls walking past the evil eye.
"Are they old enough to be here? Because I think they're freshman. As in 'recently burned down Sunnydale High' freshman, not college."
Willow took a sip from her mug and winced at the taste, glancing over at the girls.
"Isn't that blonde one Laura?" she asked. "I think Xander had a crush on her once for about five minutes. They're a year behind us, so...seniors now."
"Really?" Buffy squinted. "They look twelve. We were never that young. Someone should check their IDs."
"Okay." Willow set her cup down and turned on the couch, dragging one leg up to prop her chin on her knee and give Buffy her full attention. "Before I hand you your arthritis cream and cane, you want to tell me what's up?"
Buffy deflated and collapsed back into the cushions with a rueful sigh. "Sorry," she said, giving a wan smile. "I know I'm being all get-off-my-lawn today."
"Finals?" Willow asked, offering a shoulder pat of consolation. "Because I know Professor Walsh keeps saying that only half the class ever passes, but I think she's bluffing. There's something in her eyes."
Buffy kicked idly at the table in front of her and wondered if anyone would hold it against her if she accidentally-on-purpose used the guitar strings currently being tortured to strangle the singer, who had moved on from cats to something...less cute and more screechy. Maybe the mythical cat-eating demon she'd heard lived somewhere underneath Sunnydale.
"So the eyes are the windows to the soul, right?" she said, turning to Willow. "Well, Professor Walsh's eyes tell me that she has no soul." She shrugged. "Nah, I'm not really worried. I mean, I have some serious real estate to cover in the studying department, but I think it'll be okay. It's not school, so much. I'm just...restless."
"Hmm." Willow put on her best serious face and inspected Buffy critically. "When's the last time you killed something?"
"Huh. A while," Buffy admitted, trying to remember the last time she'd had a good, satisfying slay. "And I'm going to pretend that it isn't disturbing that that's your answer to my life's woes."
In point of fact, the area around campus had been disappointingly vampire-free for weeks now, and Giles hadn't been able to find anything even remotely useful or scary in any of his piles of books. Not that she was looking forward to a looming apocalypse or anything, but...a girl had needs. If she didn't have slaying, she'd have to focus on studying, which was not going to happen. She looked over to see Willow cringe at the high note coming from the speakers.
"Okay, so I'm not just being an old fart - this actually sucks, right?" Buffy asked.
Willow nodded. "You're not wrong. I mean...we could go back to campus?"
She sounded so doubtful as she said it that Buffy immediately shook her head. "Nope. I told you we'd be frat-free tonight if it kills us. And it just might, if that singer doesn't shut up."
As if he had heard her, the singer in question finished his song with a grandiose flourish on the guitar and walked off stage to weak and perfunctory applause. Whoever was in charge of the sound system had clearly seen the wisdom of the mighty CD and had one all ready to go. Within seconds, actual, real music was coming from the speakers. Buffy sighed in relief.
"See?" she said cheerfully. "It's a sign. Even better, this sign is danceable." She stood up and twisted her neck to uncrink it, bouncing on her toes as the restlessness twisted inside her, making her nostrils flare and her skin feel two sizes too tight. "You wanna come with?"
Willow shook her head in amusement. "I'll hold down the fort," she said, piling more pillows around her and waving a hand in dismissal. "Go forth and dance, young one."
Buffy tossed a spare pillow at Willow's head in retort and bounced onto the open floor in front of the stage, finding a place near the center. It was as if the departure of the masochist impersonating a singer had given new life to the place, and Buffy breathed in as the floor began to fill up around her. The air hummed with life, the smell of lotions and perfumes becoming almost overpowering as the bodies around her warmed with exertion. Underneath it all was the honest odor of sweat, of lust, of blood pumping beneath the thinnest of veins. It touched the part of Buffy that had been hurting from a lack of hunt, and she shut off the thinky part of her brain and just let herself go.
If she couldn't kill something evil, then dancing was a pretty good substitute.
The campus had been on edge for weeks, oncoming finals week adding pressure to an already tense situation. The alphas in the Gamma Epsilon frat traditionally held a massive party near the end of the semester - date chosen by pure coincidence, they always insisted, although it was the world's worst secret that they actually chose the day to coincide with the time when the members of the all-gender, all-omega Delta Tau frat had their cycles sync up for the first time. The Delta house put itself on lockdown, naturally, but the stink of heat from so many omegas couldn't possibly be hidden.
