Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The sun was low in the sky, painting the California hills in shades of gold and amber as Buffy Summers guided her dented Chevy along the familiar highway. She had timed her arrival late to save herself from scrutiny, so that most town people would be tucked in their homes, while avoiding true darkness.

Sixteen years. Over a decade and a half since she’d last set foot in Charming, and yet the weight of it settled over her like an old coat—comfortable, but not quite fitting the way it used to.

Her fingers flexed around the steering wheel, knuckles whitening for just a second before she forced herself to relax.

The last time she’d been here, she was fourteen, furious at her parents for uprooting her life, and heartbroken over the boy she’d left behind. Jackson Teller—her first kiss, her first real crush, the boy who’d held her hand under the bleachers and promised to write her every day (he didn’t).

She absently touched the charm attached to her keys; the leather cord she had gotten it on long gone. She’d kept the charm through apocalypses and graveyard patrols, while diligently avoiding thinking the reason for that.

Jackson Teller—Jax, who, looking back, was likely the reason she had been so drawn to Pike. She honestly hadn’t thought of either of them in years. She’d been too busy with becoming the Slayer. Then with all the chaos Sunnydale and the Hellmouth brought into her life, the Scoobies, the deaths, the wars.

And now, here she was. Back in Charming. Funny how life circled back like that.

Aunt Arlene’s passing had been quiet—peaceful, the lawyer had assured her over the phone in that careful, practiced tone people used when they didn’t know how much grief to expect. Buffy hadn’t seen Aunt Arlene since before she was Called, hadn’t kept in touch beyond the occasional letter and birthday call and guilt twisted in her gut like a knife. Arlene had been the only one who didn’t treat her like a problem while she bucked her parents’ expectations—and their crumbling marriage threatening to pull her under.

Arlene was the one who let her sneak extra cookies, who didn’t scold her for climbing the oak tree in the backyard, who’d wink when she caught Buffy sneaking in past curfew with grass stains on her knees and Jax Teller’s laughter still ringing in her ears.

Now the house was hers, well, hers and Dawn’s but her sister had her studies and her life, Buffy had less things tying her down so she’d volunteered to come down to sort it out. They’d yet to decide what they would do with it, but someone needed to go and see it in person, to do that.

She took the exit, the town unfolding before her like a postcard frozen in time. There was the same diner where she and Jax used to split milkshakes, the same auto shop where he’d first taught her how to change a tire (it was a miracle neither of them got hurt). Even the Welcome to Charming sign was still there, though the paint was more faded than she remembered, the edges tagged with compilation of signs, dominated by a spray-painted reaper that leered at her.

Buffy exhaled slowly, her grip tightening again.

She wasn’t that girl anymore. Her Calling had made sure of that. She’d died (twice), led an army, buried friends. She knew how to stake a vampire before she’d ever learned how to balance a checkbook. Charming didn’t belong to her anymore—if it ever had.

And Jax?

She’d googled him, when the curiosity got the better of her. Not that she’d admit that to Dawn who had already teased her about her former boyfriend when they’d agreed Buffy would be the one to make the trip. From what she could piece together between old newspaper articles and light social media stalking, he was deep in the SAMCRO life now. Married to a pretty blonde that fit to his side better than Buffy thought she would have. Whatever childhood promises they’d made had dissolved long before the Hellmouth had swallowed Sunnydale whole.

Which was good, because she wasn’t here for him.

She was here to see the house, sign some papers, come to a decision about it all with Dawn and leave. No nostalgia. No reunions. No picking at old wounds.

The tires crunched over gravel as she pulled up to the old white house at the end of Lancer Street. The oak tree still stood in the yard, though its branches were thicker now, the tire swing long gone. She shut the trunk after grabbing her duffel bag, the sound feeling poignant. The porch steps groaned under her weight as she climbed them, the same familiar creak echoing under her boots.

The ease with which the key turned surprised her. The door swung open, pulling dust motes swirling around in the late afternoon light like tiny ghosts.

Inside, the air hummed—not a threat, but a welcome.

She flicked the lights on—she’d thankfully had the foresight to call and have them turn on the power and water before making her way down. The porchlight flickered twice before stopping, probably a wiring thing, she should have someone check that.

The scent of old wood and lavender (Arlene’s favorite sachets still tucked in the drawers) wrapped around her. For a second, she could almost pretend nothing had changed. That she was fourteen again, that her biggest worry was whether Jax would meet her by the river after dark.

Then the floorboard squeaked underfoot, and the illusion shattered. She dropped her bag near the stairway and one of the porch lights flickered again outside.

She was back. It would remain to be seen, for how long.

Chapter Text

The July sun beat down on Charming like a hammer on steel, turning the asphalt outside Teller-Morrow into an unforgiving griddle. Jax Teller leaned against the relatively cool metal of his bike, the familiar weight of his kutte heavy on his shoulders in the heat. He noted with an internal grimace the way his sweat-soaked shirt clung to his back, as he absently watched Bobby and Tig argue over a carburetor. The cigarette between his lips tasted like ash and nostalgia—two things he'd grown far too familiar with.

He felt a bead of sweat trail down his spine, and he shifted uncomfortably, the leather seat of his bike creaking under his weight. The garage radio crackled with a Johnny Cash riff, drowned out by the metallic clang of tools and the low growl of Opie revving an engine. Jax’s gaze drifted to the crow perched on the “Teller-Morrow” sign. Its head twitched unnervingly; black eyes fixed on the garage entrance like a sentry. Third one this week, he thought. A more superstitious man might have found it ominous, he humphed to himself as his thoughts turned back to their earlier path.

Tara Knowles was back.

That fact had been rattling around his skull for days. ever since Piney mentioned spotting her at the hospital. Fifteen years gone, and now she walked back into Charming like she'd never left. It shouldn't have mattered—not with Wendy pregnant, not with the Mayans breathing down their necks—but it did.

And that pissed him off.

He took a drag, exhaling smoke through his nose. He had enough complications without digging up the past. Tara was history. Wendy was... whatever the hell she was. And the club—the club was his present, his future, the only thing that made sense anymore.

Tig’s voice cut off his introspection, “You gonna help us with this piece-of-shit carburetor or just brood like Batman all day?”

Jax flipped him off without looking, but his retort died as a shadow cut across the oil-stained concrete. The hair on Jax’s neck prickled before he even looked up for its source. A static charge hung in the air, like the moment before a downpour. Then—

Jax’s head snapped up, the cigarette almost tumbling from his lips. For a second, he could have sworn his heart stopped before it restarted with a pace faster than merited and time stuttered—years fell away, and there was no mistaking her. There, backlit by the white-hot sun, stood Buffy Summers.

The supposed good girl who’d raced him on a borrowed dirt bike, who’d kissed him behind the auto shop with cherry cola on her breath. Now she walked in the garage hall like a blade sheathed in denim, all coiled grace and silent footfalls. Her hair caught the light differently—darker, threaded with amber—but her eyes… Christ, her eyes still held the same glint that used dare him to set the world on fire.

Those eyes surveyed her surroundings with a steady gaze, none of the trepidation they’d see on some people’s faces when they knew about the Club present in hers.

"Jesus Christ," Chibs muttered, having noticed their visitor. He was wiping grease off his hands with a rag that’d seen better days as he sidled up to Jax. "That’s Arlene’s niece, ain’t it? The one you used to—"

Buffy’s head turned their way; she had caught Chibs’ words despite the garage’s din. Jax wondered if she’d always heard this well.

"Shut it," Jax cut him off, straightening and walking to meet her.

Her eyes may have been the same as they had when they were kids, but the rest of her—the set of her shoulders, the careful way she moved—that was all new. This wasn't the girl who'd once challenged him to a race down Main Street. This was a woman who walked like someone used to carrying weight.

“Hey, Jax.” Her voice was soft like he remembered, but edged with a rasp that hadn’t been there at fourteen.

He stubbed out his cigarette, suddenly hyper-aware of the .45 digging into his lower back. "Buffy." His throat tightened around her name. "Heard about your aunt. Sorry."

A flicker of pain crossed her face, gone before it could settle. "Thanks. The house is… well, exactly how you’d remember it. If you ever snuck in after curfew," she added, her voice teasing in a bid for levity.

The memory hit him like a sucker punch: Buffy at fourteen, laughing as she jimmied open Arlene’s basement window, moonlight catching the cheap charm dangling on a leather cord that he had given her for her birthday. Now her collarbone was bare.

Tig barked a laugh, inviting himself into the conversation, probably because of the possibility of drama, leaning against the workbench. "Bet that’s not all you two—"

"Tig." Jax’s warning came out sharper than intended. The garage felt suddenly claustrophobic; the air thick with old ghosts.

Buffy’s gaze swept over him—the kutte, the ink on his arm and peeking past his collar, the fresh split in his knuckles from last night’s brawl with the Mayans—her mouth quirked. "You look exactly how I pictured you would. Except maybe for the long bob, didn’t see that one coming," she grinned.

The joke aside, the words shouldn’t have stung as they did.

He opened his mouth, but Opie’s voice boomed across the bay, saving him from saying something biting in turn, out of long-set instinct of paying hurt with hurt:

"Jax! Clay’s on the warpath—says get your ass to the office now."

Buffy’s eyes flicked to Opie, then to the crow now perched on the nearby roof corner. Her jaw tightened, like she’d tasted something foul and it was like invisible walls had gone up.

Relief and frustration warred in his chest as Buffy took a step back. "Duty calls," she said, that half-smile never reaching her eyes. "Really, I just wanted to let you know that I was back in town, before you found out through gossip. I’ll be staying at the house if…"

Ask her to stay. Ask her why she’s really here. But the club’s gravity pulled at him—Clay’s temper, Wendy’s ultrasound appointment, the Mayans’ meth shipment burning a hole in his plans.

“If?” he pressed anyway, voice rough.

"If the club doesn’t keep you too busy and you feel like catching up, I guess," she shrugged. When he didn’t answer right away, she turned to leave, sunlight glinting off the silver band on her left hand—a twisted sign on it. Celtic, maybe. Not a wedding ring.

"Hey." The word escaped before he could cage it. "You need help with the place? Demolition’s free if I get to swing the sledgehammer," he tried to lighten the mood.

She paused; shoulders tense beneath her leather jacket that reminded him of the times she had borrowed his. When she glanced back, he caught the faintest tremor in her fingers—the same tell she’d had when lying to her parents about where she’d been all night. Now, though, it felt different. Like she was holding back more than secrets.

"Careful, Jax." Her tone was light, but her eyes were grave. "Old houses bite." He felt like she was including more than the house in her statement.

As she disappeared back into the glare, Opie materialized by his side. His arms were crossed and he was nursing a coffee along with a furrowed brow. “Gemma’s gonna love this,” Jax grunted in agreement; no doubt about that. Gemma’s voice slithered through his memory: ‘That Summers girl’s like a stray cat—feed it once, it thinks it owns you,’ is what she’d said back in the day.

The restless itch under Jax’s skin was mutating into something sharper—a live wire sparking between past and present.

Across town, beneath the overgrown blackberry brambles in Arlene Summers’ backyard, the earth shifted. A large western diamondback rattlesnake fled the rodent burrow it had been feasting in. Its signature pattern rippling as it crossed an ancient sigil carved into the bedrock. Somewhere deep below, stone ground against stone.

Something was waking up.

Chapter Text

Buffy was still cursing herself after visiting the lawyer’s office for the paperwork. What had been supposed to be a courtesy visit to let Jax know she was in town had gone off rails the minute she’d seen him and the visit had ended up with an invitation to catch up slipping out before her brain could catch up.

The late lunch at a diner where the sticky vinyl booth and jukebox songs dredged up more memories she’d rather suppress—Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust” now felt pointedly ironic. Feeling like she needed a distraction, she headed back to the house. Some physical labor, going through what had accumulated to the attic, or whatever, might just be enough to take her mind off the morning.

The distant sound of voices laughing and yelling accompanied her trek through the familiar streets.

When she arrived, the porch swing was creaking in the late afternoon breeze like a metronome keeping time, its rhythmic sway matching her pulse. When she opened the door, she could’ve sworn she caught a whiff of Arlene’s bergamot and citrus perfume lingering in the air—gone almost as soon as she recognized it.

She marveled again how the house stood as a time capsule of her childhood, same but now the floral wallpaper yellowed with age; hardwood floors scarred by decades of wear.

She’d spent the past three days sorting papers, being in touch with the Cleveland HQ—avoiding her past, really, if she was being honest with herself. She’d even been staying in to avoid word of her presence spreading and inviting unwanted visitors, but at the same time she’d also been postponing the inevitable dive into Aunt Arlene’s belongings.

Now, after facing one of her biggest ghosts that morning at Teller-Morrow, it was time to abandon the ostrich act. Ignoring the past wouldn’t help and it wouldn’t resurrect Aunt Arlene.

A faint imprint on the wall caught her eye as she was looking around, wondering where to start—a dent from when Dawn, age nine, had hurled a hairbrush during one of their legendary fights, missing Buffy’s head by inches. She ran her thumb over the dent, the memory sharp as the splinter she got for her trouble.

Of course, that was not something that had happened, just another fabricated memory from the monks’ Key spell. She marveled at the spell’s strength; it’d had some serious juice—still warping her memories even now. Idly she pondered if there was a real childhood argument that had left the dent, finishing digging out the splinter from her finger.

The house groaned in a way that seemed to follow her as she moved through the living room, fingers trailing the dusty couch. Sunlight sliced through grimy windows, dust motes swirling in her wake like restless spirits. A beam of light struck the crystal vase on the mantel, fracturing into rainbows that skittered across the floorboards. Everything was achingly familiar yet foreign—Arlene’s decor unchanged, but the life drained from it.

She turned to the photos lining the staircase. Dawn would want copies of them. The first frame held a Polaroid of Arlene as a twenty-something, arm-in-arm with a tall and broad-shouldered man in a leather kutte—not one with the patch the Sons had; adorning a caricature of a grinning devil instead of the empty-socketed skeleton. Another showed a yet younger version of Arlene, standing laughing with a young man that she was almost certain was her father – his smile all sharp edges, the same one Buffy saw in the mirror whenever she lied to Dawn about being fine.

She smiled at a snapshot of herself and Dawn trick-or-treating: gap-toothed Dawn in lopsided fairy wings, Buffy in a makeshift vampire costume. Another photo caught her mid-eye-roll, standing under Jax’s arm, hugging a giant tiger plushie he had won her at the fair.

Her smile faded as she studied a photo of Arlene and Gemma Teller-Morrow. Both women mid-laugh, but their grips looked tight on their highball glasses, tension crackling through the faded Kodak paper.

Any further scrutiny of the oddity was interrupted by a scratching sound cutting through the silence—rhythmic, deliberate and sounding like it was moving.

Buffy froze and her Slayer senses kicked into high gear. The air tasted metallic, like licking a battery, and the hair on her arms lifted as if charged.

Three scrapes. A pause. Two more. Code or coincidence?

"Okay," she muttered to herself. "First order of business: check for demonic squatters."

Her phone buzzed. Dawn: ”You okay? House still standing?"

Buffy smiled despite herself. A part of her pushed her to talk about the weird feeling the house gave her, the noises it made, all of it. But Dawn was safe, working on her thesis and cataloguing old Watcher diaries was the closest she’d get to danger, so her answer came easy as breathing: "Standing? Yes. Haunted? Jury's still out. Will keep you posted."

The scratching stopped. She descended the stairs, phone forgotten. At the landing, she heard it again—not scratching now, but a slither, like ropes uncoiling.

Her hand went automatically to a non-existent stake in her waistband before she caught herself. Normal people don’t carry weapons, she reminded herself. Normal people call pest control. Right. Normal civilian Buffy doesn't carry weapons.

You’re really struggling with the whole concept of normal civilian, Buffy, she noted with wry humor.

She inspected the door and strained her ears to no avail, just a normal door and there were no more sounds reaching her even with her advanced Slayer senses. With a deep breath, she reached for the basement door knob —brass gone green with age in the seams, colder than it should be in the stifling heat—

CRASH

The sound of shattering glass and something rough skidding on the linoleum in the kitchen stopped her from investigating and had her moving before she could think. She took the turn too tight, and her hip clipping the banister on the way hard enough to bruise a normal person. Old habits—with no one watching she’d forgotten to dull her reflexes. Buffy skidded to a stop in the doorway. Colorful shards glittered where they’d spread across the linoleum, and for one heart-stopping moment, she thought she saw glyphs etched in the broken glass.

The beautiful stained-glass window on the backdoor now had only parts of the glass left in the frames. The jagged edges letting the late afternoon breeze invade the house. A rock on the floor. And outside—

A group of teenagers, already running away laughing. Damn teenagers, she cursed, her heartbeat slowly returning to normal. For a fraction of a second her instincts pushed her to chase down the running targets—moments like that left no shadow of a doubt that the Slayers were apex predators.

Buffy glared at the broken window and at the mess on the floor. Where did she see that dustpan set? 

To her ever-lengthening list went: Replace the window.

Outside, the sun was beginning to set, casting long shadows across the overgrown backyard; something else she should probably add to her list. That list was starting to seem never-ending and dashing her hopes of a fast in-and-out trip to town.

She had hoped to a quick visit—to stay only just long enough to take care of the estate and possibly to satisfy her curiosity about the road not taken, before returning to Cleveland and to figuring out how her life as the first Slayer to outlive her calling would look like.

Buffy suddenly felt very aware of how many windows the old house had, each one a potential eye watching her. She’d need to cover the broken window with something, no need to invite any unwelcome guest in. Maybe she should reach out to Jax after all?

The floorboard beneath Buffy’s boot groaned like a warning. She froze, senses scanning for threats. Old houses settle, she reminded herself, but the air tasted metallic again—a tang she’d learned to associate with magic.

Her eyes flickered to the kitchen window and against the darkening view of the backyard and, between blinks, she suddenly saw Arlene’s features superimposed over her own reflection—the same stubborn chin, the same I’ve survived worse crease between the brows.

Her phone felt heavy. Since when does a Slayer need backup for a house? she chided herself. The girl in her, with the unshakable, well-founded trust in the fact that Jackson Teller would always come when she called, took over and she typed:

“Hey Jax, are you free? Could use your sledgehammer skills—" no, way too flirty. She erased the text.

After some consideration, she revised: Hey Jax. About your offer, does it still stand? Nice, polite; fitting message to a guy you’d dated in the past and had just seen for the first time in forever, and who’d jokingly offered his help.

Buffy’s thumb hovered over the textbox with its blinking cursor, her Slayer hearing amplifying every sound around—the drip-drip of the kitchen faucet syncing with her pulse. The skitter of something behind the walls that might’ve been mice—hopefully was at this point, she thought. She glared at the basement door, half-expecting it to creak open theatrically. Instead, the overhead bulb dimmed partially.

He’s married. He’s SAMCRO. He’ll ask questions.

But the house exhaled around her—a shudder through the floorboards, a draft that smelled inexplicably of Arlene’s Shalimar—and Buffy hit send before she could overthink it.

Silence. The kitchen light went back to its previous brightness.

She pocketed the phone and pressed her palm flat against the hallway wall. The plaster felt fever-warm. “You’re not subtle,” she muttered. A floorboard two feet away squeaked in response, almost… chiding.

The fridge’s hum shifted pitch to something lower, quieter, behind her. Buffy frowned. With something like this house, she’d have expected her Slayer instincts to scream danger, but this felt different—a low, persistent thrum like a guard dog’s growl, not a snarl and not directed at her. She trailed her fingers along the wainscoting. She thought she felt a barely perceptible tremble, almost like the house was jittery too.

Clang.

The basement door rattled in its frame—not the loose, wind-knocked shake of an old building, but a sharp, deliberate knock-knock-knock from below. In a rush, Buffy retreated back to kitchen, to the knife block conveniently on the counter. The door stilled.

“You’re real chatty tonight, huh?” She kept her tone light, but her hand was ready to reach for the knife block. The house’s response was a series of creaks cascading from the attic downward—not threatening, almost… amused. She couldn’t help but wonder if it was to what she’d said or the way she was so clearly unsettled.

Her phone buzzed.                                      

Jax: Demolition’s still free. You got walls that need punchin’?

A surprised laugh escaped her. The overhead light flickered with her laughter. Buffy typed back, Think I’d rather take a sledgehammer to your sense of humor, on reflex, but then erased it for the same reasons as her first draft to contact him; it was too familiar. Too them.

Another attempt: Funny. Leave my walls alone. Could use help covering a broken window, tho.

She wasn’t left waiting long for his next answer, the phone buzzing almost immediately.

She could almost hear the teasing tenor of his voice as she read it: I’m at your service, princess. A teasing callback to years past, when she’d developed a knee-jerk reaction to being called princess, because while she was dating Jax it had been said in mocking so many times.

The basement door shuddered again. Buffy went to face it, crouched eye-level with the knob. “Whatever’s down there stays down there. Clear?”

The house answered with a groan that traveled through the pipes—a sound that could’ve been agreement or ancient plumbing. A rumbling engine cut through the air somewhere in the distance. Buffy straightened, her lips curled into a ghost of a smile—not the feral Slayer grin, but something quieter. Hopeful.

The basement fell silent. For now.

Chapter Text

The Summers house had always breathed.

Buffy had been mulling over the house’s oddities since dawn—after waking up way too early from restless sleep. She’d thought back to her childhood, when she’d split her time between her home and Aunt Arlene’s. She remembered how the floorboards sighed underfoot and the pipes hummed at night, as if the house were singing to itself.

Back then, she’d never questioned it. Now, sixteen years later, it still lived around her, but its rhythms felt... off. Or maybe she was the one out of tune. Who’s to say?

She’d spent most of the day in the attic sorting through belongings Aunt Arlene and their ancestors had left behind. By the time daylight faded, forcing her downstairs, she’d cleared a third of it. 

Now she was occupying herself with the kitchen cabinets, tossing expired items while waiting for Jax to arrive with something more durable than cardboard to cover the backdoor’s window with like he’d promised yesterday.

Headlights sliced through the lace curtains as she scrubbed a stubborn rust spot from Arlene’s sink, Slayer strength twitching in her palms like a caffeine tremor, brought on by her frustration. Normal people use vinegar, she reminded herself. She could pull off normal. Out of sheer spite, if nothing else. She knew about the damn betting pool.

The abrupt silence after the car engine cut off yanked her from her tunnel vision, Jax had finally arrived. She tossed the sponge into the sink with a wet thwap, glaring at it and the stain with more venom than any normal, sane person should direct at inanimate objects. “Normal is a watchword,” she muttered darkly under her breath.

The firm, deliberate knock hadn’t changed. What an odd detail to cling to—the way someone knocked.

“Door’s open!” she called, rinsing suds from her hands. She dried them on a dish towel that still smelled of Arlene’s lavender as Jax entered with his familiar swagger, his expression betraying hesitation. Warm leather and gasoline wafted in with him, mingling with lavender and lemon polish—scents that screamed “Jax Teller” louder than any kutte.

He held up a six-pack and a grease-blotted paper bag. “Provisions. Got the plywood in the truck for that,” he jerked his chin at the window Buffy had patched with cardboard and liberal amounts of duct tape.

Her gaze flickered between his offerings and his face. “Let me guess—burgers from Dottie’s and whatever beer was closest to the register? You’re a regular Martha Stewart,” she quipped, old playfulness surfacing as the house’s oppressive weight began to lift.

“Ain’t changed that much.” He set the six-pack on the kitchen counter, cracking open two bottles with his keys and carelessly tossing the caps by the pack with accompanying metallic clatter. He looked around, "Place looks..."

"Like a time-capsule with slightly better lighting?" Buffy quipped.

"I was gonna say 'lived in.'" he corrected with a half-smile as he took the bag of fast food, which was already making her mouth water, to the dinner table. He then turned his searching eyes on her. “Sleep okay in your childhood princess suite?”

She arched a brow that conveyed a non-verbal ‘are you serious?’. This was only their second face-to-face and he was already falling into old habits— needling her in the hopes that she’ll snap and tell him what was bothering her.

She busied herself with grabbing coasters to save the table’s lacquer from the condensation was already dripping down the bottles.

“Never better,” she lied brightly, hip-checking the drawer shut. No easy way to explain how she’d spent half the night deciphering the house’s new language: floorboards creaking in triplicate like three-legged pacing, attic vents hissing syllables between gusts.

He let it slide, when she had expected more probing. But they were strangers now. Why would he press? (Except Jax always pressed. She’d never known him to leave a proverbial hangnail alone until it bled.)

Instead, he offered her a bottle. Their fingers brushed, his gaze catching on the fresh scratch along her forearm.

“Coons get jumpy?”

“Box spring fought back,” she corrected jokingly, the truth with a side of deflection, and rolled her sleeves down. "But enough about the house an all. How's the club life treating you?"

Jax’s eyes narrowed, sensing her evasion, but he launched into stories of SAMCRO: Clay’s temper, Opie’s quiet rage. Buffy listened, noting how he lingered on Opie’s name and omitted others.

As he spoke, she realized a dog-eared copy of How to Dismantle Jax Teller in 10 Easy Steps had somehow been filed in her brain between patrol logs and apocalypse protocols. Subconsciously, she referenced its margins scribbled with teenage annotations. It instructed her to note his drifting gaze, measured words, and the way he fingered his club ring when mentioning Clay.

For all his charisma, she’d learned long ago that mapping his silences revealed more than his words. She slammed the door on the thought that if that many fragments of the boy she’d known remained—no.

Her nail picked at the bottle’s loosened label. She laughed where expected but tracked how his smile rarely reached his eyes. The manual might as well have a footnote: See also: How to dismantle yourself.

The house listened too. The refrigerator hummed a funeral dirge when Jax mentioned his father’s death. The faucet dripped—once, sharp as a gunshot—at Tara’s name. Buffy’s Slayer senses prickled. Was she projecting her feelings, or was this like Cleveland HQ’s creaking liar-detecting floorboards?

Jax questioning her if she knew Tara Knowles snapped her attention back to the conversation. They had all gone to the same school, so she confirmed easily that yes, she remembered Tara. He casually mentioned she was back in the town, too.

Was he testing if she knew about him and Tara? Arlene had mentioned it years ago, her tone all faux-casual over the phone.

She remarked aloud what an interesting coincidence it was, both of them back in town, but left it at that. She had always been the one better equipped at letting sleeping dogs lie between her and Jax.

They’d finished eating when he circled back to the house.
“Depends,” she snorted. “You consider asbestos and questionable wiring ‘damage’ or small-town charm?”

He hummed, low and teasing. SAMCRO’s crown prince, playing domestic. “You sticking around to find out?”
“In Charming?” The idea hadn’t crossed her mind.

Jax’s chair protested audibly as he tilted it onto two legs, the pose so familiar it hurt and gave her a sudden urge to kick the chair legs to force all four back on the linoleum.

“Place could use some new blood,” he responded, tone now noncommittal and expression hiding whatever he was thinking.

“Pretty sure I don’t count.” Her answer held no bitterness, just weariness. Whatever small-town girl she’d been had died long before Arlene.

A thump rattled overhead. Her fingers spasmed around the bottle—a microsecond’s slip-up, Slayer reflexes overriding civilian pretense.

Jax stood, hand hovering near his waistband. He wasn’t carrying, she’d noticed if he was, but she recognized the movement of reaching for a weapon. "The hell was—"

“Raccoon. Big bastard. Probably juicing.” A fledgling vamp could’ve sold that better, she thought self-deprecatingly, hearing Giles’ sigh: “Subtlety was never your forte.”

It made him look at her skeptically, very much merited she’d admit, but she ignored the look.

“Since when do coons rattle you?” he drawled, sitting back down, all four legs of his chair now, thankfully, down.

"Since one tried to eat my face off. L.A. wildlife's hardcore." And Hellmouths’ even more, is what she left off.

Another creak cut the air. Buffy refused to react on principle. House or haunting, she wouldn’t play its games with Jax here.

Jax seemingly gave up on the weirdness of the house and leaned back, "You know, my mom's been asking about you."

A curve ball she didn’t see coming, "Gemma remembers me?"

"Like you stole her good silver." He looked overly pleased when that made her snort with amusement. "She wants you over for dinner."

Well, wasn’t that just something. Back in the day she had very much gotten the impression that Gemma Teller-Morrow, just Teller back then, hadn’t liked that her son picked her to date. She never said anything outright, but Buffy had read it in her eyes anyway.

Buffy had never found out if it was something about her, that Gemma had objected to, or something about her parents. Her parents and Gemma had exchanged enough stilted greetings over the years that she was aware they’d never been friends, but she didn’t know the specifics.

But there was a reason she got reputation that made the patrons in any demon bar she walked in scatter like cockroaches in daylight. She didn’t back down from fights. Gemma Teller-Morrow’s patented brand of weaponized sweet tea would be no different.

She wasn’t dating Jax anymore, so it wouldn’t be quite the same as before, but it might be cathartic to face Gemma’s passive-aggressive dinner conversation as an adult. "Tell her I'd love to."

If she had to guess, she’d say he didn’t expect her answer. His next words spoke for that: “I don’t have to tell you that Gemma doesn’t really invite outsiders to dinner—“

“She invites them to be probed at until something comes loose,” she finished off his attempt of a warning.

“I remember,” she reassured him, a quirk of a smile on her lips. She’d never been an easy target for Gemma’s ’poke it till it breaks’ method, but the irritation that still coursed in her veins whenever someone called her princess was a testament of her familiarity with it.

Another scraping noise from somewhere above them tried to catch her attention, but she ignored it resolutely. Just a normal house with normal house sounds, nothing to see here.

Jax was about to say something, when headlights passing through the room heralded someone’s arrival. The sound of a closing car door followed.

It was late and she wasn’t expecting anyone so she looked to Jax questioningly, "You expecting someone?"

Jax moved to look out of a front window and whatever he saw made him tense, which she mimicked subconsciously.

She got up to see who it was. While she could only see a feminine shape with dark hair, it was enough for an educated guess, “You should get that.”

The air thickened, ozone sharp on Buffy’s tongue. Not a storm—magic.

Her Slayer instincts flared, muscles coiling as the doorbell chimed. Not the cheerful ding-dong of Arlene’s era, but a warped, two-note groan. Like the house itself was warning her.

Chapter Text

The doorbell’s dissonant chime still hung in the air like a struck gong as Buffy watched Jax move toward the foyer. His shoulders were taut beneath his kutte, boots heavy on floorboards that groaned louder than they had all evening—as if the house itself disapproved of the interruption.

Through the front window, she saw how Tara shifted uneasily on the porch, a cardboard box clutched to her chest like a shield.

Well, this isn't awkward at all.

Buffy busied herself wiping the stray drops of condensation from the table, the beer bottles clinking softly. The house’s usual symphony of creaks had stilled, leaving an unnatural quiet that prickled her Slayer senses. She could almost feel the walls leaning in, listening.

From the foyer, Tara’s voice floated in, honeyed but frayed at the edges. “I didn’t realize you’d be here, Jax.”

A lie. His truck was conspicuous in the way it took over half of the driveway, the porch lights reflecting dully off it. She’d had to be blind to miss it.

“Just helping Buffy settle in. Kids busted a window.” Jax’s tone was smooth, a practiced neutrality that Buffy recognized from years of watching him deflect his mother’s interrogations.

She rounded the corner, past the framed photo of Arlene and Gemma locked in their decades-old cold war. Tara stood in the doorway, her gaze darting between them.

“Hey, Tara. Long time,” Buffy said, summoning a smile that felt borrowed from her teenage self.

Tara's smile was warm but guarded. She hefted the box in her arms. "Hey, I came to bring this over,” Tara said and then added hastily, seeing Buffy’s confusion, “Arlene asked me to keep this safe for you or Dawn."

Buffy took it, glancing at the contents: polaroids of Buffy and Jax at the county fair, a chipped “World’s Best Aunt” mug Dawn had painted with shaky letters, a stack of letters in Arlene’s looping script bound with ribbon. Buffy’s throat tightened. Guilt tastes like lavender and dust.

"You didn't have to—"

"I know. I wanted to," Tara cut off. "Arlene was good to me, to all of us really, so one box is really nothing."

An uncomfortable silence settled over the trio. The house creaked loudly, as if reminding them of its presence. Tara jumped slightly at the sound.

Jax cleared his throat. "I should head out—it’s late."

Buffy didn't miss the way Tara's shoulders relaxed a fraction, when he said it.

“I should be going too, before they miss me at the hospital—night shift calls,” Tara said. “It was great seeing you, Buffy.”

“You too,” Buffy replied, ingrained manners taking the driver’s seat.

The lie in common courtesy’s clothes hung in the air as Tara retreated to her car.

“Walk me out?” Jax’s voice dropped, the familiar rasp doing traitorous things to her pulse. “Got the plywood for the window.”

Buffy followed; the box left on the foyer cabinet. 

On the porch, the dusk was thick with the scent of the neighbor's flowering oleander mixing with Aunt Arlene’s herb garden. Jax lit a cigarette, the match flaring to highlight the lines on his face. The boy she’d compared him to all evening had had none of those.

"Basement door was closed when I came in," he said abruptly.

"Old houses settle, must not have been closed properly." Buffy leaned against the porch rail, watching Tara's taillights disappear.

"Yeah." Smoke curled from his lips like a ghost of all the things they weren't saying. He retrieved plywood from his truck bed, the house's shadow stretching long across the lawn. “Need help nailing this up?”

She smirked. “I think I can handle a hammer.”

His eyes crinkled with an answering smile, “Good… I’ll let you know about the dinner. Knowing mom, it’ll be soon. You ready for it?”

"For Gemma’s interrogation-by-casserole? Looking forward to it," she deadpanned.                   

The corner of his mouth twitched, a shared joke. "No, you're not."

As his truck rumbled away, the porch light flickered—once in warning, twice in what felt like approval.

Inside, the box waited. The top letter's postmark froze her—July 2001, Arlene's shaky script spelling For Buffy, when she's ready.

The basement door creaked open an inch.

Darkness pooled thick below, smelling of wet earth and a familiar tang.

“Not tonight,” she told the void.

Somewhere deep in the house’s bones, stone ground against stone.

The box sat on Buffy’s bed like an accusation.

After Jax left, the house had fallen into a watchful silence. Even the usual symphony of creaks had muted, as if holding its breath.

Buffy took a seat by the headboard, pulling the box in front of her crossed legs. She traced the edges of the cardboard with her fingers, tapping at a corner with consideration. Arlene asked me to keep this safe for you or Dawn, Tara had said. Guilt gnawed at her—unanswered letters, missed calls, another family bond sacrificed to the Slayer’s mantle.

She brushed hair off her face, looking for an easy point to start, and grabbed the stack of polaroids first.

Like she had spied earlier, the first were of her and Jax visiting the county fair, same one where Jax had won her the ridiculously large stuffed tiger. His hair was lighter in them, bleached by countless hours under the California sun, her smile wide and unguarded. All showed them gravitating towards each other in some manner—two vines twisting together.

Family pictures followed those–she wondered if it had been intentional by Aunt Arlene. The photos of her and Jax visible on the box she’d asked Tara to keep.

Dawn—as a toddler, hanging on to Buffy’s hand, Buffy with a Santa hat and Dawn with reindeer antlers. A young version of their mom looking down on what must have been Buffy as a baby, adoring expression on her face. Arlene with a selection of people she didn’t recognize.

Among the last ones was one where Arlene must’ve been somewhere in her forties. It was of her and two other women–one around the same age as Arlene and the other considerably older, with snow-white hair. The Summers house was their backdrop as they smiled. Their long and flowing dresses gave away the windiness of the day.

What caught Buffy’s eye was the glint in the attic window in the background. Something about it was off. Buffy frowned, holding it closer. The distortion wasn’t a lens flare. It looked suspiciously like a symbol she’d seen in Giles’ old grimoires.

The house creaked sharply, a floorboard groaning near the bedroom door.

Buffy’s phone buzzed with an incoming call—Dawn. She answered on autopilot, eyes locked on the photo.

“Hey, Dawnie,” she greeted absently.

“Why do you sound like you just found a Hellmouth under the couch?”

“Because I might’ve?” Buffy squinted at the photo, tilting it under the lamplight in a vain attempt to make out the symbol clearer.

Dawn’s voice sharpened. “Buffy? Please tell me you’re joking?”

“Kind of. Tara brought over- that’s not important—here’s some old photos. One of them had this photo with Aunt Arlene and… others. Two women I don’t recognize.”

She flipped the photo over, hoping for more information—and was partially rewarded. Familiar loopy script had written ‘Margaret’s 45^th, Harvest Moon, ’85’. The name didn’t say anything to her, so the only slightly helpful information was the year included.

“And? C’mon, talk to me,” Dawn hurried her along.

“This house is behind them in the photo—there’s something that might be a magic symbol on one of the windows? It looks like something from the research for the wizard cult thing last year. I think I remember it from the red book?”

“The Goltrash Codex? It should be in the HQ’s library; I can go there tomorrow and dig it out. From what I remember, it’s mostly anchoring and binding magic. Send me a picture of it so I can compare. Anything else freaky?”

“Nope. I mean besides the general weirdness of the house.”

“Okay. Good. I think?” Dawn asked, more to herself than Buffy, so Buffy didn’t say anything. “I’ll head down to the library tomorrow and let you know if it matches anything.”

“Okay, thanks, Dawn.”

“You betcha. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, don’t let the creepy old house eat you before then!”

“I’ll do my best,” Buffy promised wryly before they ended the call.

Chapter Text

Buffy had gone back to sorting through the attic for lack of better to do, while she waited for Dawn to get her some answers. Maybe she’d get lucky and find something useful.

The attic light flickered like a dying firefly as Buffy shoved aside a box labeled “Xmas Ornaments (Do Not Open – Cursed?)”. The description felt less like a joke and more like a real warning now— or maybe the family motto. Yeah, she was starting to get the picture that she and Dawn were not the first supernatural-adjacent Summers in the family.

Dust motes swirled in the midday sun streaming through the eaves as her phone erupted with Dawn’s ringtone—a shrill remix of the Spice Girls’ “Wannabe” she’d programmed purely to annoy Buffy.

“This better mean you found some answers. If this is another lecture about asbestos, I’m hanging up,” Buffy said, balancing the phone against a taxidermized raccoon wearing a tiny pilgrim hat. True family heirloom right there.

Dawn’s face filled the screen, backdropped by the clutter of her dorm room. Her voice crackled through the phone’s speaker, tinny and triumphant as she brandished a neon-highlighted notebook riddled with tiny tabs in all the colors of the rainbow like a weapon.

“First, always lecture about asbestos. Second—” She flipped to a page scribbled with symbols. “Okay… so, the glyph you sent, you were right, I cross-referenced it to the Goltrash Codex. It’s a part of a binding matrix,” Dawn went through her findings. “It’s anchoring magic. Like, super old-school binding stuff. But, here’s the kicker—it’s so powerful because tied to bloodlines...”

Buffy paused, a moth-eaten sweater dangling from her grip. “So, the house isn’t just haunted. It’s… keyed to us?”

“I think so? I read what the Goltrash Codex has on it and checked a couple of other books. The matrix it’s part of? It’s one of the strongest bindings we know of. Like, supernatural supermax level of magic? Whatever that’s binding, our ancestors really didn’t want it getting out.”

“So, we’re definitely talking ancient evil, not just faulty wiring?” Buffy nudged another box of moth-eaten fabrics with her boot.

“Duh. But the question is, if the house is evil and the Summers are its wardens—” Dawn thought aloud.

“Or if the house is the prison and we’re its guardians,” Buffy finished off, sighing.

“Based on what I read, I’d say it’s the latter,” Dawn said. “One of the books seemed to think the binding needs a blood connection to activate—and the blood needs to be freely given.”

“The house doesn’t feel evil to my senses,” Buffy concurred. “Enough to register as supernatural, but not malevolent as such.

“If it is a supernatural prison for something, without the manual, there’s no way to tell what it is guarding—or why it’s tied to our DNA.”

The floorboard near Buffy creaked in an intentional staccato rhythm: .. .-.. .-.. --- (HELLO). Then it paused before repeating the same sequence. And again.

Buffy frowned, it was too intentional to not mean something. “Hold on.” Pulling up a Morse code translator on her phone, she typed the sequence as it repeated. “The house is tapping ‘hello’ at me in Morse code. Cute, but serial-killer adjacent. That’s one question answered—it’s definitely sentient.”

Dawn snorted. “Classic haunting 101. Next, it’ll start reciting Emily Dickinson. Did you check the basement yet?”

“It keeps hinting.” Buffy kicked open another trunk, recoiling at the smell of cedar and decay. “Also, I found a journal from 1892 in the box Tara brought over. Great-Grandma Eleanor rants about ‘sealing the breach’ and ‘blood of the line.’ Lots of drama, zero specifics.”

“Typical Summers women,” Dawn said. “All crypticism, no instructions. But hey, at least the house hasn’t tried to eat you.”

“There’s that.” Buffy side-eyed the attic’s shadowed corners. “But why the Morse code?”

Dawn snorted. “Maybe it’s just lonely. Or y’know, hungry. Either way, don’t sign any metaphysical leases until we know what’s—”

“Agreed.” Buffy flipped the lid back down and pushed it to the side for fabric things she’d have to sort later. “But whatever’s down there is getting… antsy. The floorboards won’t shut up, and last night, the faucet ran black for five seconds.”

Dawn groaned. “Why can’t we inherit a nice timeshare instead?”

“Because we’re tragically destined,” Buffy stated wryly, then hesitated. “What’s the Codex say about breaking these bonds?”

“Nothing good. Severing a blood-anchored spell could destabilize whatever’s being contained. It’s like pulling Jenga blocks blindfolded.” Dawn’s tone sharpened.

Buffy hummed in acknowledgment—she’d already guessed it wouldn’t be good.

There was a moment of silence as they considered their situation before Dawn broke it, “Speaking of unstable choices—how’s Jax? You texted me six times about plywood and door options yesterday. That’s Buffy for ‘I’m emotionally constipated and hyperfixating on home repair’.” Dawn leaned closer, her smirk sharpening. “Tell me the truth—has he learned to brood? ‘Cause I feel like that’s been a prerequisite ever since Angel.”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “We’re not doing this.” No matter how much Jax was a temptation—a what if itch she wanted to scratch—they had more important things to focus on.

“Uh, we are. Last call was supposed to be about figuring out why you’re blushing over plywood deliveries,” Dawn’s grin was gleeful. “C’mon. Morally gray biker ex vs. ancient death house—which horror trope wins?”

“The one where I hang up on you.”

“You’re avoiding because you’re into it. Admit it. The leather, the smolder, the whole ‘I’ve got unresolved trauma’—”

“Dawn.”

“Fine, fine. But when this turns into a Nicholas Sparks novel, I’m charging royalties.” Dawn sighed and sounded uncharacteristically somber, “Just… be careful. With the house and the history.”

A metallic clang from the downstairs cut her off, Buffy’s Slayer reflexes snapped her gaze to the attic door. “Look, I’ve got to go. I’ll talk to you later.”

“But—"

Buffy hung up.

The house’s “HELLO” escalated to “HELP” by late afternoon and Buffy now knew both rhythms by heart.

Tap-tap-tap-tap from the walls as Buffy sorted Arlene’s silverware. Tap-tap—pause—tap-tap-tap from the pipes while she scrubbed decades of grime off a portrait of Great-Aunt Mildred scowling in a bonnet. Google confirmed each rhythm, the house’s pleas sharpening with every translation.

HELLO. HELP. HELLO. HELP.

“You’re worse than Dawn,” Buffy muttered, glaring at the basement door. It stood slightly ajar, darkness seeping from the gap, thick as oil.

Her phone buzzed on the kitchen counter.

Unknown Number: Dinner on Friday. 7 PM sharp. Looking forward to it, don’t be late. -Gemma

Buffy stared at the text. Gemma’s passive-aggressive punctuation hadn’t changed—periods like gunshots.

She typed a reply (Wouldn’t miss it), then immediately texted Dawn: Gemma’s hosting dinner. Taking bets on how fast she asks if I’m here to steal Jax.

Dawn’s response was instant: $20 says she calls you “princess” before the salad. Also, re: murder-house—look for more family journals. There’s gotta be something written down. And STOP IGNORING MY JAX QUESTIONS.

Buffy promptly ignored her, dragging the box of old diaries and papers—where she’d found Eleanor’s journal—into the living room for better lighting and less dust. The first one aside from that that one was relatively new and the entries were mundane—recipes, weather reports, a rant about a neighbor’s “vulgar” garden gnome.

The next one was more relevant to her search as their 19th-century ancestors wrote in veiled terms: The foundation grows restless… must strengthen the bonds… Okay, but how, Buffy groaned aloud at the snippets of information that didn’t tell anything outright.

One of the entries froze her: It’s been too long—the House hungers for a daughter’s vow.

A cold draft snaked through the room. The floorboards tapped rapidly—. .-.. .--. .... . .-.. ..

Buffy pulled up Google.

HELP ME.

“Yeah? Well, help me help you,” she snapped. “Start talking.”

The house fell silent. Then, slowly, the grandfather clock’s pendulum began swinging on its own—tick-tock syncing with a new pattern. Buffy recorded it, fingers flying over her phone.

Translation loading signal spun.

BLOOD.