Every year the Gamma alphas threw a party at the same time, and every year there were protests from various omega-rights student groups about increased aggression and the danger to other omegas on campus. The Gamma house being located just off campus proper, there was little the administration could do but throw up their hands and double the security around Delta house, threatening the Gamma alphas with severe reprisals if anything in the least got out of hand. Willow's Wicca group had helped sponsor a week-long self-defense program aimed at omegas, and were formally protesting Gamma house. Buffy had signed the petition in solidarity and taken it upon herself to get Willow off campus to breathe cleaner air as soon as her classes were over for the day, but her one attempt at more direct action had ended badly.
Willow had talked her into leading one of the self-defense courses one evening. "I mean, who better than a Slayer?" she'd asked. "Just remember that the rest of us don't have superpowers, and you'll be fine. What could possibly go wrong?"
Famous last words was all Buffy could think once she was in front of the group of students - a dozen women and half a dozen men, all omegas - dressed in her cutest workout outfit, the only one without any blood stains or rips from an errant stake. One by one the faces watching her hardened, eyes closing off and arms folding across chests. She could almost smell the hostility, and before she could do more than introduce herself, her throat closed up. She shot Willow an apologetic look and escaped into the hallway to sit on the cold tile, swiping at the lone tear that escaped from one eye. If she listened closely, she could hear a pair of voices murmuring together near the doorway.
"...and it's not that, because you know that our group is very inclusive. We're open to all genders, sexualities and biological types. Steve's a member of the coven, and he's an alpha. It's just that...well, we weren't expecting...I mean, I'm sure your friend is a great person, but given the atmosphere on campus, I have to think about the safety and comfort of the rest of the group...."
Buffy had stopped listening at that point, tuning out Willow's angry reply. It wasn't the first time she's gotten that response, and it wouldn't be the last.
Life wasn't exactly easy as a female alpha. The fact that she was the Slayer too...well, that was just the icing on a really crappy cake.
********************
Her mother brought her to the doctor when she was twelve and her scent began to change. The tight, forced smile her mom had given when the doctor declared Buffy perfectly healthy hadn't fooled Buffy one bit. Something was still wrong.
"It's unusual, but not unheard of," the doctor had said, digging in his drawer for a handful of informational pamphlets. "You probably know that one out of every three or four boys is an omega. Now, it varies by population, but on average about one to two percent of girls are natural-born alphas, and they can go on to lead perfectly normal lives."
The questions began that day and never stopped - if Buffy could still have children, if there were any psychological issues they needed to be aware of, if if if if. On the day that her mother dragged her back to the doctor for the third time, clutching a newspaper article that claimed that female alphas suffered from a higher risk of breast cancer compared to other women, Buffy had burst into tears. Her mother caught her up in a tight hug, right there in the hallway, and tried to rock the fear and anger out of her as if she were a small child again.
"I'm so sorry, sweetheart," she said as Buffy's sobs wound down. "I'm making it worse, aren't I? It's just...I know that this won't be easy for you."
Buffy wondered sometimes if those words weren't a self-fulfilling prophecy. As it turned out, the hardest part wasn't dealing with her changing body - it was dealing with the reactions of the people around her when they found out what she was. She could feel the eyes of her parents, watching her - God, always watching her, with a mix of love and fear that left her suffocated. Her best friend Anna wasn't allowed to come over to Buffy's house anymore. And the next year in school, during health class, the alphas were separated from the omegas for a couple of weeks of special instruction. Buffy sat in the back of the room and kept her eyes on her desk and listened to lecture after lecture about self-control and respect for omegas and the importance of clear consent. She learned about pheromones and heats as the other alphas in the class - all boys - joked with each other and passed around an omega-mag one had stolen from his older brother. The male teacher clearly felt uncomfortable in Buffy's presence, and he finally let her escape to the library for independent study when he covered the units on genitalia and knotting.
When she was called as Slayer, it was almost a relief - to know that she wasn't just different, but special. Her parents chalked up her newfound strength and aggression to her alpha-ness, and Buffy did nothing to convince them otherwise. It was just easier that way, and it was a comfort having a secret of her very own to keep only to herself.
College was better than high school, as these things usually were. There were a few other female alphas on campus - Buffy had met a couple of them - but they didn't tend to group together the way that omegas seemed to naturally cluster in friendly herds.
"It's a biology thing," Willow had said on the day she moved into Buffy's dorm room - after signing the form acknowledging that she knew she was rooming with an alpha and had given the necessary contact information in case of emergency. "We were learning about it in anthropology this morning - something about forming group bonds based on pheromone patterns. I guess you get to be the lone wolf, huh? I don't know, it sounds kind of mysterious and sexy."