The clock’s ticking grew louder along with the galloping of Buffy’s pulse. She half-expected the clock to start dripping red dramatically.

“Nope.” Buffy shoved the journals aside. “Not today, Satan.”

By dusk, Buffy had Googled every permutation of “Morse code hauntings” and “Summers family curse.” Useless. The journals’ clues were as maddeningly vague as they were ominous—“The house breathes with the blood of its keepers”—but she refused to test the theory. Instead, she combed through Arlene’s study, finding a 1920s photo of their great-aunt Margaret standing beside the same attic window, its glyph glowing faintly under moonlight.

Coincidence? Unlikely.

The floorboards tapped again—.... . .-.. .-.. --- (HELLO)—as she passed the basement door. “Yeah, hi,” Buffy muttered. “You’ll get my attention when you start speaking in full sentences.”

The house went quiet, almost sulking.

In the kitchen, she spread the photos and journal on the table and slid through the photos of research tomes Dawn had sent. The glyph’s purpose was clear: it reinforced a seal. But without knowing what was sealed, bonding with the house felt reckless. Buffy’s thumb brushed the Celtic ring on her finger—a habit when strategizing. Slayer, not a sacrifice, she reminded herself.

By midnight, the walls hummed with frustration. Buffy lay awake, Gemma’s text burning in her mind alongside the journals’ warnings. A different kind of a battlefield and possibly a mistake.

Dawn had sent six increasingly unhinged theories about the house (Alien womb? Ghost Airbnb?), but the truth was clearer now—this wasn’t a home. It was a cage, and her family were the jailers.

Somewhere below, stone ground together in a grating manner that echoed through the structures.

Buffy stared at the bedroom wall. “I’m not binding anything until you cough up answers.”

The house’s only reply was the distant sound of something scratching at the dark.

Chapter Text

The scent of a traditional roast and simmering resentment wafted through the open window, when Buffy stepped out of her car on the Teller-Morrow driveway. There was ever-so-slight chance the latter was her imagination.

Buffy climbed the stairs to the porch, clutching a store-bought pecan pie she’d grabbed at the last minute. The pie felt absurd—a peace offering to a woman who’d once told Jax that Buffy had “a mouth too quick for her own good.” She’d considered bringing wine, but Gemma Teller-Morrow didn’t strike her as a pinot grigio type.

The door swung open before she could knock.

“Right on time.” Gemma’s smile was all teeth, her leopard-print blouse a deliberate contrast to Buffy’s aggressively civilian (Dawn’s words) black slacks and cream blouse. “Come on in, princess.”

She owed Dawn twenty bucks.

The living room was a shrine to SAMCRO—framed patches on the walls, an array of photographs, old and new. Buffy’s eyes snagged on a photo of Jax at twelve or thirteen, scowling in a too-big kutte. His father’s, she guessed.

“Jax!” Gemma called out, not taking her eyes off Buffy. “Your friend’s here.” Yep, there was the passive-aggressive she’d known to expect.

Footsteps thudded down the stairs. Jax appeared, henley sleeves rolled to his elbows, ink on his forearms revealed. “Hey,” his gaze flicked to the pie. “You bake that?”

“Do I look like I bake?” Buffy questioned wryly.

“You look like you stab things first, ask questions never,” his eyes were laughing at her.

“Same skill set,” she deadpanned.

Gemma’s laugh was a low hum, like a wasp trapped in glass. “Dinner’s ready,” she told them, snagging the pie to take it with her. Buffy pushed down the ridiculous instinct to hold on and let her.

The table was set for four. Clay sat at the head. He nodded at Buffy, assessing, “Heard you’re fixing up Arlene’s place.”

“Something like that.” Buffy took the seat across from Jax, in an angle, acutely aware of Gemma positioning them as far from each other as she could in the intimate setting.

The food was heavy—pot roast glistening with grease, mashed potatoes and vegetables. Gemma served Buffy first, portion oversized. “Eat up. You’re skin and bones.”

Skin and bones that could bench-press Clay’s Harley, Buffy thought but smiled. “Smells amazing.”

Gemma’s eyes narrowed. “Jax says you’re staying at the house. Must be… quiet out there alone.”

“Not really. It’s an old house, lots of different noises. Some peace and quiet might be a nice change,” Buffy purposefully misunderstood her.

Jax snorted into his beer. Clay grunted, carving into his meat. “Place always gave me the creeps. Arlene had too many damn clocks.”

“Clocks?” Buffy prodded, the only ones she knew of were the grandfather clock in the living room and the one in the kitchen. Hardly excessive.

“Ticking. Always ticking.” Clay’s knife screeded against the plate. “Like the walls were counting down to something.”

The air thickened. Jax stiffened, his boot brushing Buffy’s under the table—an accident? A warning?

Gemma swooped in. “How’s little Dawn? Still playing historian?”

“Getting another PhD and translating cursed scrolls, last I checked.”

“Cursed?” Gemma’s eyebrow arched.

“Metaphorically. Old scrolls, you know,” Buffy shoveled potatoes into her mouth. “Academic jargon.”

“Right.” Gemma leaned back, wineglass dangling. “And you? What’s a girl like you do these days? Jax says you’re… between jobs.”

Buffy met her gaze. “Hardly. I work at a private institute–some teaching, but mostly administrative stuff. I’m taking time off to deal with the house.”

Clay grunted. “Kids these days. Soft.” Whether he meant private institute kids or Buffy was irrelevant, it was still a remark meant to get under Buffy’s skin.

“Not the ones I deal with.” Buffy accepted the wine Gemma poured—too sweet, like syrup. “Too smart for their own good, bored, and fluent in blackmail. You’d respect the hustle.” Obvious targets still counted for counterstrikes.

Gemma’s eyes narrowed. “And you’re here to… what? Reconnect with Arlene’s ghost?”

“Sort through the house, fix what needs fixing...” Buffy shrugged slightly. Her knife sawed through pot roast tougher than a Turok-Han’s hide, she remembered Gemma being a better cook. If she looked to make Buffy choke, she’d have to try harder.

Under the table, Jax’s boot tapped hers—once, twice. A question in the code their teenage selves had perfected for dinners eerily similar to this one: You okay?

She tapped back agreement and thought to herself ‘define okay?’.

His mouth twitched.

Gemma noticed. “Jackson says the place is falling apart. Rats in the walls?”

“Just the plumbing singing show tunes.” Buffy sipped her wine. “Les Misérables, I think.”

Clay barked a laugh. Jax hid his smirk in his beer bottle.

“Charming’s not kind to outsiders,” Gemma said, leaning in. “Or people who think they can slip back in like nothing’s changed.”

Buffy met her gaze steadily. “Good thing I’m just passing through.”

“Sure.” Gemma’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Like your daddy passed through Arlene’s life? Not very faithful to the family, that one.”

The air froze. Jax’s boot pressed harder against Buffy’s—a warning, an anchor.

“Gem.” Clay’s voice was low.

“What?” Gemma spread her hands, wine glass in one. “Hank Summers had a reputation. Business trips that lasted months, ‘friends’ in every port. Joyce was too soft to—”

Buffy’s fork clattered, Hank was fair game, but her mother’s name was a grave Gemma hadn’t earned the right to desecrate. “My mother’s gone.” The words like Cleveland winter, heavy and harsh.

Silence.

Jax stood abruptly. “Dessert.”

He fetched the pie and carved a slice with unnecessary force—Buffy noted the way Gemma tracked her gaze to her son.

Gemma let the topic of her parents go, but volleyed—Cleveland weather, institute-adjacent nonprofits, Dawn’s ‘cursed’ PhD—each question a scalpel. Buffy parried: Humid in summer. Tax forms. Dead languages.’ Clay grunted about Mayans; Jax pushed peas around his plate like he thought they were hiding the way to escape this dinner.

Then—

“Your mom ever come back to Charming?” Gemma circled back casually, refilling Buffy’s wine glass.

The room stilled. Jax’s chin leaning to hers felt like an apology and assurance in one, she didn’t move her leg away and neither did he.

“No.” Buffy’s knife bit into the roast methodically. “She preferred Sunnydale.”

“Shame. Hank always said she had a flair for…” Gemma paused, relishing, “…drama. Fit right into his family.”

Hank. Her father was an old betrayal lingering. Buffy’s Slayer calm wavered, but she reigned it in. She was better than that. “Drama’s underrated. Keeps things interesting,” she dismissed. Never mind that Buffy could really use some calm and normal.

“Does it?” Gemma’s gaze flicked to Jax. “I’d think you’d had enough excitement for one lifetime.” Said as if it had been Buffy’s choice to break up with Jax, implying she had judged his background and found it wanting. She saw what Gemma was doing, subtle she was not.

Jax stood abruptly, “Forgot the coffee.” He headed back to the kitchen.

Gemma’s manicured nails tightened around her fork. Part of her felt bad for Jax. The old dynamic was even more obvious with the years that had passed. The way Jax’s role as a mediator was more the one of a tug-o-war rope between Gemma and her all the more obvious.

The pie tasted like sawdust. Buffy’s phone buzzed in her pocket—it’d be Dawn checking in. She ignored it.

“You sticking around, then?” Clay asked, gruff. “Or you just here to cash in on Arlene’s junk?”

“Clay,” Jax warned, filling their cups.

Buffy shrugged. “Haven’t decided.”

“Smart.” Gemma dabbed her mouth. “Charming’s not a place for outsiders. Or people who overstay their welcome,” she reiterated.

God, give it a rest, Gemma.

The clock above the mantel chimed. Buffy stood. “I should go. Early morning.” A safe, haunted house to get to.

Gemma rose, predator-graceful. “I’ll walk you out.”

On the porch, the night air prickled with impending rain. Gemma lit a cigarette, the flame reflecting in her shrewd eyes. Then, with no preamble, “Jackson’s got enough on his plate. A son on the way. A family. He doesn’t need distractions.”

“I’m not here to break up any families.”

“No?” Gemma exhaled smoke. “What are you here for, Buffy? Really?”

Buffy turned. “What’s the punchline, Gemma? ‘Stay away from my son’?”

“You’re sharper than you look.” Smoke curled between them. “Charming eats pretty things alive, Buffy. Always has.”

Headlights cut through the dark—a prospect’s bike roaring past. Buffy’s phone buzzed. She gave it a quick glance.

Dawn: How’d it go???

She put the phone away, the needed to get away from here more urgent than updating Dawn.

“Drive safe,” Gemma called as Buffy reached her car. “Storm’s rolling in. The roads can get slippery.”

Jax appeared in the doorway, a shadow against the light. His hand lifted—aborted wave, clenched fist.

Buffy’s tires crunched gravel.

The fluorescent lights of Charming Grocery buzzed like an off-key symphony, grating against Buffy’s already frayed nerves. She gripped her basket tighter, the memory of Gemma’s venomous dinner still fresh. “Charming’s not kind to outsiders.” Right. Fuck you, Gemma, she thought with spiteful finality as she switched one box of breakfast cereal for another.

A familiar laugh cut through the Muzak in the store—deep, rumbling, and warm. Buffy turned to see Opie Winston, his massive frame wedged between a shopping cart and a pyramid of cereal boxes, looking more out of place than the glimpse she’d caught of him at Teller-Morrow Automotive. He’d grown from the scrawny teenager she remembered. Though the beanie covering his head was like the one he’d worn back then.

Two kids—a boy around eight and a girl no older than five—darted around his cart like over-caffeinated puppies, lobbing Pop-Tarts into it with alarming accuracy.

“Hey, stranger,” she called out.

“Summers.” Opie nodded, a faint smirk tugging at his beard. “Heard you survived Gemma’s meatloaf interrogation.”

Buffy snorted. “Roast, you mean, and yes. Only ‘cause I’ve had tactical training. Since when do you do your grocery shop with a tiny army?”

Opie shrugged, snatching a bag of marshmallows mid-air before the boy could launch it. “Kenny, Ellie—say hi to Ms. Summers. She used to date your Uncle Jax when they were younger.”

The girl—Ellie—gaped. “You knew Uncle Jax when he wasn’t old?”

“He’s still not old,” Buffy said, her lips twitching at the kid’s assessment, and crouched to Ellie’s level. “Just… seasoned,” she exchanged amused looks with Opie.

Kenny squinted at her. “Dad says you dumped him ‘cause he tried to teach you how to hotwire a car.”

Opie choked on a laugh. Buffy shot him a glare. “Your dad’s a terrible historian. Jax cried when I beat him at arm wrestling.”

Ellie’s eyes widened, the very idea unfathomable. “He cries?”

“Only when he loses.” Buffy stood, brushing lint off her jeans. “Which was always.”

Opie grunted, tossing a family-sized box of Lucky Charms into the cart. “You sticking around? Or you just here to piss off Gemma and Clay?”

The question hung in the air like the smell of overripe bananas from the veggie aisle on the other side of the shelves. Buffy’s smile tightened. “Just until the house is sorted. Then it’s back to normal life.” Normal? What even is that anymore?

Kenny interrupted by shoving a box of neon-green cereal at her. “This one turns your tongue blue. Wanna see?”

“Kenny,” Opie warned, but the boy was already tearing it open.

Buffy smirked. “Your dad used to do the same thing with ketchup packets. Got us banned from the diner for a week.”

Opie rubbed the back of his neck, a rare blush creeping under his beard. “You gonna tell ‘em about the fireworks incident too?”

“Depends. You gonna tell them how Jax—”

“No,” Opie cut in, but Ellie was already bouncing with the delight of a kid hearing something damning about their parent. “Tell us! Tell us!”

Buffy opened her mouth, but Opie tossed a bag of pretzels at her head. She caught it on reflex, the move smooth as muscle memory.

“Still quick,” Opie said, something like approval in his tone.

“Still so touchy,” she shot back.

For a moment, it was sixteen years ago—Opie leaning against Jax’s bike, rolling his eyes as she and Jax argued over whose turn it was to steal Clay’s whiskey. Back when the club was just background noise, not a life sentence.

Ellie tugged her sleeve, holding up a crushed Pop-Tart box. “Can you fix this?”

Buffy took it, feigning seriousness. “I’ll need duct tape and a blowtorch.”

Ellie giggled, but Opie’s gaze sharpened. He seemed to debate with himself before saying with lowered voice, “Clay’s been pissed off.”

Buffy’s grips tightening on the pretzel bag and Pop-Tart box. “You can tell Clay to go—” she cut herself off, glancing down at the eager eyes following the conversation. “It’s Gemma I’m more worried about.”

Opie studied her, his expression unreadable. They’d had this stare-off before—back when Jax would drag her to the clubhouse and Opie would silently assess what she was made of—whether she’d bolt or break. Some things never changed.

Kenny broke the silence by shrieking, “Dad! Ellie’s licking the freezer door!”

Opie groaned, distracted from whatever assessment he’d been running in his head. He hauled his daughter away from anything lickable under his arm as she cackled at his exasperation. “Kids. They’re like feral raccoons.”

“Cuter, though,” Buffy said, tossing the mangled Pop-Tart box back into the cart.

As Opie wrestled Ellie into the checkout line, he dug into his jacket pocket. “Almost forgot. Found this in Dad’s garage.” He handed her a faded Polaroid.

Buffy’s breath caught. The photo showed a teenage Opie and Jax leaning against the Summers’ porch, Arlene between them with a pitcher of lemonade. Scrawled on the back in her aunt’s looping script: “Tell Jax the Tellers owe us more than lawn mowing. –A.”

“Keep it,” Opie said when she tried to hand it back. “Looks like you need it more than we do.”

Buffy watched them leave, Kenny debating the merits of marshmallow brands while Ellie swung from Opie’s arm. Normal. Messy. Alive.

Her phone buzzed. Dawn: How’s Stepford Wives: Biker Edition going?

Buffy snapped a photo of the Lucky Charms and sent it with the caption: Stocking up. The house is officially a no-judgment zone.

Dawn replied instantly: If you find Jax’s old mixtapes, I call dibs.

Buffy pocketed the phone, the Polaroid burning a hole in her hand. Some debts, it seemed, weren’t buried deep enough.

Chapter Text

The crowbar slipped in Jax’s grip, the stubborn backdoor hinge laughing at his efforts. It was like the door was welded in. Of course, the goddamn Summers house couldn’t have normal doors, that would have been way too easy.

Sweat was starting to pool at the base of his spine from the combined heat and the physical labor of trying to pry off the ancient door off the hinges. He should’ve waited for the cool of the evening, but he was busy tonight and didn’t want Buffy to be in a house where anyone could get to the house, plywood cover to the broken window or not.

And maybe he had also wanted to check on her, see how she was fairing after Gemma’s roast dinner where she’d become the main course. These tender feelings of his would fuck him over one day, he swore.

Behind him, Buffy leaned against the hallway wall, arms crossed, watching him wrestle with the ancient hardware like the physical manifestation of “I told you so”.

“Pretty sure I warned you not so long ago that old houses bite,” she sing-songed, voice tinged with that old smirk he’d spent half his adolescence trying to wipe off her face.

He shot her a playful glare over his shoulder. “You’re enjoying this.”

“Watching the mighty Jackson Teller get schooled by a door? I mean, it’s not like I offered to do that with you and you told me you got it. So, I got no idea what you’re talking about.” She tossed him a rag, the motion effortless.

Liar, he thought as he used it to wipe sweat from his hands, but the word lacked heat. It was possible he’d had more faith in his abilities than warranted.

The house groaned, a low shudder traveling through the floorboards. Jax paused, crowbar hovering. “That normal?”

Buffy didn’t blink and he remembered his first visit to the house since her arrival. “Old pipes.”

Bullshit. The sound had come from the structures, not the plumbing. But he let it slide, because pressing Buffy Summers had always been like poking a hornet’s nest—equal parts thrill and danger. Now he feared it would only get him the latter.

He forced the crowbar deeper to get better leverage. “Why’d you really call me, B?”

The old nickname slipped out without meaning to. His shoulders tensed as he mentally cursed that the slip of tongue and shoved down the feelings it invoked, the memories of how he’d sometimes intentionally teased her to cause the proverbial angry buzzing. “Can’t be just the door.”

She paused—not as a reaction to the nickname, but with consideration. The fridge hummed louder, drowning out the cicadas outside.

“Well, the door did just arrive…” she gave him a playful half-smile to go with the deflection. Then sobered, “But really? I wanted to see if you were alright after last night,” she confessed. “Maybe apologize for my part.”

Jax snorted. “Not your fault and we both knew that was coming. Mom’s not subtle.”

Buffy sighed, “Yeah, but still. Sorry you got put between, I shouldn’t have agreed to the dinner in the first place, like you said, we both saw that coming.”

The hinge finally gave with a metallic scream. Jax caught the heavy wood before it cracked his skull. Wouldn’t that have been just perfect, taken out by his ex’s door when the Mayans or Aryans hadn’t managed it.

He lifted the old door outside to lean against the house. He then turned, leaning against the doorframe to look her.

Her eyes were the same hazel that had haunted him at fifteen, back when sneaking into this house felt like rebellion instead of regret. Back when she’d melt into him on the porch swing, whispering about college plans, not dodging questions like it was an Olympic sport.

She noticed and quirked an eyebrow questioningly. Before he could say anything, his attention was stolen by the kitchen light flickering.

“Christ,” Jax muttered, squinting in the sudden strobe effect. “Your wiring’s a death trap.”

“It’s got character.” Buffy pushed off the wall, brushing past him to yank open a stubborn kitchen drawer. Her shoulder ghosted his and the air between them crackled—old electricity, never fully grounded. Buffy rummaged for a screwdriver, unfazed for all he could tell.

“Character’s gonna burn the place down,” he retorted, grabbing the new hinges and screws, along with the screwdriver she’d dug out.                                                                                                                   

“Wouldn’t be the first time something tried.”

He stilled. “What’s that mean?”

For a heartbeat, her mask slipped—he saw it. The same hunted look she’d had at fourteen when he’d found her curled up in Arlene’s porch swing after some fight with her folks. Back then, he’d chalked it up to her parents’ hard expectations, to teenage angst. Now, the memory curdled in his gut and he wondered.

Then she blinked, and it was gone. “Means I survived both L.A. and Cleveland landlords. This place is a cakewalk. Besides I’ve got someone coming to take a look at that.”

The lies hung between them, thick as the dust motes swirling in the sunlight. Jax opened his mouth—

Bang.

The basement door slammed shut behind them, hard enough to rattle the photo frames. Buffy’s hand flew to her back pocket instinctively, fingers curling around something slender and sharp before she caught herself.

Jax raised an eyebrow. “The raccoon moved downstairs?”

“Poltergeist,” she deadpanned, too quick.

He huffed a laugh, but his knuckles whitened on the crowbar. The house felt… watchful.

Buffy’s phone buzzed on the counter—Dawn’s name along with a goofy photo of her lighting up the screen with a text about “warding herbs.” She snatched it up, thumb hovering over the keyboard.

“You should go,” she said abruptly. “Club’ll be wondering where their prince is.”

“Clay can wait.”

“Can he?”

The challenge hung between them. Jax stepped closer, close enough to smell her shampoo—something citrus and sharp when it used to be all vanilla and strawberries. The fridge died mid-hum, plunging the kitchen into silence as he wrapped a gentle hand around her forearm, “Buffy—".

Buffy didn’t retreat. “Careful, Jax. Nostalgia’s a shitty foundation.”

“Says the girl rebuilding a haunted house,” he replied with an edge of defensiveness as he let go of her.

Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Fixing. And maybe I like the company of ghosts.”

Their back-and-forth dance was interrupted by the sound of the front door rattling. Not the wind. Three sharp knocks.

Buffy exhaled, sharp. “Gotta get that.”

Gemma stood on the porch, a Tupperware container in hand and poison in her smile. “I came to drop off some leftovers for you. Figured you’d be too busy with the house to cook,” she lifted the container towards Buffy who took it with a somewhat dubious expression. Gemma noticed him, holding the screwdriver, “Jackson. Didn’t realize you were playing handyman.”

Buffy answered before he could, old antagonism surfacing after last night, no doubt, “We’re renovating. Demolition’s… therapeutic.”

The sniping between his mother and Buffy was a familiar pattern. Out of all of his girlfriends, Buffy had been the one who’d given as good as she got and she’d been a teenager. He wondered what that said about the women he’d been involved since her.

Gemma’s gaze swept over the house—the warped floorboards, faded wallpaper. “Some things aren’t worth saving, sweetheart.”

The screwdriver slipped from Jax’s grip, clattering to the floor. When he bent to grab it, Gemma was already turning, her heels clicking down the porch steps. “Clay’s expecting you at the club, Jax. Don’t leave him waiting.”

Buffy waited until the Cadillac’s taillights vanished before sagging against the doorframe. “Go,” she nodded at the front door.

“You okay?” he studied if Gemma had managed to rattle her more than he’d thought.

She laughed, brittle. “Peachy. Just wrestling with the structural integrity of my life choices.”  Her eyes flicked to the ceiling, where the creaks had gone silent. She looked resigned. Like she’d made peace with the hauntings.

The house creaked, the sound almost… apologetic. He should leave, this house—and the woman in it—was fucking with his head.

Jax still hesitated. “You need help—”

“I need a lot of things.” Buffy interrupted, but then her voice softened. “Doesn’t mean I get them.”

He let her pull back, hide behind her walls, and left before he did something stupid, like ask to stay.

Halfway to the clubhouse, his phone buzzed. A text from Tara: We need to talk. Of course they do, he couldn’t help the sigh.

The road blurred. For a heartbeat, he considered a U-turn back—to the house, to the girl, to the ghosts that made marginally more sense than his own life even in their bizarreness.

Instead, he gunned the engine.

Charming’s shadows stretched long, swallowing him whole.

Chapter Text

The attic’s air had the acrid tang of burnt sage and the shadows clung like cobwebs as Buffy circled the makeshift ritual space Dawn had dictated over FaceTime, salt lines gleaming in the moonlight. Candles flickered, making the shadows dance like specters on the walls. 

Buffy stood beside the salt circle, looking at it dubiously and while waiting as Dawn checked her notes. “You’re sure this won’t, like, summon a demonic clown?” Buffy adjusted her phone for a better angle against a box labeled Tax Returns ’76-’79. 

Dawn’s pixelated eye-roll was almost audible. “It’s a communion ritual, not a piñata. Unless that clown is of our blood, or bound to it, you’re safe from demonic clowns. Now, focus. The lavender goes northwest, and for the love of God, don’t mix the obsidian with the quartz.” 

Buffy tossed the obsidian shard aside. “Remind me why I’m trusting the girl who set the kitchen on fire trying to microwave Pop-Tarts?” 

“Because I’m the one who’s studied occult and fluent in Codex-ese.” Dawn tapped her highlighted notes. “This’ll let you chat with the house’s spirit—or whatever’s left of Aunt Arlene, I think. Just… don’t agree to anything without a lawyer present.” 

Buffy placed the right rock at one of the pentagram’s tips and listened Dawn ramble, “—and don’t skip the vervain infusion. It’s not just for vibes, Buffy. It’s a psychic buffer.”

“Relax, Dawnie. I’ve exorcised poltergeists with less.” Buffy sprinkled dried lavender northwest, as instructed, her Slayer reflexes twitching at the floor’s sudden vibration. The house’s Morse code plea (.... . .-.. .--. / HELP) thrummed beneath her knees in a way that was etched to her memory at this point.

Dawn’s glare narrowed. “This isn’t a vamp nest. You’re communing with a sentient house. Considering the journals refer to it as “the Old One”, respect the—”

“—protocol, yeah, yeah.” Buffy looked over the space, everything was as it should, even the vervain infusion. “Okay, here we go…”

Buffy pricked her palm, blood welling crimson. "Sanguinem sanguinis mei invoco; loquere mecum," she called out, the Latin clumsy on her tongue—but it was enough.

The candles snuffed out.

Darkness swallowed her—then shifted.

Salt stung her nostrils, attic air replaced abruptly by that of a storm-lashed coast. Buffy stood on a cliffside, wind whipping her hair as waves shattered against rocks below. A woman stood at the edge, her back to Buffy, hair white as the foam.

“Aunt Arlene?” 

The woman turned. Younger, vibrant, her smile edged with sorrow. Not Arlene. 

“Branwen ferch Sumner,” the woman corrected, her melodic Welsh lilt cutting through the waves roar. “Daughter of my daughter’s blood. You wear our sorrow well.

“Who are you?” Branwen had similar look to Arlene, to Dawn, so Buffy could tell she was part of the family. What she really was asking was where she fit in the family tree.

Branwen was smart enough tell that, “I am a Summers before we were Summers, when we still inhabited our ancestral lands of Cymry. Your ancestress, you might say. I am the one who made the pact with the Old One.

—sounds of battle, metal clashing, sounds of agitated horses. A village burning, smoke surrounding a woman with her hands in the black earth, the heavy presence of something other—

“What was that!” Buffy demanded as the flash ended. It was like she was remembering it, but that was not possible.

“It’s this place in-between and the Old One’s presence that allows you to access our memories,” Branwen explained calmly.

“The Old One, you called it—what is that? Is that what’s bound under the house?”

“The Old One is the being bound to our line, the reason our line is still around. We were about to be wiped out and as a last resort, I called beyond the Veil, asking for someone willing to protect us. The Old One answered. A pact was made, we would provide it with a hearth and it would keep us safe.”

Buffy stepped closer, Slayer instincts flaring at the wrongness in the air—not demonic, but older. Hungrier. “What’s locked under the house then?”

A rumble shook the cliff they were standing on.

Branwen’s smile was a blade. “Not under the house. Beneath the land—in the old mines where the people of the land caged him. A god who gnaws at his chains, dreaming of daylight. His name rots now, but his prison remains. The duty is only ours through marriage to those of these new lands, but we still bear it. The Teller line, as you know them, abandoned its duty.”

“The Tellers?” Buffy’s pulse spiked. Jax.

A vision erupted:

—A scarred Indigenous man with Jax’s defiant jawline arguing with a younger man in a language lost to time. The blade of a knife catching light. Blood on red earth—

—A young woman with red-rimmed hazel eyes like Buffy’s, kneeling beside the young man as he choked out his last breaths. “Tell father… the secret goes to our children now…”—

Branwen’s voice cut through the memory. “Iron Claw betrayed his mentor, the shaman of his people. When the knowledge got passed to Swift River, the husband of Eliza Summers, instead of him, he grew jealous. When Swift River died guarding their people’s secrets, the duty fell to us—the Tellers cursed for their folly.”

The cliffside cracked, rocks crashing down into the sea below that was churning black. Buffy staggered as the vision shifted:

— An old man, hair long and a mix of greys and whites, glaring at the scarred warrior from earlier, “Your line will choke on its own venom until their heart breaks clean for a Summers soul.”—

Branwen gripped Buffy’s wrist; her touch icy. “It hungers, what they bound. My pact with the Old One—our protector—helps to keep him bound, but the binding frays when there’s no Summers bound to it. You must renew the pact with the Old One before the chains on the godling fail… and his vengeance will devour out bloodline along with the Teller line.”

—Two faceless gods wrestling in a starless void, one being, severed in half. The surviving twin roaring as chains of obsidian and dragged him into the earth—

—A flood of biblical portions sweeping the land, looking for something—the hazel-eyed woman screaming as a girl was pushed to her death by a wave of mud and water—

The world snapped back to the attic. Buffy gasped, sweat-drenched and shaking. Dawn’s voice shrieked from the phone: “—flicker on the EMF reader! What did she say? Buffy?!”

Buffy stared at her trembling hands. “I’m here. It’s not just the house stirring. It wasn’t Aunt Arlene who the ritual contacted; it was Branwen.”

Buffy saw the question in Dawn’s face and answered before she could ask, “Branwen ferch Sumner. She’s the ancestor who bound a being from beyond the Veil to our line and that’s what the house is—has? Anyway, that’s not the thing imprisoned. We’re the jailers for a god and the only way to keep it from devouring us in revenge is to bond with the house for a power boost and rebind the god.”

“And the catch?” 

Buffy studied her healed palm. “It requires a vow. Blood, words, the whole ‘eternal duty’ spiel.” 

Dawn groaned. “Classic Summers women. No opt-out clause?” 

The house shuddered.

"No, but the good news is that the house is damn powerful and it’s on our side. Branwen's the one that summoned it and bargained with it for protection. She wasn't clear on what it is exactly, just that it's powerful—she called it the Old One, like the diaries, but it came across as a name or a title, so I don't think it's related to Illyria. As long as we are bound to it, it will protect us.”

“Well, fuck.” Dawn summarized both of their feelings perfectly with her emphatic curse.

At the Clubhouse (Jax's POV)

Bourbon burned Jax’s throat as Clay’s fist slammed the map. “Mayans’re feeling brave, they’re hornin’ in on our turf. We hit ’em tonight—no warnings.”

Tig’s grin glinted knife-sharp. “I’ll prep the napalm.”

Jax’s phone buzzed: Door’s fixed. Still owe you that beer. – B

Gemma materialized at his elbow, her perfume cloying. “Jackson. Kitchen. Now.”

Jax sent a quick I’m doing a quick tune-up on the bike tomorrow around noon, keep me company? Bring the beer. to Buffy in response before following her.

The fluorescents hummed as she lit a cigarette, smoke curling like a noose. “Wendy’s ultrasound is tomorrow. You’ll be there.”

Not a question.

Jax’s thumb hovered over Buffy’s text. “I’m aware.”

Gemma’s laugh was a serrated thing. “Aware? You’re at Arlene’s hovel more than your own home.”

“She’s handling the estate. It’s business.”

“Bullshit.” Gemma jabbed her cigarette at him. “That girl’s always been a spark near gasoline. You think I don’t have eyes? You’re gonna burn your family down for nostalgia?”

Jax’s knuckles whitened on his glass. “Back off, Mom.”

“Or what?” She stepped closer, her whisper venomous. “You’ll choose her? Again? You know that she’s not sticking around, we’ve seen that much. Girls like her never do, you’re smarter than this,” the disappointment in her voice a blade meant to cut.

Chibs’ bark cut through the tension: “Jax! Wheels up in five!”

Gemma stubbed her cigarette out on the counter with narrowed eyes. “Your son needs a father. Be one.”

Chapter Text

The house knew about their visitor before Buffy did.

At 3:17 AM, the front door unlocked itself with a soft click. The porch light flickered on, cutting through the predawn darkness and leaking through the bedroom window.

Buffy jolted awake, muscle memory overriding grogginess. Her hand closing around the knife under her pillow before her eyes fully registered the light. Years of Sunnydale, years of being the Slayer, then a Slayer leading an army, had honed her reflexes to a hair-trigger. Adrenaline spiked, her pulse thrumming in preparation of a threat, chasing away sleep. 

Her senses flared out – scanning for the oily feel of demon, the grave-cold aura of vamp, the psychic pressure of hostile magic… Nothing. Just the thick, watchful silence of the house and…

Then she heard it.

“Buffy? You better not be dead up there!”

Dawn. The adrenaline surge crashed, leaving behind a wave of profound irritation mixed with a deeper, bone-aching relief. Dammit, Dawnie.

She scrambled out of bed, the worn quilt tangling around her legs. “Ow! Dammit!” A floorboard, usually flush, had mysteriously risen just enough to catch her toe – the house’s idea of a prank, or maybe a reminder it was watching.

She stumbled downstairs, heart still hammering against her ribs, to find her sister silhouetted in the doorway. Dawn looked older, sharper than Buffy remembered from before coming to Charming. Shadows smudged under her eyes, but there was a fierce energy crackling off her.

A battered duffel bag dangled precariously from one shoulder, a half-eaten bag of Cheetos clutched in the other hand, fluorescent orange dust already decorating her dark jeans like war paint.

“What the hell, Dawn!” Buffy rasped, voice thick with sleep and frayed nerves. “You couldn’t call? Text? Send a goddamn smoke signal? You scared me half to death!”

Her forced attempt at a normal life in Charming—sorting through dusty antiques, pretending she didn’t feel the house breathing—had done nothing to dull the Slayer’s edge, just buried it under layers of tedious paperwork and awkward small-town interactions. It made her all the more irritated at Dawn for triggering it.

Dawn rolled her eyes, a gesture perfected over decades of sisterly combat. “I did. Like, six times. Your phone’s off. Or dead, sacrificed to appease the weird vibes this place is throwing?”

She pushed past Buffy towards the kitchen, dropping her bag with a thud in the middle of the living room. “Also, your creepy house unlocked itself for me. That’s new. And unsettling, not gonna lie.”

Buffy groaned, running a hand through her messy hair. “Great. Somehow, I’m not even surprised.”

Dawn paused, tilting her head. “Does it unlock itself for people it likes? Or is it just rolling out the welcome mat for any random axe murderer?”

Buffy shrugged, leaning against the doorframe. The wood felt warm, almost alive, beneath her arm. “No clue. But I’m really hoping it’s a family thing and not an open-door policy.” The thought of some demonic salesman waltzing in because the house felt friendly was not a stress she needed.

A slow, triumphant grin spread across Dawn’s face. “Told you Aunt Arlene was the cool one. Mom was all ‘sensible shoes and balanced check books,’ Arlene was ‘sentient real estate.’ Knew it.”

As if on cue, the kitchen faucet turned on by itself, water splashing into the sink. Dawn yelped, jumping back and nearly dropping her Cheetos, “What the hell! Okay, that is officially not cool!”

Buffy sighed, a sound of long-suffering familiarity. She’d found herself more in tune with the house and its “subtle hints” since the ritual. “It wants you to wash your hands. You’re tracking Cheeto dust everywhere.”

Dawn blinked, staring at her orange-tipped fingers, then at the faucet. “You didn’t mention this house being such a… mom,” she complained, but still obliged the house’s wish and went to wash her hands. She peeked in the fridge but didn’t deem anything a worthy mid-night snack.

“What are you doing here?” Buffy repeated, the question layered now with more than just surprise. She followed Dawn back to the living room.

“You’re about to perform a mystical binding ritual with a semi-sentient house to contain an ancient evil in the basement that our great-great-whatever-grandmother locked up,” Dawn stated flatly, collapsing onto the worn floral couch with a groan that rattled the springs. “You’re delusional if you think I’m letting you do that alone.” Buffy was torn between annoyance and being touched by Dawn’s brand sisterly caring.

Dawn continued, “Plus, research buddy.” She gestured vaguely towards her bag. “I brought snacks… and some seriously obscure texts on genius loci manifestations. Also, drove through the night for the last stretch. I’d kill for a decent, non-gas station swill they call coffee.” She shot Buffy a hopeful, exaggeratedly pathetic look.

Before Buffy could even consider navigating the temperamental percolator, the ancient chrome machine on the kitchen counter burbled to life with a sudden, enthusiastic gurgle. Steam hissed triumphantly from its spout, filling the air with the rich, promising scent of dark roast.

Buffy stared, incredulous. “Oh, come on! After weeks of me practically begging, it still hides my favorite mug and gives me lukewarm dishwater! This is favoritism!”

"Maybe it knows I’m the fun sister.” Dawn smirked, dodging the throw pillow Buffy lobbed at her head.

A low thrum started deep within the walls, more felt than heard. Vibrations traveled up through the floorboards, tingling in their feet. Buffy felt it first – the subtle shift in air pressure, the familiar, unsettling ozone crackle of rising magic, thick and heavy. It wasn't the house being playful anymore. This felt… defensive. Or anticipatory.

Dawn’s triumphant smirk faltered, wiped clean as she followed Buffy’s gaze. Across the hallway, the ornate gilded mirror began to weep. Not condensation. Thick, tarry black liquid oozed sluggishly down its intricate frame, dripping onto the polished hardwood floor with a soft, deliberate plink… plink… plink.

“Uh, Buf…?” Dawn’s voice was tight, all traces of amusement gone. Her eyes were wide, fixed on the inky tears staining the wood. “Is that…?”

“Shit,” Buffy cursed, the word low, heartfelt, and heavy with the dread of the inevitable. The house wasn't just warning them anymore. It was showing them the cracks.

Jax's POV

The predatory rumble of Jax Teller’s Dyna Glide died abruptly as he killed the engine outside the Summers house. Dust, kicked up from Charming’s sun-baked backroads, settled lazily around the bike’s wide tires like settling ash.

He sat for a moment, the California heat pressing down, making the leather of his kutte feel like a straitjacket. His knuckles, scraped raw and throbbing from yesterday’s pointless SAMCRO scrap with the Mayans over a disputed patch of worthless desert, tightened on the handlebars. Another day, another fucking fire Clay had lit that Jax had to help stamp out.

Add Tara’s quiet disappointment this morning after clocking his knuckles, Abel’s fragile vulnerability, the club’s books bleeding red… it all pressed down, a familiar, suffocating cage. He needed space. Needed asphalt and speed. Needed to not be Jax Teller, VP, father, fuck-up, for five damn minutes.

His gaze, sharp and habitually scanning, caught on the anomaly parked haphazardly under the sprawling oak tree Arlene Summers had loved.

A dust-caked Honda Civic, Ohio plates screaming outsider. A peeling bumper sticker declared: “Honk if You’ve Survived a Mesopotamian Curse!” Jax’s lips twitched in a near-smile. Definitely not local. Definitely not Charming. 

He’d barely registered Buffy missing their meet-up at Teller-Morrow earlier. Clay had been riding him hard about the Mayans, about the guns, about fucking everything. Part of him knew seeking Buffy out was counterproductive – another complication he didn’t need. But the pull of that uncomplicated past, the girl who had known him without the weight of the Reaper, was magnetic.

His gaze flicked to the house – the old Victorian seemed to breathe in the afternoon light, windows watchful. It had always felt… watchful. Lately, more so. Buffy was cagey, deflecting his questions with a tight smile that didn’t reach her eyes. There was a tension humming around her he couldn’t place, a wariness that felt deeper than grief for an aunt she rarely saw.

The front door burst open, shattering the silence and a young woman stormed onto the porch, all kinetic energy and sharp angles.

Her coloring was different from Buffy’s but she had her cheekbones. The same stubborn set to her jaw, but framed by dark, shoulder-length hair. Her voice, sharp with indignant youth, carried across the yard: “This was nothing like it and I was twelve, Buffy! The eternal glitter shame is officially disproportionate! I demand a reassessment of my permanent record!”

Buffy materialized in the doorway, leaning against the frame. She wore faded jeans and a simple tank top, but her posture screamed coiled readiness. It telegraphed “I got 43 problems and you’re hovering at #15”.

She crossed her arms, a hint of amusement warring with profound exhaustion. “Disproportionate? Dawn, I was finding iridescent specks in my socks three years later. That stuff achieved sentience, developed a grudge, and migrated. It was a bio-hazard.”

Dawn – little Dawnie, who used to trail after them, wide-eyed, back when they were dumb kids stealing kisses behind Arlene’s shed – grinned, radiating mischief and accomplishment. “That’s because I hid extra in the vents.”

Jax couldn’t help it. A rough, unexpected chuckle escaped him, cutting through the oppressive thoughts. The sheer, mundane absurdity of glitter warfare was a lifeline thrown to his drowning mood.

The sibling dynamic, the easy history… it sparked a pang of something deep and old. If Tommy had lived… Opie was a brother, sure, but their bond was forged in clubhouse loyalty and shared weight of outlaw legacy, not this messy, affectionate chaos. As it was, that kind of lightness felt alien, dangerous even.

Two heads snapped towards the sound with unnerving speed.

Dawn’s eyes, wide and assessing, scanned him head-to-toe – the dust-covered sneakers, the patched kutte proclaiming his allegiance and burdens, the weary lines etched around his eyes that hadn’t been there at fifteen.

A slow, appreciative, and utterly unselfconscious smile spread across her face. “Oh,” she breathed. Then, louder, elbowing Buffy sharply: “Ohhhh. You seriously undersold the hotness factor, Buff. Like, criminal understatement. That’s not just ‘Jax the Ex’. That’s a walking Johnny Cash ballad dipped in motorcycle grease, with significantly better eyebrow game.”

A faint, almost imperceptible flush crept up Buffy’s neck. “Dawn—” Her voice held a familiar, exasperated warning, but her gaze snagged on Jax’s. There it was. A low thrum of teenage electricity buried under layers of complicated adulthood.

Jax tipped his chin, a lazy, practiced smirk curling his lips, the charm reflex kicking in. He dialed up the drawl just a fraction. “Sounds like Buffy’s been keepin’ a lot of things close to the chest.” He let his eyes linger on hers, the unspoken including me hanging in the air.

Dawn snorted, mirroring Buffy’s crossed arms. “Try ‘operates on a cosmic need-to-know basis since roughly the dawn of time.’” Her shrewd gaze lingered pointedly on the Reaper patch. Buffy hadn’t told her about SAMCRO either, Jax guessed.

He swung a leg over the bike, the leather sighing. “Was headin’ back from Stockton. Saw your street.” He kept his eyes on Buffy, ignoring the subtle shift in Dawn’s posture – the slight straightening, the watchfulness that replaced the earlier teasing. Protective. “You missed the tune-up at TM. No call, no text.” He kept his tone light, but the concern beneath it was real. Buffy was practical. She didn’t just skip appointments.

Buffy winced, genuine guilt flickering before the familiar walls slammed down. She rubbed her temple, a gesture that spoke of headaches beyond the mundane. “Crap, Jax. Sorry. Got… massively sidetracked.” She jerked a thumb at Dawn. “Hurricane Dawn made landfall around 3 AM. Then the house…” She waved vaguely behind her, frustration tightening her mouth. “…decided to throw a tantrum. Pipes groaned like something was dying in the walls. Fuse box blew while we were knee-deep in Aunt Arlene’s study – which looks like a cryptologist’s nightmare crossed with a hoarder’s paradise. Time warp. Forgot to message.”

“‘S alright,” Jax accepted the explanation and apology easily, the club’s constant chaos making him sympathetic to time warps. He leaned against the warm metal of his bike, forcing nonchalance. “So. Full Summers sister reunion, huh?” He turned his easy grin on Dawn. “You stickin’ around Charming long?”

Dawn’s expression shifted, the earlier bravado softening into something more thoughtful, tinged with a sadness Jax recognized – the kind left by loss. Aunt Arlene’s death had brought them here. “Not sure yet,” she said, her voice measured. “A little while. Got some things to sort out.” Her eyes flickered towards the house, a silent communication passing between the sisters. The house. The binding. The ancient evil in the basement. Jax didn’t know the words, but he saw the weight.

“That’s good,” Jax said, sincerity cutting through the gravel in his voice. He looked back at Buffy. The ghost of the girl he’d known – fierce, funny, unburdened – shimmered faintly beneath the woman shaped by unknown storms. “Bet you’re glad to have backup.” He meant it. Buffy seemed less alone, less like she was carrying the weight of the world on her narrow shoulders with Dawn here.

Buffy made a face, a complex mix of exasperation and deep, bone-deep affection. She wobbled her hand in a classic ‘so-so’ gesture. “Ask me again after she colonizes the kitchen with weird health-food snacks and her research tomes start spawning like tribbles in the living room. It’s like living with a chaos librarian.”

Jax barked a surprised laugh, the sound rough and genuine. Dawn immediately swatted Buffy’s arm. “Hey! Eclectic organization is a valid life choice! And those ‘tomes’ contain vital historical context!”

“Riiight,” Buffy drawled, the ghost of a real smile touching her lips despite herself. “Context for what, the migration patterns of dust bunnies?”