The eyebrow waggle she gave was so deliberately ridiculous that Buffy couldn't help burst out laughing, which helped reduce the sting as she signed her name on the Mixed Biology Rooming Consent form next to Willow's.
********************
The music reached a crescendo, and Buffy tossed her head back and let it take her over. In the mixed crowd of bodies the scents mingled, and no one could tell she was an alpha unless they stood right on top of her. When she caught the eye of the tall guy dancing a few feet away - she vaguely remembered seeing him around campus - he gave her a wink and danced closer.
She wasn't really looking for company, but she allowed him to enter her space and sway closer, curious in a distant way as to what his reaction would be once he was near enough to smell her. It usually went one of three ways from guys who were interested - they saw her has a freak, or as a challenge, or as a fetish. College guys were even worse in that respect than high school guys, and a few weeks of awkward dating had culminated in the complete and utter badness that was Parker Abrams, who had bragged to all and sundry after their single night together that he had bagged an alpha.
Tall Guy leaned forward, and Buffy saw his nostrils flare as he caught her scent. It only took a moment for his face to fall, and he turned away. Ninety-nine percent of the time, Buffy would have turned away with an eye roll and a muttered comment about insecure knot-heads.
Unfortunately, this time was the one percent. The barely-leashed energy roiled in her blood, making her bold and reckless. The sane part of her brain knew that picking a fight with a civilian would only end in badness, but another part of her just didn't care.
"Problem?" she asked brightly, voice carrying over the music. "Because I can swear I remembered to put on deodorant this morning."
Tall Guy turned back and held up his hands in defense, a slight sneer curling his lips.
"Look, I got no problem with A-girls," he said, just loud enough that the people dancing nearby turned to watch what was happening. "I just have an issue with false advertising." He eyed Buffy's skirt and strappy sandals in a way that made her feel positively dirty. "You go out looking like an omega, you're going to be treated like one." He raised his hand to finger Buffy's hair and yelped as his wrist was caught in an iron grip.
"Oh, I'm so sorry," she said, ice dripping from every word. "I guess you're guilty of a little false advertising yourself. I thought I was talking to a man, not a cockroach." A couple of appreciate laughs from the crowd around her did little to take the edge off her anger, and Buffy released his wrist with a twist that left him gasping and retreating to his friends with fear in his eyes.
The dance floor was stifling, the delicious sense of freedom crushed by the anger still pulsing within her. Buffy blindly pushed her way to the door, just barely catching Willow's look of concern and waving her friend off when she tried to follow.
The outside air was blessedly cool and quiet in the alley where the back door had let her out. The dull thump of the music from inside the club drowned out the noise of any traffic, and Buffy leaned back against the wall and let her head hit with a hollow thump. The urge to fight - to run, to hurt, to hunt - was almost overpowering, but she closed her eyes and forced herself to run through the meditations Giles had taught her. She had come dangerously close to allowing herself to hurt a human in there, and she had to calm herself down before she did something she wouldn't be able to live with. The cold air burned her lungs as she took deep breaths, bringing the anger and violence to a more distant remove. When she found herself vaguely wondering if she had remembered to unplug her curling iron before leaving the dorm, she knew she had gotten herself under control.
Two more deep breaths, and her heart beat slow and sure and calm.
"What's the matter, sweetheart? Did some boy treat you wrong?"
The tingles hit the small of her back as soon as the voice reached her ears, and Buffy's eyes snapped open to see the vampire standing at the mouth of the alley. He wore his human mask, all frat boy mussed hair and puppy dog eyes and a truly tragic pair of jeans. Yes, her spirit sang, the fire leaping to life again - but banked this time, and firmly under her control. She let herself nod and batted her eyes, elated as her prey moved closer.
"Well, I've got just the thing for you," the vampire hissed once he was a body length away, allowing his true face to emerge. He reached for Buffy and missed her by a mile - so stupid, so slow - and gasped in shock when she grabbed him by the back of the shirt and swung him face-first into the wall she had been leaning against just a moment before.
"You have a death wish?" she asked, smiling at the fear in the vampire's eyes when he realized who exactly he was dealing with. "Because I have to tell you, if that's what you've got for me? You've made my day."