Jax just shook his head, the smile lingering. Dawn had clearly grown up to be a character. He couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that there was something hiding in the looks the sisters had kept exchanging amid their conversation, but for the life of him, he didn’t know what that was. Somehow the mystery was part of the pull he felt toward Buffy, equally frustrating and magnetic.

He swung his leg back over the Harley. “Right. Well. I’ll leave you to the sisterly negotiations and… advanced clutter management.” He nodded at Dawn, the gesture respectful. “Good seein’ you again, Dawn.” 

His gaze locked with Buffy’s again. The air crackled, thick with unspoken history and the impossible, dangerous question of what if. “Buffy. Call me. If you need help with the plumbing. Or… anything.” Or just call. Talk. Remember when the biggest problem was sneaking past Arlene.

He kicked the engine to life. The Harley’s roar was a physical thing, shattering the uneasy quiet of the street, drowning out the whispers of the old house and the complications crowding his skull.

As he pulled away, the rearview mirror framed them: Buffy, watching him go with that familiar, guarded intensity, her look assessing a threat or an anchor in the storm.

Dawn, already leaning in close, whispering something that made Buffy roll her eyes, but a reluctant, fond smile finally broke through the tension. Behind them, the Victorian loomed, a silent, watchful presence under the relentless California sun. He twisted the throttle, the wind tearing at his kutte, the asphalt promising a temporary, mindless freedom.

But the image clung – Buffy Summers, a storm in human form, and her sharp, watchful sister.

There was the unsettling certainty that Charming held secrets deeper than SAMCRO’s, buried under that peeling paint and guarded by a woman who felt like both a sanctuary and a riptide. The past sitting heavy on his chest, whispering dangerous what-ifs, tangled up with a woman who he wasn’t sure he knew anymore. And Jax Teller, already neck-deep in his own, felt the dangerous undertow pulling him back towards hers.

The House’s Warning

That night, the house dreamt. It dreamt in shifting foundations and groaning timbers, and it wove itself around the Summers girls like protective, possessive wild ivy. It cocooned them—for they belonged to it, blood and bone, just as it was theirs—and in that embrace, it sent its warning.

Buffy saw flashes in her fractured slumber. Aunt Arlene, younger than Buffy ever knew her, standing barefoot in the cold, damp basement. Not the cluttered storage space Buffy knew, but a raw, earthen chamber lit by flickering tallow candles.

Arlene held a heavy, tarnished knife – no, not tarnish, Buffy realized with a chill – dried blood. Fresh blood, impossibly bright red, seeped into the dark soil at her feet as she chanted words that scraped against Buffy’s mind like broken glass.

The image flickered, replaced by Arlene, older, weary, pressing her hand against a cold stone wall etched with glowing symbols. Her voice echoed, thin and strained: "The chains are coming loose."

Buffy was still trying to sort through what was part of the dream and what real world when Dawn appeared in her bedroom doorway, hair wild, eyes wide and shadowed not just by sleep. "Did your haunted bed-and-breakfast just give me a shared nightmare to warn me we’re officially screwed?" Her voice was tight, the bravado from earlier stripped away.

"Our haunted bed-and-breakfast, technically," Buffy corrected automatically, sitting up and scrubbing her face. The residual dread from the dream clung like cobwebs. "And yes. The 'don't say I didn't warn you' special."

Dawn groaned, stumbling into the room and collapsing onto the edge of the bed. "Of course. Because the black sludge bleeding from the mirror earlier wasn't subtle enough. What’s next, a singing telegram delivered by a minor demon?"

The walls groaned around them – a deep, resonant sound that vibrated in their chests. The tone was distinctly reproachful. Taking offense to the glibness, Buffy would wager. The house didn't appreciate Dawn's sarcasm when it was trying to convey existential dread.

"Worse," Buffy said softly, the dream images sharp in her mind. “The thing under the mines. It’s waking up."

Dawn’s forced smirk faded completely, replaced by a grim understanding. She shooed Buffy over and flopped down beside her, shoulder pressing against Buffy's. "So… bonding with the semi-sentient real estate? Really, truly, not optional anymore?"

Buffy leaned her head against her sister’s, drawing strength from the solid, familiar presence. "Think ‘optional’ sailed right off the table and sank without a trace. It’s do-or-die time, Dawnie. Literally." Probably for the whole town, she didn't add, thinking of Jax roaring away on his bike, blissfully unaware of what lay beneath his feet.

The two sisters sat in silence for a moment, leaning against each other, staring into the middle distance of the moonlit room. The weight of centuries, of their lineage, of the sentient house and the ancient evil it guarded, settled over them. Outside, Charming slept. Inside the Summers house, the final countdown had begun.

Chapter Text

The late afternoon sun slanted through the smudged windows of the Summers house—still waiting to be washed. It cast long shadows across their piles of half-unpacked boxes around the living room.

Buffy sat cross-legged on the floor, sorting through a box of old photo albums. Her fingers brushed dust from a snapshot of Arlene grinning atop a motorcycle. It was no wonder she never gave Buffy the impression she disapproved Jax, like Buffy’s dad did with his little too pointed remarks. She’d seen multiple photos of Aunt Arlene with motorcycles and people wearing patches, most of them what Jax had identified as the Devil’s Tribe, MC.

She was alone in the house, Dawn had abandoned her to her boxes some time ago, intending to make a grocery run and check out the library. If she knew her sister, she wouldn’t be back in while. The house, her only company, sighed around her—a floorboard creaked in the hall, the grandfather clock ticking like a metronome keeping time with her pulse.

A knock at the door—three firm raps, hesitant but deliberate.

Buffy stood, placing the stack of loose polaroids back in the crate and wiping her hands on her jeans. Through the frosted glass, she recognized Opie’s broad silhouette. She opened the door, leaning against the frame. “Hey? Didn’t peg you for the drop-by-unannounced type… I’m going to guess this is not a social visit just to catch up?”

Opie shifted his weight; hands jammed deep in his pockets. His beard hid the tension in his jaw, but his eyes gave him away—dark and restless, like a storm brewing on the horizon. “Got a minute?”

“For you? Sure.” She stepped aside, tilting her head to invite him in. “Watch your step, there’s a bit of a mess, I’ve been going through some old stuff and it got away from me. Also, wipe your feet. The house gets pissy if you track dirt on the floors.”

Opie grunted and obliged without questioning her odd remark. He followed her to the kitchen through the box labyrinth that Buffy had unwittingly constructed.

“We’re out of pretty much everything, but there should be a couple of beer. You want one?”

“Sure,” Opie accepted. She noted the way his shoulders were tight, like he was carrying the weight of the world on them as she walked to the refrigerator.

He hovered by the table, eyeing the half-assembled coffee maker with its guts spilled across the counter like it’d been though a great battle and come off on the losing side. It had become Dawn’s “I can fix it” project after it had very inconveniently stopped working right in the middle of Dawn’s research binge. Buffy had her suspicion that it was the house’s mothering side objecting to Dawn’s caffeine intake that stopped it from working, but wasn’t stupid enough to open her mouth and get into middle of it.

Opie followed her lead in ignoring the mess. She couldn’t help but like his live and let live attitude. It sure took some pressure of off her—she didn’t need to play normal quite as zealously or constantly explain away weird little things about the house.

He took the beer she handed him. “It’s warm,” she warned.

“Ain’t picky.” He cracked it open with his keys, took a swig, and grimaced. “Jesus. Tastes like battery acid.”

“Told you.” She hopped onto the counter, legs swinging. After he didn’t say anything, she prompted, “So. What’s up?”

Opie stared at the beer like it held answers. “Jax took a job tonight. Pyro run. Burnin’ a Mayan stash house.”

Buffy’s brow furrowed. She admittedly wasn’t familiar with the inner workings of the Club, but she did know they were not law-abiding citizens. She studied Opie’s countenance that was setting off her suspicions, “And that’s… not usual?”

“It’s my job.” My fault if he gets hurt, she heard. His eyes were glued at the label of the bottle that he was worrying, avoiding meeting hers. “Clay assigned it to me. Jax… volunteered.” The guilt he carried was clear as day. Maybe it was somehow more dangerous than usual?

The house creaked sharply, a draft snuffing the lemon-scented candle Dawn had left burning on the windowsill. Buffy crossed her arms. “Let me guess—he’s not exactly Mr. Chill right now.” She knew about Jax’s preemie kid, he’d mentioned him but had avoided delving into the topic more than the brief mention. Buffy hadn’t pushed.

Opie’s gaze flicked to her. “Kid’s got surgery tonight. Low survival rate.” He paused; the words rough. “He shouldn’t be out there. Not tonight.”

Buffy stilled, Opie was right—that did sound like a bad decision. The fridge hummed louder and the kitchen light flickered. “And you’re telling me because…?”

“’Cause he’ll listen to you.” Opie set the beer down hard. “Or he’ll at least pretend to. Better’n the rest of us gettin’ ignored.”

Buffy snorted. “You overestimate my influence by several years.” Besides, it was not like her track record on making Jax see reason was that stellar anyway.

“Nah. You’re the only one he ain’t pissed at yet.” Opie’s voice softened, just shy of pleading. “He’s my brother, Buff. But he’s runnin’ on fumes. Someone’s gotta pull him back ‘fore he burns out.”

How the hell was that her job? Buffy wanted to snap.

The clock ticked. Somewhere upstairs, a shutter banged in the wind. Buffy studied Opie—the way the mental weight was reflecting on his body language, the guilt etched into the lines of his face. He’d come here not just for Jax, but to quiet his own conscience. To do the thing he couldn’t.

She slid off the counter, this would probably bite her in the ass, but Dawn didn’t mock her for having a savior complex for no reason. “When?”

“They roll out at seven.” Opie hesitated. “Surgery’s at eight. County General.”

Buffy exhaled, checked that she had her phone on her, and dumped Opie’s barely touched beer to pass to the counter. On the way she grabbed her keys from the hook, floorboards somehow groaning more under her weight than Opie’s as they walked through the house.

“Tell me something, Opie—why’d you really let him take the job?”

His jaw tightened. “’Cause I’m a selfish bastard. Donna says I’ve gotta be…better.” Stay away from the criminal side of the Club, Buffy heard “And Jax? He’s still in freefall.” He met her gaze, raw. “He needs someone in his corner. Please, Buffy?”

Later, at the Hospital parking lot (Jax’s POV)

The parking lot lights were casting long shadows over Jax’s hunched frame. He leaned against his bike, helmet discarded, hands braced on the seat like it’s the only thing keeping him upright. Dried blood cracked across his knuckles—Mayan blood, club blood, his blood. He rubbed them to get it off, but it clung like a stain.

Smoke clung to his clothes, the acrid stink of gasoline and burnt rubber seemingly having seeped into his pores. The roar of the fire lingered in his skull—along with Clay’s orders, SAMCRO’s pride, Abel’s fucking heartbeat on a monitor.

He didn’t remember parking. Didn’t remember dismounting. One moment he was weaving through backroads; the next he was here, rumble of the engine fading from his bones. Staring at the automatic doors like they led to gallows. The hospital’s fluorescent glow spilled onto the asphalt from the opening doors, and for a heartbeat, he considered turning back.

“You look like you rode through hell.”

Jax stiffened. Buffy appeared like the ghost of life past, rounding from the shadows behind him.

She surveyed him—what did she see?—and her boots scuffed as she neared. Her hair was pulled into a loose braid. No leather, no weapons—just a faded hoodie and jeans, looking softer than usual. She had two paper cups of coffee with her and she held one out for him.

“Don’t,” he warned, voice ragged.

“Heard caffeine’s good for existential crises,” she said mildly.

He snatched the cup just to make her retreat.

There was a moment of silence and without conscious though he took a gulp of the overly sweet and scalding drink. He wondered if she’d accidentally given him hers, but didn’t ask. It tasted like ash anyway. “Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be sanding floorboards or something?”

“Floorboards don’t care if I bail.” She ignored his closed-off posture, coming to lean against the bike with him, close enough that her sleeve brushed his. “Opie came by. Told your kid had surgery.” Why didn’t you say anything, hung unspoken.

Her gaze sharpened. “Said you were doing something stupid.”

What the hell was Opie thinking going to her?

“Had to.” He said shortly, the heat of the coffee cup warming his hands.

“Had to torch things while your kid is fighting for his life?”

His head snapped up, it was said without infliction, but damn if it didn’t cut like a knife to chest.

Buffy didn’t balk at his glare, her expression was neutral, but her eyes—Christ, her eyes saw too much. Always had. He fought the urge to hide.

His knuckles were busted and while he’d gotten most of the blood off his skin, there was still some in his cuticles and Buffy’s gaze flicks to them—a millisecond tell. Jax catches it, flexes his fingers.

“Not mine,” he mutters.

“Didn’t ask,” not judgment, just fact. The coffee steams between them.

“Club business,” he muttered the familiar excuse anyway. It always was.

“Right.” She nodded toward the hospital questioningly. “Guessing you haven’t been in yet. Wouldn’t be sculking in the shadows if you had.”

Jax’s throat tightened. He crushed his empty cup, the sound loud in the stillness. “You here to lecture me too? Gemma already did the ‘step up’ speech. Clay’s got the ‘man the fuck up’ market cornered.”

Buffy sips her coffee, unfazed. She’s not letting him draw her into an argument—that’s the annoying thing about exes, they know you. “Nah. Just thought you might want to talk to someone who doesn’t need you to be anything.” A beat. “Would you feel better if I lectured?”

His laugh was hollow. “You don’t know what I need.”

“True.” She tilted her head back, drawn by a movement. She watched a moth batter itself against a flickering light above them, letting the silence stretch on. “I may not know what you need, but I do know what it’s like to have the world decide who you’re supposed to be before you’ve figured it out yourself.”

A muscle in his jaw twitches. The admission hangs, raw, between them.

Then—“He’s so small,” Jax rasped. “Like if I breathe wrong, he’ll—” he cuts himself off, throat working.

Buffy stayed silent.

“I don’t… want this,” he rasps. “The kid, the club, the fucking—legacy. I can’t—”

“You already are,” she pointed out with that fucking neutral tone of hers.

Irritated, he got up and wheeled on her, voice cracking, “I don’t want to!”

Buffy didn’t flinch, even with him looming over her. “Too bad. Wanting’s a luxury.”

Something snapped. He was crowded her against the bike before his brain caught up. His hands cradle her face, the hold just a little too tight and he kisses her—a messy, furious collision of lips and sixteen years of what if. It’s all heat and teeth and want. It tastes like fear and Marlboros and the cherry cola they’d shared at fourteen.

Her hands flew to his chest, not pushing, not pulling. Just… there. One rose—not to push, but to touch his jaw. Grounding. Present.

When she pulled back, her thumb brushed the cut on his lip. Then, while he was still trying to calm his heaving breath, “You don’t get to use me as an escape hatch, Jax.”

He freezes, shame flashing across his face, “Buffy—”

"Don't. You're not here for me. You're here because walking through those doors scares the crap out of you," she’s not pulling any punches now.

He jerked back like she'd struck him. His breath hitched, the taste of cherry cola and regret sharp on his tongue, as if the ghost of fourteen-year-old Buffy still lingered there, "You don't know a damn thing—"

"I know you." Her voice softened. "The Jax who cried when Mrs. Kowalski's tabby got hit by a truck. Who stole price roses from the church garden because I said they smelled like summer. That guy? He'd already be upstairs, holding his kid's hand."

It felt like that had been someone else. He turned toward the hospital, its windows glowing like judgment. "What if I can't be him anymore?"

"Then you fake it." She stepped into his sightline, fierce. "You show up. You stay. You try. That's all any of us can do."

She made it sound so simple.

“Go hold your son,” she says softly. “The rest’ll keep.”

The words hit like a sucker punch. Jax turned away, shoulders hunched. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what? Remind you he’s real? Remind you of who you used to be?” She studied him. “You used to talk about kids, you know. Back when we were dumb enough to think we’d get a choice.”

He froze. Memory surfaced unbidden: Buffy at fifteen, laughing as she dangled a daisy chain over his handlebars. Jokingly telling him, “We’ll name the first one after your dad,” she’d said. “John Jr.—but he’ll hate it, so we’ll call him Jack.”

“That was a lifetime ago,” he bit out.

“For you, maybe.” She moved to look at the hospital with him, lightly bumping shoulders with him. “I’m still rooting for Jack.”

He laughed, bitter. “Kid’s name’s Abel.”

“Abel’s good too.” She paused. “Stronger than he looks, I bet.”

Jax’s breath hitched. The parking lot blurred. For a reckless second, he wanted to tell her—everything. The Mayans’ blood on his boots, Clay’s cold stare, his father’s manuscript, the way Abel’s tiny chest shuddered with each labored breath. But the words curdled in his throat.

Buffy didn’t push. Just stood there, steady as a fucking lighthouse.

“Why’d you come, B?” he finally asked.

“Same reason you’re still here.” She nodded at the hospital. “To remember there’s more to us than the worst thing we’ve done.” She squeezed his arm in encouragement.

Jax stared at his hands—still slightly streaked with soot, dry blood noticeable if you knew what you were looking for—according to her, still capable of cradling a son he didn’t know how to love. When he looked up, Buffy was gone, the lamppost flickering in her absence.

The NICU doors hissed open as he approached. Inside, machines beeped a fragile rhythm. Abel lay swaddled in wires, his face pinched but peaceful. Jax hesitated, then pressed a trembling palm to the glass.

“Hey, kid,” he whispered.

Somewhere beneath the static, the club’s roar faded. Just for tonight.

Later:
Buffy texts Dawn from her car: 
Buffy: He kissed me.
Dawn: And?
Buffy: And I stopped it.
Dawn: …And?
Buffy: And I didn’t want to.
Dawn: Oh. Oh.
Buffy: Shut up.
Dawn: Make me.

Chapter Text

The Summers house greeted Buffy with a symphony of creaks as she slipped inside, the front door groaning shut behind her like a disapproving parent. The air smelled of aged wood and Arlene’s lingering lavender, but tonight, an ozone sharpness pricked her Slayer senses—a static charge that raised the hairs on her arms. The porch light flickered twice behind her in a way that felt like the house’s version of a raised eyebrow.

Dawn sat cross-legged on the living room floor, surrounded by crumbling journals and a half-eaten bag of Cheetos, her laptop casting a blue glow on her face. She didn’t look up, but her voice cut through the silence like a knife.

“So. You kissed him.”

Buffy froze mid-step, her keys slipping from her fingers and clattering onto the entryway table. The sound echoed unnaturally loud, as if the house itself had amplified it. “He kissed me,” she corrected, sharper than intended.

“Semantics.” Dawn finally lifted her head, snapping a Cheeto between her teeth with exaggerated precision. Crumbs dusted the pages of an open journal titled Bloodlines & Bindings: A Summers History. “Spill. Or I’ll start reading Aunt Margie’s very detailed notes on 19th-century menstrual rituals aloud.”

The floorboards stopped creaking abruptly, the sudden silence deafening. Buffy could’ve sworn the grandfather clock’s pendulum paused mid-swing, the house itself leaning in to listen. She sank onto the floral couch, its springs sighing beneath her like an old friend. “There’s nothing to spill. Opie asked me to check in on him, try to speak sense into him, if possible. It was a moment. He’s stressed. Overwhelmed. I’m…”

“A sucker for broody bikers with daddy issues?” Dawn interjected, grinning with a wiggle of eyebrows.

“I was going to say ‘here to fix the house.’” Buffy lobbed a throw pillow at her. Dawn ducked and the pillow smacked into the wall—where it stuck, defying gravity, for three full seconds before sliding to the floor.

The house let out a low, whining hum from the direction of the kitchen. Dawn snorted. “Even the house knows you’re full of it.”

Buffy glared at the opposite wall, where a painting rattled faintly. “Traitor.”

Silverware clattered in a kitchen drawer in response. Dawn’s smirk softened as she studied her sister, her teasing tone giving way to something quieter. “You’re allowed to want things, you know. Not just apocalypses and plumbing repairs.”

The words hung in the air, too close to the truth. Buffy picked at a loose thread on the couch cushion she was hugging like a shield, the frayed fabric mirroring her nerves. “Wanting’s easy. It’s the after that gets messy. The ‘what if I stay?’ The ‘what if we crash and burn and it was all for nothing?’”

The house agreed—a shutter banged upstairs with such force that dust sifted down from the ceiling in a fine cloud. Dawn brushed a cobweb from her hair, unfazed. “Threat of sounding like a cliché, they say it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved for a reason. You’re not a teenager anymore, Buffy. You don’t have to martyr yourself just because he’s got a baby mama and a Reaper patch.”

“It’s not about martyrdom.” Buffy stood abruptly, pacing past the grandfather clock. Its pendulum swung erratically, out of rhythm with her steps, as if mirroring her agitation. “I’m not staying. He’s not leaving. Starting something with him would be like… like adopting a goldfish before a cross-country move. Pointless and cruel.”

“Goldfish don’t ride Harleys,” Dawn shot back, rolling her eyes. “And newsflash—you’re not moving. You’re just… hovering. Like a weird, emotionally constipated hummingbird.”

“Dawn—”

“Fine.” Dawn raised her hands in mock surrender. “But you’re not fooling anyone. Especially not her.”

The temperature dropped so suddenly that Buffy’s breath fogged the air. Frost spiderwebbed across the windowpane behind them, crystalline tendrils spreading until they formed jagged letters:

L-I-A-R

Buffy threw her hands up. “Oh, come on.” The frost immediately melted, droplets sliding down the glass like tears.

Dawn closed the journal with a deliberate thud, her playful façade slipping. “Look, I know it’s complicated. Baby mama drama, motorcycle gangs, ancient evil prisons—classic Tuesday. But you two… you’ve always had this… thing. Even before all… this.” She gestured vaguely at the house, the attic groaning in agreement.

Buffy sank back onto the couch, arms folded. “We were kids, Dawn. That ‘thing’ was sneaking milkshakes at the diner and holding hands under the bleachers. It wasn’t real life.”

“Wasn’t it?” Dawn leaned forward, her voice earnest. “You think Mom and Dad ever had a ‘real life’? They crashed and burned because they stopped choosing each other. But you and Jax? You never got the chance to start.”

The house creaked softly, the grandfather clock’s pendulum slowing to a steady rhythm. Buffy stared at her hands, calloused from years of slaying, yet suddenly feeling fragile. “It’s not that simple. I have responsibilities—the house, the Slayer gig, the world-saving side hustle. And he’s got… SAMCRO.” If the name of the club came out slightly biting, for once Dawn didn’t call her on it.

“So?” Dawn shrugged instead. “You think being a Summers means you don’t get to have a life? Aunt Arlene bound herself to this house, but she still had lovers. Hell, she almost married that guy from the hardware store! What’s the point of saving the world if you don’t let yourself live in it?”