She couldn't help but play with him for a bit, a cat and her mouse, putting off the inevitable by letting him get a punch in every now and then just for fun. When he rushed her, she dropped her shoulder and tossed him over her back into the pile of wooden boxes which stood stacked in one corner of the alley. He somehow managed to crawl from the wreckage without staking himself, and Buffy picked up one of the larger shards and twirled it in her hand while waiting for him to regain his balance.
"Are you done?" she asked brightly. "Because I could do this all night."
Another set of tingles made the back of her neck shiver, and Buffy cast a quick eye over her shoulder to see two more figures enter the alley at a run. The vampire chose that moment to rush her again, and instead of ducking she swung her arm and let him impale himself on her makeshift stake.
"Sorry," she muttered, dusting her hands off. "Playtime's over."
She had barely a moment to catch her breath before the second vampire was on her with a snarl. This one was clearly older and more powerful - nothing she couldn't handle, but more of a challenge than his predecessor. She caught movement out of the corner of her eye and tossed the second vampire over her shoulder, swinging around to catch the third vampire....
...who wasn't a vampire at all, she realized, and she pulled her punch and cartwheeled out of the way before she could hit him. She expected him to take the opening and run for the mouth of the alley, but instead he fell back with a muttered curse and pulled a lethal looking knife from some hidden pocket. He ducked past Buffy and swung at the neck of the vampire who had now clambered to his feet, hissing and drooling at the pair in front of him. The man with the knife swung with enviable aim and power, but he was clearly all human, and his lack of supernatural speed left him just a hair too slow. Buffy darted forward and underneath the arm of the man with the knife, kicking outward and landing a solid blow to the vampire's midsection. He stumbled back for just an instant before rushing forward with a roar, and this time Buffy was ready. With a pair of kicks she launched the vampire against the side of the building, keeping one eye on the other man at all times. As the vampire rebounded into the exact position she had hoped for, she dove and rolled away. Just in time, as the knife separated the vampire's head from his body and he exploded into dust.
Buffy rolled gracefully to her feet, sparing a mournful look for the spot of grease that smeared the front of her new skirt. The alley was empty again, save for the man leaning against the chain-link fence that bounded one side of the alley. He was staring at the place where the vampire had turned to dust, his eyes wide and the knife clutched tightly in his hand. He wiped his hand over his mouth as his breathing slowed.
"Never seen one of them do that before," he said, straightening up and turning his attention to Buffy. "You okay?"
He appeared young - early twenties, maybe, although there was something in his eyes that made him seem to Buffy much older. Although he could have easily passed for a college student in his jeans, boots and leather coat, she couldn't remember seeing him around campus, and she suspected that he wasn't a student at all. He looked her over with the trained eye of a soldier, casting his eyes around the alley as if searching for further threat before returning his attention to her.
"You okay?" he asked again, and Buffy was suddenly aware that she had been so busy studying him in return that she had never answered. "I mean, the way you handled yourself there? I have a feeling you're okay."
His smile crinkled the skin at the corners of his eyes, and Buffy was hard-pressed to give no more than a polite smile in return, because it was just now hitting her that dear God the guy was hot. Like, fire bad tree pretty levels of hot. And he could clearly handle himself in a fight, which was just a whole other level of hotness altogether.
"Is this a thing you do in your spare time?" she asked, folding her arms primly across her chest. "Chase after vampires? Because I have to say, there are healthier hobbies. Like playing in traffic, maybe, or sticking forks into outlets."
"It doesn't look like it's hurt you any," the guy said in return, stepping closer, and this time his smile had edged past professional into personal. Which meant that their five minutes of deep and heartfelt connection was about to come to a close, because he was almost close enough to catch Buffy's scent. He stepped forward and breathed deeply, and Buffy schooled her face into a sneer, ready for the inevitable comment about A-bitches who thought they were men.
Instead, the man held his breath and closed his eyes briefly with a look of...pleasure. Not creepy lust, but actual pleasure, as if it was a scent he had expected and almost hoped for. Buffy drew a deep breath of her own to be polite, almost stepping back in shock because what she scented had not at all been what she was expecting.
"So, girl who fights with vampires," the omega said, holding out his hand. "You have a name?"
His eyes were a greenish hazel, dark in the shadows of the alley, and his full lips curled into a smile when she took his hand in a firm grip. "Buffy," she said, shaking his hand quickly and dropping it before she could be tempted to hold on longer. His eyebrows rose quickly in an are you serious? expression at her name, and she glared at him until he quirked an apologetic smile.
"Sorry," he said with a chuckle. "Nice to meet you, Buffy. I'm Dean."