The radiator hissed, warm air flooding the room as if the house itself were nodding along. Buffy’s throat tightened. “And what if it blows up in my face? What if I’m just another person who lets him down or wants impossible things from him?”

Dawn’s gaze softened. “What if it doesn’t? You’re not the girl who left Charming at fifteen, Buffy. You’ve died twice. You led an army. You’re basically the Beyoncé of demon fighting. And Jax? He’s not that reckless kid either. He’s a father now. He’s trying… even if he’s bad at it,” Dawn snarked like the little sister she was.

A floorboard near Buffy’s foot creaked—encouragement.

“Remember when you sprained your ankle trying to jump the quarry on his dirt bike?” Dawn pressed. “He carried you three miles back to town. Didn’t complain once. Even when you called him a ‘jackass wannabe Evel Knievel’ the whole way.”

Buffy snorted despite herself. “He was a jackass.”

“Yeah, but he was always your jackass.” Dawn’s smile turned wistful. “You guys were good together. Not because it was easy, but because you pushed each other. Maybe that’s what you both need now—someone who doesn’t let you hide.”

The house hummed in agreement; the scent of Arlene’s gardenias suddenly blooming in the air. Buffy stared at the melted frost on the window, the word LIAR now a blur of streaked glass.

“And what about the house?” she whispered. “The binding… the supposed god under the mines…”

Dawn rolled her eyes. “Please. You’ve fought a Hell goddess, Master vampires, and that creepy singing demon thing. You really think a territorial real estate ghost and some underground wannabe Cthulhu are gonna scare you off a second chance?”

The attic door slammed shut—a definitive thud that shook the walls.

“See?” Dawn grinned. “Even the house is team Juffy. Or Baux. Whatever.”

Buffy groaned. “Those names are worse than ‘Spuffy.’”

“Not my fault you have a thing for guys with questionable life choices, including nicknames.” Dawn tossed her the Cheeto bag. “Just… think about it, okay? You don’t have to decide tonight. But you don’t have to run either.”

The house’s antics escalated from passive-aggressive to downright theatrical through the evening. Buffy’s toothbrush migrated to the fridge, nestled between a jar of pickles and a carton of eggs. Dawn’s pajamas turned up in the attic, neatly folded atop a dusty trunk labeled DO NOT OPEN – FAMINE INCIDENT, 1932. When the put-together coffee maker began spewing grounds like a possessed fountain, Buffy snapped.

“Enough!” She slammed her palm against the kitchen counter. The cabinets rattled, and for a heartbeat, the light pulsed with a warm, amber glow—the house’s version of a flinch. “I get it, okay? I’m distracted. But you don’t get to parent me just because Mom’s gone!”

The house stilled. The only sound was the drip of coffee pooling on the linoleum.

Dawn appeared in the doorway, clutching a stolen Snickers from Buffy’s emergency stash (hidden, until now, behind the boiler). “Yikes. It’s like living with a passive-aggressive Casper.”

A single cabinet door creaked open—the one containing Arlene’s old bourbon. The bottle slid forward, stopping just shy of the edge.

“Truce offering?” Dawn grabbed the bottle and two tumblers.

Buffy sighed, sinking into a chair that groaned louder than necessary. Dawn poured them both generous portions and slid one across the table to Buffy.

The first sip burned, familiar as a forgotten lullaby. “Remember when Mom caught us sneaking her Zinfandel? You were, what, twelve?”

“Eleven,” Dawn corrected, swirling her drink. “And you blamed it on Dad. Classic deflection.”

“Worked, didn’t it?” Buffy quirked a smile, the memory softening the edges of her frustration.

The fridge hummed—softer now, almost contrite. Dawn traced the water rings on the table, her voice gentle. “You’re really not going to talk to him?”

Buffy studied the amber liquid, watching the light refract through the glass. “What’s there to say? ‘Sorry I let you kiss me while your preemie son fought for his life? By the way, my haunted house has opinions about you?’”

“How about, ‘I’m here’?”

The pendulum steadied. Tick-tock. Tick-tock. A floorboard near the stairs creaked twice—encouragement.

Buffy snorted. “Since when are you the wise one?”

“Since I realized you’ve been playing grown-up so long, you forgot how to be human.”

Dawn stole Buffy’s tumbler, still holding a finger of bourbon, and downed the rest with a grimace. “Go. Fix the house. Bond with your haunted drywall. But stop pretending you don’t care and get ready to confront that whole thing with Jax once we deal with the immediate threats. Because no matter how much you pretend, that’s not going away.” She paused, mischief flashing in her eyes. “And besides, what kind of big, bad Slayer runs away from feelings? Demons, sure. But feelings?”

“You’re insufferable.”

“And you’re predictable.” Dawn lobbed back. “Now go check whatever spooky artifact the house wants you to find. It’s been vibrating the floorboards for an hour.”

The house took her to the basement. Because of course it did.

The basement door was the epitome of normal: made of the same dark wood as the other doors in the house, its surface was lively and still shiny. The ornate brass doorknob was the only thing betraying its age. The tops of the carvings were still shiny as ever, but deeper parts and seams had taken a darker tone, verdigris bleeding turquoise into the crevices.

She grasped it and it was as shockingly cold as she remembered from the first time she’d meant to enter the basement. Inhaling deeply, she braced herself for anything that the basement might throw at her, and twisted the knob.

The door had the audacity to open smoothly without as much as a foreboding creak.

She was faced with just the normal wooden stairs disappearing into the darkness below. The basement had windows, but they were even dirtier than the windows upstairs. Evern more, Aunt Arlene’s gardenia bushes were living their best life in front of them and chocking away the little light that would’ve gotten through them.

She fumbled along the wall in the darkness for a light switch she knew to be there. A flick, and the space below lit up with a warm, but somewhat dim glow from the single bulb on a very retro ceiling light in the middle of the room. The usual basement scent of damp concrete and stale air mingled with a faint something that Buffy associated with graveyards.

The railing, made of the same dark wood as the door, was smooth under her hand as she descended. There were a couple rag rugs on the cement floor in an attempt to brighten up the place, but the colors had faded years ago from what must’ve been a cheerful rainbow of colors. They had looked the same in Buffy’s childhood, which indicated they must have been from even before Arlene’s time.

Speaking of which, she saw the same old washing machine pushed against the wall. Aunt Arlene had converted one of the upstairs rooms into a laundry room when Buffy had been a teenager and gotten a new wash tower for it. It had been convenient when the old one had been taken down in the basement, because… Buffy walked up to it and grinned to herself. Yep. The dent was still there—a permanent reminder of her teenage escapades when she’d used it to sneak in past curfew. One misstep had left its mark on the metal lid.

She glanced up at the windows set high in the wall—to think she hadn’t even been a Slayer back then and she’d scaled up and down semi-regularly. She shook her head. She was convinced Aunt Arlene had known, but she’d never said anything, just had this knowing glint in her eye sometimes when Buffy had claimed to head to bed early.

Buffy turned away to survey the rest. The space was largely empty. A couple of large paint tins stacked next to a container with brushes and five big storage boxes in two stacks. The boxes were tinted, but she could make out the contents. The stack of two boxes was definitely all fabrics, same as the topmost box in the other box, but the bottom boxes looked to contain papers and notebooks or books.

She grabbed the topmost box and moved it to the other pile. Turning back, she froze. Behind the stack, bolted directly into the rough stone foundation wall, was a chain.

Not modern steel, but hand-forged iron, thick as her wrist. But it was the links themselves that stole her breath. Each one was meticulously carved with intricate, swirling symbols that seemed to shift subtly in the weak light. They pulsed with a faint, deep crimson light, like banked coals. No chance those were purely decorative.

Shaking off the surprise, she pushed all the boxes aside to take a closer look. The faint graveyard smell intensified near the chain, carrying the chill of deep, turned earth.

The other end of the chain vanished into a fist-sized hole in the floor. Cement cracked radially around it, veins in stone like from an impact crater. Dust sifted from these cracks as Buffy watched, disturbed by a faint, rhythmic vibration coming from deep below.

“Yeah, that can’t be good,” Buffy muttered to herself and then, unable to tear her eyes from the ominous chain and hole in the floor, yelled, “Dawn, can you get here?”

“Where’s here,” her sister bellowed back, but Buffy could hear her steps getting close to the basement she’d left open, so she just waited.

“We’re entering the basement now?” Dawn came thundering down the stairs. “Is there a body? Please tell me there’s not a body. Aunt Arlene was cool, but there are limits…”

Dawn bounced down the last steps, her playful chatter dying instantly as she followed Buffy’s gaze. Her eyes widened, all scholarly focus snapping into place. “Whoa.”

“You told me to go see what the house wanted to show me,” Buffy deadpanned as she stepped aside so Dawn could come see it. “Well, come look at this.”

Dawn pulled out her phone, snapping photos. "These symbols—Goltrash Codex, page 42! ‘Blood-forged chains of Gehenna.’ They’re not just restraints; they’re active suppressors, conduits for the binding magic!” She traced a crack in the cement. "Look how wide this fissure is. And the glow… Buffy, this isn’t just symbolism. It’s a physical tether to whatever’s bound below."

A low growl vibrated through the floor—not the house, but deeper. Hungrier. Dust sifted from the ceiling. The light bulb flickered madly.

Dawn’s scholarly awe vanished. "It’s straining. Whatever’s down there… it’s testing the chains."

Buffy pressed her palm flat against the cold stone wall beside the chain. The vibration intensified, a deep, resonant shudder that rattled her teeth. Not the house this time. Something colossal, moving with ponderous, deliberate force in the impenetrable dark, far beneath their feet.

The straining light bulb gave one final, agonized pop and died.

Darkness swallowed them whole, thick and suffocating.

Buffy’s Slayer vision adjusted to the darkness, making it all the more startling when the runes carved into the iron links blazed into sudden, fierce crimson light. They pulsed like a diseased heart, illuminating the terrified whites of Dawn’s eyes and casting long, monstrous shadows that danced on the walls – a stark, bloody warning etched in iron and fire. The growl deepened, vibrating the very air, and the chain gave a resonant, metallic groan.

The god beneath Charming was awake. And it knew they were there.

Chapter Text

The clubhouse air hung thick – a familiar cocktail of stale beer, cheap smoke, and the sour tang of regret that had long since seeped into the walls. It was the same stench Opie Winston had breathed since his prospect days, scrubbing far worse things than spilled Pabst out of the threadbare carpet that felt gritty under his boots.

He leaned his weight against the scarred pool table, the green felt worn down to the nub in patches like battle scars. It was less a table for games, more an altar for avoiding the shit that needed saying.

His thick, callused fingers worked the chalk over his cue tip with slow, deliberate circles, the blue dust powdering his skin like ingrained dirt, or maybe the residue of old worries no amount of scrubbing could lift.

Outside the grimy window, Jax’s Dyna tore into the lot, coming to a stop so hard the front tire skidded. Like the devil himself was riding bitch. Three days since Abel’s surgery. Three days since Summers somehow dragged Jax back from the ledge only for him to dive headfirst into every suicidal run Clay tossed his way.

Opie didn’t need words; he felt the frantic energy humming off his brother before the door opened. It was the same current that lit Jax up after Buffy vanished to L.A. when they were kids – the week he’d picked fights with half the Mayan prospects in the county behind Charming Middle.

Difference was, fifteen-year-old Jax came home busted up but grinning like a lunatic, high on the chaos. Thirty-year-old Jax just looked… emptied out. Hollow. Eyes scanning the room like a caged animal checking the bars, looking for exits that weren’t there.

The door slammed back on its hinges, rattling the glass panes in their frames. Tig Trager didn’t look up from his well-thumbed Hustler, a smirk playing on his lips around the ever-present toothpick. His voice was a lazy drawl, but the edge beneath it was sharp enough to cut. "Easy there, Rambo. Door cost money. Ain't replacin' it 'cause you got sand in your vagina." The insult hung, casual and pointed, a reminder that Tig would be their audience.

Jax ignored him, bee-lining for the ancient fridge like a man dying of thirst. His kutte rode up as he reached in, revealing fresh, raw road rash scoring his ribs through the torn tee.

Opie’s gaze tracked the damage like a mechanic taking inventory: split knuckles crusted brown and swollen (last night’s pointless Niner bullshit), a new angry burn welt snaking up his wrist towards his elbow (God only knew what dangerous errand Clay had him doing today). More entries in the grim ledger of Jax Teller’s accelerating self-destruction.

Opie lined up a shot, the cue ball cracking sharp and clean against the 3-ball, sending it rattling home. His voice, when it finally came, was a low rumble from deep in his chest, deceptively calm like the eye of a storm. "Gonna keep avoidin’ that house forever?"

Jax froze mid-swig, the PBR bottle catching the weak neon glow of the "Bud" sign. He lowered it slowly, his knuckles white on the glass. "The fuck you talkin’ about, Ope?" Deflection. Classic.

"Buffy." Opie sighted down the cue, not at the balls, but at Jax’s distorted, fractured reflection warping in the 8-ball’s glossy black surface. "Used to ride by that place like clockwork. Twice a day, easy. Now you treat Cherry Lane like it’s got ATF parked out front." Opie knew the routes. Knew the extra miles Jax added to every run just to avoid passing Arlene’s porch.

The fridge door whined a protest as Jax slammed it shut hard enough to rattle the bottles inside. "Busy." Classic Teller Evasion #3: Keep moving. Won’t have to deal with it if you outrun the conversation.

Opie shifted, a mountain of denim, worn leather, and quiet purpose subtly blocking Jax’s closest escape route. He raised a single, heavy eyebrow. "Busy catchin’ up with your own damn ghosts?" He nodded towards the dried blood flecking Jax’s boot treads. "How many fights you picked since Abel went under? Three? Four?" Like noting the oil level on a bike. Utterly matter-of-fact.

"Not your business," Jax snapped, trying to shoulder past.

Opie didn’t budge, the cue resting easy on his broad shoulder now, a silent barrier. “Made it my business when I sent her to pull your head outta your ass.”

He dropped his voice, aware of Tig’s feigned disinterest—even Hustler didn’t merit that amount of perusal in one spread. "She came through, didn’t she. Got you to your kid. What’d she do… call you on your bullshit straight up?" Opie had seen the steel in Buffy Summers back when they were kids. He’d bet money she hadn’t pulled punches.

Jax barked a laugh, harsh and dry as sandpaper. “What’s next? You gonna braid my fuckin’ hair? Pass the tissues?” The sarcasm was brittle, a thin shield.

"Just tired of watchin’ you dig," Opie stated, matter-of-fact, tapping the cue lightly against Jax’s bruised knuckles. "Punchin’ harder. Ridin’ faster. Same playbook as after she left for L.A., you think I don’t ‘member how you were? ‘Cept you ain’t fifteen no more. You know better."

The ancient air conditioner shuddered to life, rattling the chains on the ceiling fan like loose teeth. Outside, a prospect gunned an engine too loud, still green enough to think noise meant power.

Jax dragged a hand down his face, weariness etched deep. "Things… ain’t the same, Ope."

"Yeah," Opie conceded, his voice softening a fraction. Just a fraction. The bedrock of his tone remained solid. "But she’s still the girl who cold-cocked Jimmy Falco,” his lips quirked with amusement at the memory, Jax’s did too despite of his brooding.

Opie leaned back slightly, weighing the words he was about to say. “Still looks at you," he paused, choosing his words carefully, "like you ain't just SAMCRO's VP. Like there's somethin' under the kutte worth salvaging."

He leaned back in, intent eyes on his best friend, his presence filling the space between them. "You got a kid fightin’ in a plastic box. A club ready to eat its own the second you show a chink. That gonna be your excuse for another sixteen years of ‘what the fuck happened’?"

Silence, thick as the clubhouse air. Only the fridge’s drone, the labored whir of the air conditioner, and the fading, impotent roar of the prospect’s bike down Cherry Lane.

Jax stared at the stained floor, shoulders hunched like he was waiting for the gavel to fall. "I kissed her."

Opie just grunted. Low. Understanding. "She shut it down." It wasn’t a question. He read the answer in the tight line of Jax’s jaw. "Smart girl. Always was. Knows you’re just lookin’ for a distraction." He saw the flinch. Knew he’d hit the nerve.

Jax’s glare could have cut glass. "Does it matter? She’s gone soon as the house sells. Abel’s in the goddamn toaster. Wendy’s barely outta the woods. Tara looks at me like I’m supposed to fix it. Clay’s got the Mayans breathin’ down his neck and me runnin’ hot loads. I don’t need Buffy Summers draggin’ up ancient history."

Opie snorted. "Bullshit. She’s the only one in this zip code who don’t want a damn thing from you ‘cept you stayin’ vertical." He held Jax's stormy gaze. "Maybe that’s what scares you shitless. No agenda. Just… you."

The words landed. Jax went still. Sucker-punched by the truth.

The moment shattered as Half-Nut stumbled in, waving a thick envelope like a flag. "Jax! Got the—"

"Wrong fuckin' room, Romeo!" Tig barked, snapping his magazine shut in a snap, his eyes finally lifting, sharp and impatient. "Clay’s office. Down the hall. Move your ass!" Confirmation he’d been following the conversation, his feigned disinterest a facade.

Opie waited until the spooked kid scrambled off towards Clay’s lair. His voice dropped back to that low, gravelly register, meant only for Jax’s ears. "You think I don’t know?" The quiet intensity was palpable. "Donna’s on my case daily ‘bout quittin’. My kids… sometimes they look at me like I’m a stranger walkin’ through their door." He swallowed, the admission rough.

He shook his head slowly, the weight of it all in the gesture. "But Buffy? She looks at you, she still sees the dumbass kid who tried to shotgun warm Schlitz behind the Dairy Queen and puked on his own boots."

Jax’s jaw clenched, muscles jumping beneath skin. "She’s… harder now. Different. Hidin’ somethin’."

"Aren’t we all?" Opie shrugged, the movement heavy with the acceptance of a lifetime steeped in Charming’s particular brand of poison. “You think she hasn’t noticed you’re different too? Still came after your self-destructive ass when I asked.”

The truth hung between them, thick and suffocating like exhaust fumes.

Opie remembered how after going through the Mayan prospects and the worst had passed, there had still been the raw, bleeding knuckles from Jax working on his bike non-stop. Snapped warnings to anyone who dared say her name for months.

Opie remembered the quiet mentions over beers through the years, after other girls came and went – "Buffy wouldn't have put up with that shit..." whispered like a confession. History didn't just repeat in Charming; it circled like vultures, waiting for the weak to stumble. Opie wasn’t about to watch his brother sleepwalk into the same damn ditch twice.

"Fix it," Opie said, the words final. A command wrapped in brotherhood. He clapped a heavy hand on Jax’s shoulder, grounding him for a second. "Before you lose her. And yourself."

Jax shoved past him, a hard shoulder-check that Opie absorbed without flinching. "Fuck you, Ope."

Opie watched him storm out; the door slamming shut like a gunshot. A slow, knowing smirk touched his lips. Got him.

Through the smudged window, he watched Jax swing a leg over his bike with too much force, stabbing the ignition. The engine roared to life, a raw, angry challenge to the world, before he peeled out, fishtailing slightly before straightening and accelerating down the street, not towards club's business, but towards Cherry Lane.

Tig materialized silently at Opie’s elbow, the sweet-sour reek of cheap weed clinging to him. He let out a low, appreciative whistle. "Kid's wound tighter than a meth head’s guitar string. Since when you turn into fuckin' Dr. Phil?"

"Since Prince Charming’s ridin’ straight for a cliff," Opie said flatly, already leaning over the table. He sighted, stroked, and sank the 8-ball with a decisive thunk. "Twenty says he’s sittin’ on Arlene’s porch by sundown."

Tig snorted derisively. "Easy money, brother." But his grin was sharp, appreciating the play.

Outside, the dying sun bled red over Charming, painting the streets in the color of old wounds and fading hope.

Opie methodically racked the balls for another solitary game, the sharp clack of the triangle loud in the sudden, heavy quiet. He listened to the fading, furious roar of Jax’s bike until it was swallowed by the distance. Fix it, he willed into the twilight, the thought a silent prayer wrapped in grit. Before the road runs out.

Summers House – Later That Night

Sleep was a fragile thing in the Summers house after their visit to the basement. The visual confirmation to the heavy stakes raised their anxiety and unplanned mid-night meetings in the kitchen had increased.

Buffy didn’t so much wake as jolt upright, Slayer senses screaming a silent alarm before her conscious mind processed the sound. Drip. Thwap. Drip. Not the erratic patter of rain on the roof. This was thicker, slower—heavier. Like viscous tar falling onto a hard surface.

She was out of bed, a knife already in hand, before her eyes fully adjusted to the gloom. The dripping wasn't coming from the bathroom. It echoed from the hallway through the door crack. Heart hammering against her ribs – not from fear, but the adrenaline surge of confirmed threat – she eased her door open.

The hallway air was thick with the cloying scent of damp earth and something metallic, like old blood. Moonlight filtered weakly through the landing window, illuminating the horror. Black ooze, thick and glistening, seeped from jagged cracks spiderwebbing on top of the wall and the ceiling plaster close to the walls.

It wasn't just dripping; it pulsed, bulging obscenely from the fissures before sliding down or falling with heavy splats onto the worn floorboards below. It pooled, tar-like, spreading slowly but deliberately.

"Dawn!" Buffy hissed, her voice tight with urgency"Get up! Now! We’ve got a serious, ooze-based problem!"

Dawn emerged a second later, blinking sleep from her eyes, her face instantly paling as she took in the scene. "Whoa. Ew. More of the haunted house juice? I thought we’d be done when it got us in the basement. Did the basement puke?" Her attempt at levity faltered as a larger globule detached itself from the ceiling and landed with a sickening splat near her bare feet. She jumped back. "Okay, no. Just no."

"Not disagreeing with that," Buffy deadpanned, snatching the cast-iron fireplace poker leaning against the wall. She cautiously prodded the nearest pool. The ooze didn't just recoil; it hissed, a sound like steam escaping, and the black surface momentarily bubbled and writhed where the poker touched it.

Before Dawn could retort, the house itself groaned. Not the familiar settling creak of an old building. This was a deep, guttural, tectonic shudder that vibrated up through the soles of their feet and rattled their teeth. Framed photos on the walls – Aunt Arlene beaming in her garden, a faded picture of Buffy and Dawn as kids – swung violently. Downstairs, the stately grandfather clock in the living room began to chime.

Bong… Bong… Bong…

It chimed once. Twice. Kept going. Past twelve. Past the witching hour.

Thirteen.

The final, dissonant note hung in the air, vibrating with unnatural resonance long after it should have faded. The silence that followed was heavier, charged with static and dread. The dripping ooze seemed to pause, listening.

"Okay," Dawn whispered, backing towards the top of the stairs, her scholarly bravado replaced by genuine fear. Her eyes were wide, fixed on the spreading sludge. "New rule, officially instituted: No more midnight snacks in Murder Mansion. Ever. And maybe no breathing? Is it too late to just—leave?"

“If only it was that that easy,” Buffy glanced at Dawn over her shoulder, her Slayer senses scanning for possible changes. The ooze wasn’t just spreading randomly. The largest pool was directly outside the door to the converted laundry room – the room above the basement stairs.

The vibrations… they felt sickeningly familiar. The same deep, resonant shudder she’d felt through the stone wall beside the chain. Amplified. Closer.

"Basement," Buffy breathed, the word tasting like ash. "It’s pushing up."

As if triggered by her words, the ooze reacted. Tendrils lashed out from the main pool with shocking speed, not towards the girls, but towards the walls and floorboards. Where they touched the wood, the material instantly blackened. The sickly-sweet stench of decay intensified, mingling with the grave-dirt smell.

"It’s trying to eat the house!" Dawn yelped, scrambling further back as a tendril snaked towards the stair carpet, leaving a trail of desiccated fibers in its wake.

"Worse," Buffy muttered, her knuckles white on the poker. She could feel a building pressure, the feeling of something assaulting her mental walls.

Then came the whispers. Not audible words, at first. Just a susurration, a rustling like dry leaves or insect wings, vibrating through the floorboards, seeping from somewhere below.

It grew louder, resolving into fragmented, overlapping voices – distorted, agonized, filled with ancient malice and bottomless hunger. Phrases in languages Buffy didn’t know, punctuated by guttural growls and sharp, pained cries.

Dawn clapped her hands over her ears, her face contorted. "Make it stop! Buffy, what is that?"

"Their opening move. It’s a psychic attack," Buffy said grimly, shifting her stance, her eyes scanning for anything physical besides the sludge.

The whispers weren't just sound; they were pressure, an assault that scraped against her mind, trying to instill primal terror. They picked a wrong girl, if they thought this would send her running, but it drive home the need to learn everything possible about the binding ritual with the house and, provided there weren’t overwhelming red flags, do the ritual. The amount of malice she felt told her she definitely did not want to give that thing any more leash.

“It feels like someone’s squeezing my brain like an over-ripe orange,” Dawn groaned.

“I can feel it weakening, but if there ever was a question about it, we definitely don’t want that thing free,” Buffy stated.

“No shit,” Dawn squinted with the pain. “I’m so buying what Branwen told you about the whole annihilating bloodlines. That is some toxic juju.”

The house groaned around them, almost visibly shifting and, as they watched, the tar-like substance seeped back through the wood. It was like the house was absorbing it. The sludge went, but it left behind the dark stains and the cloyingly sweet smell.

Dawn made a face and went to open the hall window. “I vote we do the binding with the house, provided there’s no actual apocalypse trigger hidden in the ritual.”

“Agreed. Because that thing will bring on the end of days if it gets free,” Buffy said, glad they were on the same page.

The next morning dawned grey and brittle, sunlight struggling through the living room windows. It found Dawn sprawled across Aunt Arlene’s faded Persian rug like a shipwrecked scholar, an island of chaos in the otherwise ordered room.

She was adrift in a sea of knowledge: brittle, leather-bound journals they’d scavenged from the basement, smelling faintly of dust and lavender sachets lay open. Giles’ meticulously indexed grimoires formed precarious towers; photocopies of obscure texts fluttered like pale leaves whenever the ancient furnace kicked on. The coffee table was a battlefield casualty zone – empty cardboard takeout containers (last night’s dubious Thai), half-drunk cans of fluorescent energy drinks, and mugs ringed with cold coffee dregs testified to an intense, caffeine-fueled all-nighter. Dawn’s hair was a wild halo, her eyes red-rimmed but blazing with the fierce focus of discovery.

“Found something!” Her voice was hoarse but triumphant. She waved a particularly ancient-looking journal, its cracked leather spine held together by fraying fabric tape. “Aunt Margie – that’s Great-Aunt Margaret, Arlene’s predecessor – wrote about ‘black tides’ rising in the cellar before the 1906 earthquake hit. Says the house ‘bled from its bones’ when the seal weakened.” She tapped the spidery handwriting on the yellowed page. “Sound familiar?”

Buffy, mid-swing on her third mug of industrial-strength coffee, froze. The rich aroma momentarily overpowered the lingering scent of stale takeout and old paper. “So, the ooze means—”

“—Shit’s getting worse,” Dawn finished flatly, slumping back against the sofa front. The floorboards beneath them gave a distinct, weary creak, as if agreeing with the assessment. “It’s a symptom. A nasty, gooey symptom of the seal degrading under pressure. Like… pus from an infected wound.”

Buffy took a long, bracing sip and tilted her head consideringly, “Well, to be fair, that was kind of obvious after the midnight sludge-fest and the demonic mind meld attempt.”

“True,” Dawn conceded, rubbing her temples. “There’s not usually rivers of sentient black goo cascading down the hallway if everything’s well and dandy.” She gestured vaguely at the ceiling where faint, dark stains were now visible in the morning light. “But at least this confirms it’s directly linked to the seal’s integrity, not just random haunted house grossness. Aunt Margie saw it too, before a major seismic event stressed the bindings. And last night… that felt like stress.”

Buffy nodded, her gaze drifting towards the basement door, invisible from the living room but palpably present in both their minds. The confirmation was grim, but valuable. It tied the horror show directly to the chain, the hole, and the thing beneath.

The tremors started late afternoon – subtle at first, just a faint rattling of dishes in the kitchen cabinets, a nervous shiver running through the windchimes hanging on the front porch. Nothing catastrophic, but persistent, like the grumbling of a vast, discontented stomach deep in the earth.

Buffy was meticulously wiping down already-clean counters in the kitchen, a nervous energy keeping her moving. Every faint vibration made her tense, her Slayer instincts cataloging the intensity, ready to leap if anything threatened to vibrate its way off a shelf. The relative quiet was shattered not by another tremor, but by a sound that turned her blood cold.

“Buffy!” Dawn’s scream wasn’t just loud; it was pure, unadulterated terror, echoing with unnatural clarity up the basement stairs and through the wide-open door.

Buffy knew instantly it was bad. Not just from the raw panic in Dawn’s voice, but from the sheer fact that Dawn had braved the basement alone after yesterday’s revelations. Buffy was moving before her conscious thought caught up, her coffee mug abandoned, intended for the counter, but crashing into the sink as she bolted for the doorway.

She took the stairs two at a time, the dim light from the single bulb light above casting long, jumping shadows. She found Dawn frozen at the foot of the stairs, her knuckles white where she gripped a heavy-duty flashlight. The beam wasn't steady; it trembled violently, illuminating the scene with a shaky, stark light.

Dawn wasn't looking at the chain on the wall. She was staring, transfixed with horror, at the cement floor directly beneath where the chain vanished into its fist-sized hole.

A jagged fissure, easily an inch wide at its center, had split the stone floor from where the chain disappeared below the concrete like a black lightning bolt. It ran radially from the hole, extending several feet. And it glowed.

A faint, sickly green light pulsed from deep within the crack, rhythmic and unsettling. The light seemed to throb in time with the faint tremors still vibrating through the soles of their shoes.

The chain bolted to the wall was visibly straining. The thick, ancient iron links groaned under an immense, unseen tension, pulled taut towards the fissure. The carved symbols seemed darker, the faint crimson glow dimmed, as if struggling against the green luminescence bleeding from below.

“I followed the sludge smell,” Dawn whispered, her voice thin and strained. She didn’t take her eyes off the fissure. “It was stronger here… and then I saw this.”

Buffy crouched beside her sister, her Slayer senses instantly assaulted. The familiar, cloying scent of damp earth and stale air was now thick with the overwhelming, stomach-churning stench of deep rot wafting up from the glowing fissure. It was the smell of something ancient and profoundly corrupted.

She placed a hand near the crack; the stone vibrated with a low, dangerous hum. “Whatever’s down there isn’t just awake,” she said, her voice low and hard. “It’s pushing harder. Testing harder. We need to move the ritual up. Gather what we need, we’re doing it tomorrow.” The urgency was a cold knot in her stomach.

Dawn finally tore her gaze from the pulsing green light, her face pale. “Gee, ya think?” Her attempt at sarcasm fell flat. Almost defiantly, she nudged a loose pebble near the fissure’s edge with her sneaker. It tumbled into the narrow, glowing void.

They both held their breath, counting silently in the oppressive quiet. One… two… three… four… A wet, muffled snap echoed back from the impenetrable darkness far below, chillingly distinct. Dawn flinched, her bravado evaporating.

The sound wasn’t stone hitting stone. It was something else. Something organic. Hungry. The confirmation of the depth, and the presence, was horrifyingly concrete. The ritual wasn't just urgent; it was their only play.

Chapter Text

The house hadn’t bled any more black tar since the psychic assault, but it hadn’t settled either. Add to that, since the horrifying discovery of the glowing fissure in the basement yesterday evening, the house had thrummed with a low-level anxiety.

Buffy had spent the morning double-checking the ritual components Branwen had listed. Her nerves were frayed by the memory of that wet snap echoing from the depths and the migraine from the damage on her mental fortifications still throbbed behind her temples like a drumbeat synced to her heartbeat.

When she came downstairs around noon, she found Dawn in the living room, haloed by the cold glow of her laptop screen and surrounded by a fortress of books that had grown since yesterday. Dawn must have raided the basement storage boxes again after Buffy went up.

The coffee table groaned under the weight of leather-bound tomes scavenged from the basement; their spines cracked with age. A half-demolished box of donuts sat precariously near the edge, a smear of raspberry filling perilously close to a first edition of Hauntings & Hexes: A Practitioner’s Guide. Giles was definitely going to have words if any of that jam found itself on the book.

Dawn herself looked like she’d gone ten rounds with the poltergeist and the basement fissure – hair an impressive frizz halo, dark circles under her red-rimmed eyes, and a smear of powdered sugar on her cheek that might’ve been there since her energy drink breakfast.

“Hey,” Buffy said, flicking on the overhead light. The bulb buzzed sharply before dimming to a grudging amber, casting long, uneasy shadows. “I know we need the ritual today, but you look like the library threw up on you and then kicked you for good measure.”

Dawn squinted, shielding her eyes. “Turn that off! We’re cultivating focus! And possibly trying not to attract attention from the thing trying to eat the foundations!” She gestured weakly to the lone candle sputtering valiantly on the mantel beside Eleanor Summers’ stern daguerreotype that they’d found in one of the storage boxes in the basement.

Buffy nudged a leaning stack of books with her boot, recognizing Giles’ meticulous handwriting on sticky notes peeking from pages. The Ley Line Lexicon. Blood Oaths & Binding Rituals. Genius Loci: Manifestations of Place. “Someone’s been liberating parts of Giles’ private stash. Stole these, didn’t you?”

“Borrowed with extreme prejudice,” Dawn corrected, snatching Blood Oaths before it toppled. “It’s not theft if the world might end and Cleveland has backups. Probably digital ones. Maybe. Ones safe from any possible ooze.” Her gaze flickered nervously towards the basement door.

The radiator hissed, a sound like steam escaping a buried pipe. Buffy snorted. “Even the house sounds judgy about your methods.”

Dawn ignored her, stabbing a finger at her screen. Her earlier exhaustion was momentarily replaced by focused intensity. “Okay, deep dive into genius loci. Roman guardian spirits tied to specific places—temples, crossroads, probably that weird gnarled oak out by the old quarry everyone avoids… Places with weight.”

She spun the laptop, revealing a digitized manuscript riddled with Dawn’s aggressive red underlines and frantically highlighted passages. “But here’s the kicker—some weren’t just found. They were made. Conjured, bound, merged by people who needed serious, permanent protection. Like… a supernatural security system fused to the very land.”

Buffy perched on the arm of the sofa, the worn fabric groaning softly. “So, Branwen didn’t just summon a random convenient demon? She built the guardian? How is it here if Branwen summoned it in Wales?”

“No, better.” Dawn’s eyes gleamed in the light. “She didn't build it; she fused the spirit with the foundation of the ancient family home, using Summers blood.”

Buffy hummed that she was paying attention and Dawn went on, “The house isn’t haunted—it’s alive. A living, thinking… place-spirit. And for centuries, it’s been drawing strength from the Summers women living within it. That’s the ‘feeding’ Eliza mentioned. Our presence, our connection, our inherent power – it’s the battery.”

Dawn tapped the sketch of the mineshafts in Eliza’s open journal. “And Eliza and Swift River used that connection, channeled through the house, to power the bindings keeping the god under the land chained.”

The floorboards creaked—a long, shuddering groan that traveled from the foyer straight to the basement door. Buffy’s Slayer senses prickled, a familiar pressure building behind her eyes – the psychic residue from last night’s attack flaring with the house’s agitation. “Symbiotic relationship. We power the house; the house powers the seal,” she summarized.

“Exactly!” Dawn flopped back against the couch, sending a cascade of powdered sugar to the carpet. Ants were definitely in their future. “No Summers anchor, no extra juice for the bindings. No power…” She mimed an explosion with her hands, less playful this time, more grim. “Game over, Charming edition.”

Buffy’s gaze drifted back to Eleanor Summers’ stern face on the mantel. “So, we’ll  be what’s keeping the lid on Pandora’s box.”

“With excellent historical architecture and questionable plumbing,” Dawn quipped weakly. The house’s pipes clanged in response, a discordant metallic bang that made them both jump slightly.

A sudden, icy draft sliced through the room, snuffing the candle and plunging them into near-darkness when the overhead light fritzed out. In the sudden gloom, the grandfather clock’s ticking in the hall grew unnaturally loud, each tock echoing like a hammer strike on stone. Buffy was on her feet instantly, “Dawn—!”

The ceiling light flickered back on with a harsh buzz, revealing one of the Summers journals lying splayed open on the rug, pages rustling as if turned by an unseen hand. It was open to a passage about "the earth's restless groaning" before the '06 quake.

“Subtle,” Dawn muttered, snatching the journal up, her fingers trembling slightly. The forced bravado was cracking.

Buffy joined her on the floor, squinting at Eliza’s sketch of the mines on the page of another journal that had moved closer to Dawn.

Dawn was looking at it too, but at the page next to the drawing. “Branwen wasn’t just hinting about the Tellers,” she pointed, her finger trembling only a little. “Look—Eliza wrote that her husband, Swift River of Lakisamni, was murdered in 1854. By his father’s own shaman apprentice, a guy called Iron Claw Teller. Iron Claw betrayed them, stole sacred tribal land for gold mining…” Dawn’s voice dropped. “…and his greed cracked open the prison holding the god.”

“Waking the thing their people were sworn to guard,” Buffy finished, the pieces clicking with cold dread. The house groaned again, a deep vibration resonating up through the floorboards, making the dust motes dance in the weak light. “And without a Lakisamni shaman, Teller or otherwise, to help maintain the seal…”

“Exactly,” Dawn breathed. “The Summers women and the house became the only barrier. The Tellers didn't just abandon their duty; they created the problem and walked away from fixing it. No wonder the house gives Jax Teller the supernatural stink-eye.”

“It doesn’t have eyes,” Buffy murmured automatically. The memory flashed—Jax’s bloodied knuckles at the hospital parking lot, the hollow look in his eyes. Club business.

The radiator suddenly roared to life, blasting stifling heat that carried a faint, acrid whiff of sulfur and sweet rot. Dawn gagged, waving a hand. “Ugh! It’s like Satan’s sauna in here!”

“It’s not just complaining,” Buffy said, moving to the window and yanking the curtains aside. Outside, the sky had deepened to a bruised purple, though it was barely past noon. Ominous storm clouds coiled over the mountains like serpents, lightning flickering deep within their bellies. “It’s practically screaming. I think the god is pushing harder. The fissure… the tremors… it’s breaking through faster. We’re out of time.” Buffy’s migraine throbbed in time with the distant thunder.

Dawn hugged her knees to her chest, suddenly looking very young. “What… what exactly happens if we do this binding? With the house?” Buffy noted the ‘we’. Dawn had fully included herself at some point, and the solidarity was a small, fierce warmth against the growing chill.

Buffy tapped the mantle beside Eleanor’s picture, her voice low. “You read the same journals I did. According to Aunt Eleanor’s notes? We become its anchors. Its permanent keepers. Tied to it. Tied to Charming. Maybe… forever.”

Dawn swallowed hard. “And if we don’t?”

The basement door slammed open with a crash that shook the walls. Not wind. Not settling. From the darkness below breathed a wave of cold, wet air, thick with the stench of loam, decay, and the metallic tang they associated with the glowing crack in the concrete down there. A deep, subsonic rumble vibrated the floor, unsettling their insides, a visceral reminder of the hunger below.

Dawn paled, staring at the yawning darkness. “Right. Stupid question.” She swallowed hard. “Okay. Binding ritual. Today. No pressure.”

“Dawnie,” Buffy started, turning to face her sister fully. “You know… you don’t have to bind yourself to it. I’m the oldest. The Slayer. The responsibility—”

“Oh, cut the martyr crap!” Dawn interrupted, surging to her feet, powdered sugar puffing off her sweater. “What did I say about you trying to shoulder every apocalypse solo? If one Summers adds power, two Summers are a goddamn nuclear reactor! Besides,” she added, forcing a smirk that didn't quite reach her eyes, “the way I figure it, it’s like Game of Thrones rules.”

Buffy blinked. “Game of…?”

“There must always be a Stark in Winterfell,” Dawn declared with mock grandeur, gesturing around the living room. “Therefore, there must always be a Summers in Charming. Preferably two. Backup.” Her expression sobered. “We have to do this. Together. Today. Branwen said the seal needs both bloodlines, but the house needs its Summers batteries. The fissure… that pebble…” She shuddered. “We can’t wait.”

Buffy’s throat tightened, the weight of the tether settling around her like chains. Binding herself to the house meant binding herself irrevocably to Charming – to its buried god, its violent history, its bloody secrets. To SAMCRO’s wars. And to Jax Teller, whose bloodline was both poison and a key to a supernatural lock.

“I know,” Buffy said, her voice rough but resolute. She met Dawn’s determined gaze. “We do it tonight. Gather everything. Let’s hope the instructions are accurate… and that the house is done throwing tantrums for a few hours.”

Jax’s POV

The air in Clay's office was thick with the acrid stench of stale cigars and the sharper tang of bourbon gone warm in the glass. The amber glow from the desk lamp carved deep shadows under Clay Morrow's brow, turning his already-granite features into something even harder. Maps and ledgers were spread across the desk, but the old man wasn't looking at them—he was pacing, his boots heavy on the worn floorboards. 

Jax leaned against the wall by the door, arms crossed, his own cut shadowed in the dim light. He hadn’t sat. Sitting meant staying. And right now, every instinct in him was coiled tight, ready to move.

"Mayans hit our meth shipment last night," Clay growled, the words rough as gravel under tires. "Took the whole goddamn load. You been too busy playin’ house with that Summers girl to notice?"

Summers.

The name hooked under Jax’s ribs like a dull blade. He’d seen Buffy exactly once since Abel’s surgery—a brief, charged moment outside the diner, him pushing through the door just as she and Dawn were leaving. She’d met his eyes, just for a second, before the space between them filled with the weight of the kiss neither of them had mentioned since. He hadn’t been avoiding her, not exactly. But he hadn’t sought her out either, beyond the occasional text updating her on Abel.

And now Clay was dragging her into this.

Jax pushed off the wall, his voice low but edged. "I’m here, ain’t I?"

Clay slammed a fist onto the map, making the glass ashtray jump. "You’re here, but your head’s with that blonde and her haunted fuckin’ mansion. Gemma says—"

"Gemma should stay out of it."

The words landed like a match in dry grass. Clay’s eyes—cold and calculating, the same eyes that had watched Jax grow up, that had steered SAMCRO through blood and fire—narrowed. The old man’s voice dropped, dangerous. "You forgettin’ who runs this club, boy?"

Jax didn’t flinch. "I know exactly who runs it."

The tension stretched, brittle. Somewhere outside, a crow cawed—too close, too harsh, like the bird was perched right on the clubhouse roof, waiting.

Clay’s next words faded to static in Jax’s ears. The pressure in his chest was too much, the walls too tight. He was moving before he’d made the decision, the office door rattling on its hinges as he shoved through it.

The clubhouse was a blur—Tig’s raised eyebrow from the pool table, Bobby’s half-formed question, Chibs lifting his chin in silent acknowledgment. Jax didn’t stop.

The rain hit him like a slap as he pushed outside, the storm that had been threatening all day finally breaking. Thunder rolled overhead, a deep, discontented growl. His bike was where he’d left it, rain already beading on the chrome. He swung a leg over, stabbing the ignition. The engine roared to life, a challenge to the weather, to Clay, to the whole damn town.

He wasn’t thinking about where he was going. Not consciously. But the road unfolded under his wheels like it knew the way, the wet asphalt gleaming under his headlight.

And then the Summers house loomed ahead, its windows glowing gold against the storm-dark sky. Defiant. Warm.

Jax killed the engine at the curb, rain needling his face as he stared at the porch. He hadn’t planned this. Hadn’t planned anything. But the weight in his chest—the one that had been there since Abel, since the kiss, since Opie’s words in the clubhouse—pulled him to her and he didn’t know if he had it in himself to fight it any longer.

Buffy’s POV

The storm wasn’t just weather.

Buffy knew it the second she stepped onto the porch, the wind snatching her breath away and whipping her hair into a frenzy. The air tasted metallic, charged with more than the pressure from the storm. Above the house, the clouds rolled restlessly, converging in a dark mass. If you looked closely, their underbellies had an eerie, greenish tinge that had nothing to do with natural storms.

Dawn appeared at her elbow, clutching a leather-bound grimoire and a mason jar filled with a viscous too-dark liquid. “We’ve got maybe an hour before that thing decides to RSVP in person.”

Buffy didn’t argue. The crack in the basement had widened since yesterday. The chain’s glow had dimmed, its symbols fraying at the edges like burning parchment. And the whispers—those fragmented, guttural voices—had crept into the edges of her dreams.

The house knew it too.

As they hurried back inside, the front door slammed shut behind them with a force that rattled the pictures on the walls. The grandfather clock in the hall chimed once—a deep, dissonant note that hung in the air too long. A warning.

The ritual space in the basement was a mess of chalk circles, their sigils painstakingly copied from Branwen’s diagrams. Candles of varying lengths—stolen from every room in the house—formed a jagged ring around the largest circle, their flames guttering in the draft from the fissure. Dawn had dragged down every relevant text, their spines cracked open to pages marked by neon sticky notes.

Buffy had laid out the necessary components—Arlene’s athame, a vial of Summers blood (Slayer healing once again proving itself a gift), and a lock of hair from each of them.

The chain in the corner groaned.

Buffy ignored it, focusing instead on the final sigils she was drawing on the cold concrete floor. The symbols had to be perfect. One misaligned line, one shaky curve, and the binding could backfire—tying them to the house, yes, but also potentially weakening the seal further.

Dawn squinted at a crumbling journal her voice tight with forced levity. "Okay, cliff notes version: Light the candles, stand in the circle, recite the incantation, slice our palms, and press them to the foundation. House drinks our blood, we drink this rancid herbal tea—" She shook the mason jar, its contents sloshing unpleasantly. "—and bam. Supernatural symbiosis achieved. We become the house's favorite batteries, it gets a power boost to keep Cthulhu Junior locked up."

"That's the least reassuring summary ever," Buffy muttered, blowing chalk dust from the final symbol.

Dawn’s grin was all teeth. “Would you prefer the twelve-paragraph version with footnotes?”

Before Buffy could retort, the house shuddered. Not the usual creaks or groans—this was a full-body flinch, the walls trembling like a spooked animal. Dust rained from the ceiling. The chain in the corner twanged, the sound vibrating through Buffy’s molars.

“Oh crap. Oh crap—”

Buffy grabbed Dawn’s wrist, hauling her back as the floor beneath them lurched. The fissure split wider with a sound like snapping bone, jagged cracks spiderwebbing further across the concrete. From the depths, the chain’s symbols ignited—not their usual crimson, but that same sickly, pulsating green. The scraping started again.

Not from the hole. Not from the chain.

From beneath them.

Something colossal, something ancient, dragging itself closer to the surface.

Dawn's fingers dug into Buffy's arm hard enough to bruise. "Okay. New plan. Bond with the house five minutes ago."

"Light the candles," Buffy ordered, scanning the symbols one last time. Her pulse hammered in her throat. Everything matched Branwen's diagrams. It had to work.

Dawn fumbled through her pockets. “Wait, did you—?”

“Damn it, no.” Buffy thrust the journal at her. “Double-check the incantation. I’ll grab the matches from the kitchen.”

She took the stairs two at a time, the house’s groans escalating into something that sounded like panic. The kitchen drawer screeched open before she touched it—the house was helping, for once—and there, amid the junk, was Arlene’s old matchbook from the Roadhouse.

The doorbell rang.

Buffy froze.

Dawn’s voice echoed from the basement, shrill over the growing rumble. “Buffy?!”

The doorbell rang again, followed by three sharp knocks. Familiar. Insistent.

Jax.

Of course it was.

Buffy closed her eyes for a heartbeat, torn between the apocalypse in her basement and the man who’d always been her own personal natural disaster.

The lock clicked open before she could touch it.

The house made the choice for her.

Chapter Text

Rainwater sluiced off Jax’s kutte as he stood on the Summers’ porch, the storm raging behind him like the churn of his own thoughts. Even the old oak tree on the Summers property was bending in the wind.

He hadn’t planned on coming here—hadn’t planned anything beyond getting the hell out of Clay’s office—but his bike had carried him here on instinct, the same way it always seemed to when his mind was too full and his chest too tight.

He was raising his fist to knock again, when the door swung open, stopping him mid-motion.

Buffy stood there, backlit by the flickering hallway light, her blonde hair wind-tossed and the dark circles around her eyes standing out with the shallow undertone of her skin. She didn’t look surprised to see him—more resigned. Like she’d been expecting him, dreading him. He couldn’t lie, seeing that look combined with the way she blocked the threshold, instead of inviting him in like she usually did, stung.

Behind her, the house groaned, a deep, shuddering sound that vibrated through the porch floorboards. The air smelled wrong—not just rain and old wood, but something disconcertingly sweet.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she said, voice low and urgent.

“Where else would I go?” The words slipped out raw, unguarded. Surprise and hurt warred in him.

From somewhere deep inside, Dawn’s voice echoed, frantic. “Buffy! Now would be good!”

Her eyes locked onto his, her expression adamant. “You need to leave.”

“What aren’t you telling me?” he demanded.

Buffy kept glancing over her shoulder, clearly torn between him and whatever was going on inside. “Come on, B. I’m not stupid, I know there’s something you’re keeping from me.”

Jax stepped forward, his boots thudding against the worn wood. The floorboards trembled beneath him, a tremor that had nothing to do with the storm. His instincts screamed at him—danger, danger, danger—but he ignored them, focusing instead on Buffy’s tense shoulders, the way her fingers flexed like she was ready to shove him back into the rain.

Another crack split the air—this time louder, sharper. The house lurched, throwing him forward into Buffy. She caught him, her grip bruising, her body warm and solid against his for one fleeting second before she shoved him back.

“Buffy!” Dawn’s voice was pure panic now.

Jax didn’t hesitate. He slid past her into the house, ignoring her frustrated snarl. The door slammed shut behind him, the lock clicking on its own.

What the hell—

“No time,” Buffy cut off his thoughts, already dragging him down the hall toward the basement stairs. Her grip was iron. “You’re here. Fine. But you do exactly what I say, or we’re all dead.”

The basement door stood open, darkness and flickering candlelight spilling up the stairs. The air coming from below was thick—not just damp, but charged, like the moment before lightning strikes. And beneath that, something worse.

Something rotting.

Dawn stood in the center of a chalk-drawn circle with scribbles along it, her face pale, hands shaking as she clutched a knife and a mason jar filled with something dark. Around her, candles fluttered wildly, their flames bending unnaturally toward the far wall—where a thick iron chain, bolted into the stone, pulsed with a sickly green glow.

And beneath it—

Christ.

A jagged crack split the concrete floor, wide enough to slip a hand into. And from its depths came a sound—not a growl, not a scrape, but a voice.

Guttural. Hungry. Ancient. They weren’t words he recognized—

Jax’s vision blurred.

—Blood on his hands, not his own, never his own—the club’s, the Mayans’, Abel’s, his father’s—always more blood—

—Gemma’s voice, sharp as a blade: “You’re weak. Just like him.”

—Buffy at fifteen, laughing, her eyes sparkling—then Buffy on the ground, clutching her bleeding abdomen—

The images came with agonizing feeling of failure, each one tearing through his skull, digging deeper. He staggered, catching himself against the wall as the pressure in his head spiked.

“Jax!” Buffy’s voice cut through the noise, sharp as steel.

He blinked, gasping, heartbeat thundering. The visions faded, but the pressure in his head didn’t. The chain’s glow pulsed faster now, the symbols carved into its links flickering like dying embers, same symbols as the afterimages painted on the backs of his lids when he blinked.

Jax steadied himself with a shuddering breath. “What the hell’s happening?!”

“I don’t have time to explain! Dawn, you ready?”

“You’re dabbling in some sick cult shit, Summers,” he snapped over Dawn’s agreement. Though his voice lacked heat. The rational part of his brain—the part that still believed in engines and payroll ledgers and Clay’s ironclad rules—was drowning under the tidal wave of wrongness flooding the room, the thing that had felt like an ice pick into his brain.

“Cult shit’s got better dental plans, Jax.” Buffy dismissed, it was clear her focus wasn’t wholly on him. She grabbed Jax’s face, forcing him to focus. “Look, that thing—” She jerked her chin toward the fissure. “—is about to break free. We’re doing something to reinforce the seal.”

Jax felt the familiar effect of adrenaline starting to course in his veins. “The hell are you talking about?”

“No time to explain!” Dawn snapped. “Just—trust us!”

The chain’s attachment point groaned, the links slowly pulling apart.

And then the voice came again—not from below, but inside his skull—and this time he understood it.

“FINALLY.”

Jax’s knees buckled.

Buffy’s hands came off his face to snatch the chain just as it was about to slip. “I don’t think so!” she snarled. Her eyes were hard in a way he had never seen.

—Clay’s hand on his shoulder, heavy as a tombstone: “This is who you are.”

—Abel’s tiny body in the NICU, wires like spiderwebs, heart monitor’s solid beep trailing—

—Buffy’s eyes filled with disgust, looking at him—

Buffy’s voice pulled him back to the present, “Listen, grab the chain. Don’t let go. No matter what you see, what you hear—hold on.”

The second his fingers closed around the iron links, the world shattered.

The floor trembled. The crack widened. Buffy’s own grip on the chain held as she joined Dawn in the chalk circle.

What he’d seen weren’t memories. They were violence—his fears, his failures, his deepest wounds ripped open and twisted.

Fire raced up his arm—not pain, but power, raw and ancient, searing through his veins. The chain screamed in his grasp, the symbols blazing crimson, then green, then black, the metal shuddering like a live wire.

From the fissure, something howled. The chain jerked and Jax felt the skin on his palms breaking upon the carvings on the links.

Buffy and Dawn stood back-to-back in the chalk circle, their voices rising in unison as they recited the incantation. Dawn’s athame flashed, slicing her palm in one smooth motion and following with slicing Buffy’s free hand, their blood dripping onto the concrete—

—and the house answered.

The walls breathed. The floorboards groaned. The very air shuddered.

Jax’s vision whited out. The heat of the spelled iron seared into his skin—and with it, images not his own cut through his mind.

—A dark-skinned man with Jax's jawline hammering obsidian shards into the chain links, his chants syncing with a red-haired woman's screams (Buffy's eyes, Buffy's stubborn chin)—

—A Native American shaman, his face lined with grief, pressing a carved stone into the earth—

The scenes punched the air from his lungs. He was a Teller. This was his curse, his blood-debt. The realization hit like a slug to the chest.

“It’s not enough! We need to redo the seal!” Dawn screamed, her voice oddly faint as he  came back to the present moment.

Buffy’s eyes locked onto Dawn’s, a silent conversation passing between them in the span of a heartbeat. Then her gaze snapped to Jax, green and blazing with something that wasn’t just fear—it was resolve, the kind that came from standing at the edge of the abyss and deciding to jump anyway.

"Trust me?"

The question wasn’t just about now. It was about sixteen years of distance, of missed chances, of blood spilled between them—his, hers, the club’s. It was about the kiss in the parking lot that tasted like regret and cherry cola and the ghost of who they used to be.

It was Jax’s B, asking if he was still the boy who'd carried her three miles home with a sprained ankle, or if he'd finally become the man Clay wanted him to be.

The chain bucked like a live wire, the carved symbols flaring crimson. Buffy’s vice-like grip was the only reason it didn’t slip free.

Jax gritted his teeth, his biceps straining as he fought to keep it anchored. His palms screamed where the metal bit into flesh, blood slicking the iron. He didn't understand half of what was happening—the house, the goddamn glowing chain, the thing beneath them that had scraped through his mind like it owned him—but he understood the challenge in Buffy's eyes.

Jax tightened his grip on the chain, his palms slick with blood and the pain sharpening his focus. "Do it."

Buffy didn't hesitate. She held her free hand to Dawn, who sliced it open again—when had Buffy’s hand healed?—and slammed it against the chain. Dawn did the same with her still-bleeding hand.

Their blood mixed with his on the links.

Dawn's chant rose alongside his own hoarse shouts, English and Gaelic and something older twisting together.

"By blood and bone," Dawn finished, her voice raw with power, "we bind you!"

The chain erupted in light.

Jax’s blood burned. His vision swam with images—generations of Tellers, generations of Summers, their lives intertwined in ways he’d never known.

The god beneath Charming raged.

The psychic assault tore through him like shrapnel—visions of death, of loss, of every failure he’d ever had thrown in his face. But beneath it all, one truth burned brighter:

This was his bloodline's mess. His responsibility.

The chain held.

The house screamed with them, floorboards splintering, windows rattling in their frames. The fissure pulsed with that sickly green light—once, twice—before the edges knitted together a wet, tectonic sliding sound.

And then—

Silence.

The fissure sealed.

The carvings on the link dimmed to a dull, steady crimson, the symbols settling back into the iron as if they’d never stirred.

Jax’s knees gave out.

He hit the concrete hard, gasping, his hands shaking, his palms torn open and bleeding. The taste of copper filled his mouth—he’d bitten through his lip.

Across from him, Dawn collapsed first; her laughter hysterical. “We did it. Holy shit, we actually did it—”

Buffy went down after her. The two of them sagged against each other in the chalk circle, their blood still dripping onto the floor, their chests heaving.

Buffy’s face was pale, her hair sticking to her sweat-dampened skin, but her eyes—

Her eyes were alive. Triumphant.

The house exhaled.

Jax stared at his hands. Not at the ruin of flesh, but at intricate tattoos that now spiraled where he had twisted the chain around his forearm for better grip —ancient symbols in black ink that matched the carvings on the iron links. As he watched, the designs seemed to shift slightly, the lines rearranging themselves before settling into their final form.

A glance told Buffy and Dawn bore matching marks—Buffy's curling up her wrist like a vine, Dawn's stark against her forearm. The tattoos pulsed once, in unison, before fading to a normal ink hue.

His pulse roared in his ears, his body still thrumming with the aftershocks of whatever the hell had just happened.

"What," he rasped, voice wrecked, "the fuck was that?"

Buffy let out a shaky breath, her shoulders slumping. "That," she said quietly, "was you finally holding up your end of the bargain, Teller."

Dawn peeled herself off the floor and winced as she flexed her injured hand in the process. "And, added bonus? Not dying horribly when an ancient god ate the town. You’re welcome."

Jax’s laugh came out hoarse, more of a cough. He flexed his fingers, the cuts stinging. "You could’ve led with the ‘not dying’ part."

Buffy’s lips quirked, but her gaze dropped to his ruined palms. "You held on."

He met her eyes. "I don’t let go easy."

The air between them crackled—not with magic this time, but with the weight of everything unspoken. The house creaked softly around them, the sound almost approving.

Dawn cleared her throat. "Cool, cool. Now that Buffy and I are bonded to a sentient house and an underground Elder God’s back to his timeout corner…” She held up her bleeding hand. "Whiskey? Bandaids? Maybe both?"

Buffy rolled her eyes, but she reached for Jax’s wrist, her fingers warm against his pulse point. "Come on," she said, pulling him to his feet with ease that shouldn’t surprise him after the way she’d held on the chain. "Let’s get you patched up before you bleed on Aunt Arlene’s rugs."

Jax let her lead him upstairs, the chain's whispers fading behind them. His hands throbbed, the new tattoo itching beneath the blood. For the first time since John Teller's bike met that semi, the weight on his shoulders didn't feel like SAMCRO's patch. It felt like purpose.

Jax stared at the blood crusting under his nails—Buffy’s blood, mixed with his own.

Gemma’s warning slithered through his mind: Charming eats pretty things alive.

But as Buffy’s fingers brushed his while they trudged towards the kitchen, fleeting and electric, Jax wondered if maybe—just maybe—this town had finally birthed something it couldn’t chew.

Outside, the first birds began to sing.

The rumble of Jax’s bike faded into the storm’s retreat, swallowed by the wet asphalt of Cherry Lane. Buffy slumped against the kitchen counter, the adrenaline of the binding ritual leaching from her bones. Her hands—still streaked with dried blood and basement dust—trembled faintly around the chipped mug Dawn shoved into them.

Dawn tossed a rag at her, the faded World’s Okayest Sister print smeared with soot and something suspiciously ichor-like.

“You look like you wrestled a mud demon,” she said, scrubbing at a blackened floorboard with her foot. “Which, technically…”

“Don’t.” Buffy swiped the rag over her face, the new Celtic-Teller mark on her forearm throbbing in time with the house’s restless creaks. The tattoo—an intricate weave of ancient symbols and sharp, tribal lines mimicking chain links—had settled into her skin like it had always been there. A brand. A covenant.

Jax had stayed long enough to help board up the shattered basement windows, his silence heavier than the chains they’d reforged. He’d worked with the same single-minded intensity he reserved for club business—jaw clenched, eyes shadowed, his new tattoo (a mirror of hers, but darker, more jagged) peeking from beneath his rolled-up sleeves.

Buffy had waited till the tick in his jaw stopped flicking to corner him by the porch.

“There’s… more,” she’d said, the words sticking like tar in her throat. “Things I didn’t tell you. About what I am. What I’ve done.”

The confession had spilled out in fits and starts—stakes and Hellmouths and dying twice. Slayers and Watchers and the weight of a world that kept demanding more blood. Jax had listened, really listened, even when Dawn joined them with chimed in “helpful” commentary (“Think of vampires like rabid bikers, but with worse dental hygiene!”), until his knuckles whitened around the hammer and Buffy called time.

“Need to check in with the club,” he’d muttered, already halfway to his bike. No “See you later.” No “We’ll talk.” Just the growl of his engine and the sting of rain on her cheeks as she watched him go.

“He took it well,” Dawn had remarked, watching his taillights vanish.

Buffy had hummed shortly and noncommittedly before heading back inside.

Now, alone with the house, they were getting almost constant psychic feedback from the house—the genius loci they now were irrevocably bound to—as they worked to clean up the mess that had been left behind.

It wasn’t just whispers. It was everything.

The kitchen faucet spat rust-colored water in time with Buffy’s headache. The floorboards vibrated underfoot like a purring, disgruntled cat. The grandfather clock’s pendulum swung erratically, its ticks syncing with Dawn’s pulse when she leaned too close. Worst of all? The smells. One second, the house reeked of Arlene’s lavender sachets; the next, it was all damp earth and the iron-tang of the chain in the basement, like the place couldn’t decide which memory to haunt them with first.

Fed up with its psychic spam, Buffy glared at the ceiling. “Hey, Casper! Ever heard of subtlety?”

The floorboards rippled like a cat’s hackles rising. Dawn yelped as the fridge spat out a moldy jar of pickles, the glass shattering at their feet.

“Okay, new rule,” Dawn said, hopping onto the counter. “No possession before coffee.”

Buffy gripped the edge of the sink, the porcelain threatening to crack under her Slayer strength. “Listen up, haunted house—you wanna communicate? Use. Words.”

The air thickened, smelling suddenly of Arlene’s lavender satchels and something older—damp stone and iron. When the voice came, it wasn’t a sound but a presence, vibrating through their bones:

“YOUR MIND. OUR MIND,” it stated like a universal truth.

Dawn clutched her skull. “Oh god, it’s in my teeth.”

“BOUND BY BLOOD. HEARTH FOR MY HEART. SWORD AND SHIELD IN YOUR DEFENSE.”

Buffy’s mark flared hot. “Yeah, we got the memo! Now quit the brain graffiti and talk — normally!”

The house went still. Then, with the grudging cadence of a teenager forced to use a landline:

“INEFFICIENT.”

“Tough.” Buffy yanked open the fridge door and grabbed a cold soda. “You’re the one who picked a couple of 21st-century girls. We do podcasts, not psychic spam.” She pressed the bottle against her temple after a sip.

Dawn snorted. “Should’ve bound itself to a monastery. Monks dig silent suffering.”

The grandfather clock struck an even hour, the sound rattling. Buffy crossed her arms. “Compromise: words for chit-chat, brain blasts for emergencies. Deal?”

A pause. The ceiling rained dust.

“AGREED.”

“Great!” Dawn slid off the counter, swiping a half-melted Snickers from the wreckage. “Now, about this whole ‘two keepers’ thing—can one of us bail? Like, hypothetically? Asking for a grad student with a thesis deadline.”

The pantry door flew open, canned goods avalanching across the floor. Buffy caught a rogue can of soup mid-air. “I’ll take that as a ‘maybe.’”

“ONE HEARTH.TWO FLAMES. ONE EXTINGUISHES…”

The windows rattled.

“…CHAINS WEAKEN.”

Buffy exchanged a look with Dawn. “So, we’re stuck playing supernatural jailers… together.”

“Unless…” Dawn’s eyes lit up. “What if we recruit a third? Like, I dunno—”

“No.” Buffy and the house said in unison.

Dawn threw her hands up. “You’re both no fun.”

“Jax’s bloodline…” Buffy murmured. “The seal needs both. If something happens to him…”

The house’s silence was answer enough.

Dawn slumped into a chair, suddenly serious. “So, we’re tethered here. To the house. To the club. To… him.”

Buffy stared at the mark on her arm, still echoing the warmth of Jax’s palm. “Looks like Charming’s stuck with us.”

“HEARTH HOLDS. HEARTH PROTECTS.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dawn muttered. “Just don’t expect me to crochet doilies.”

The house stayed silent, clearly done with talking.

Outside, thunder growled—ordinary now, almost comforting.

Dawn peeled back the Snickers wrapper. “Think it’ll let me install Wi-Fi?” she asked, musingly.

The lights flickered—a reluctant maybe. Progress.                    

Buffy grinned. “Welcome to the family, House. You’re going to hate us.”

There was a creaking sound—not in warning, but in wry agreement.

Chapter Text

Buffy hadn’t thought Jax would be back this soon.

Two days. That’s all it had taken after the ritual, after the explanations, after she and Dawn had irrevocably bound themselves to the house—after Jax had become a guardian of the god like his ancestors had been. She’d honestly expected him to vanish for at least a week—to ride out, to think, to let the weight of knowing sink in before he faced her again.

But here he was, standing in her kitchen, looking like he hadn’t slept since the ritual. His hands looked better thanks to the witchy balm Dawn had passed to him, but he’d gained fresh scabs on his knuckles from where he’d punched through something (or someone) in frustration.

She had worried about him. Not that she’d told Dawn, when her sister had gotten on her case about him.

“You’re brooding,” she’d pointed out, flicking a crumpled sticky note at her. “And not in the cool, Batman way. More like the ‘I accidentally adopted a goldfish and now I’m morally conflicted’ way.”

Buffy had volleyed it right back in a stunning display of maturity and denied everything.

Now she was sitting across from Jax at the kitchen table with the house holding its breath as they both nursed their coffees and waited for the other to crack and make the first move.

Buffy’s fingers traced absently the edges of the mark snaking around her forearm like she’d noticed herself doing often. Dawn had already fled upstairs—"I’m gonna go and pretend none of this is happening"—so it was just the two of them. Well, that and the house. She and Dawn were learning that there was very little the house didn’t pay attention to.

Jax broke first.

“So. Your family’s been babysitting Satan’s basement since the Gold Rush.”

Buffy huffed, the sound frayed at the edges. “And yours unleashed him back in the day. Congrats—we’re the world’s messiest custodians.”

He pushed off the counter, looking pensive. The reaper on his kutte stared hollow-eyed at her as he slid into the chair across the table. “The things it showed me—or the house? I don’t know. All those years… the fights, the club shit… none of it mattered. We were just…”

“Fuel for that thing’s fire?” Buffy offered. The overhead light flickered, the house’s disapproval vibrating through the floorboards. “No. It mattered. The choices you—we— made… they still count.”

Jax hummed and the silence settled as they sipped their drinks.

Buffy looked up from her cup to meet Jax’s gaze. It dropped to her mouth, lingering like a match hovering over kerosene.

“You kissed me in front of the hospital,” he stated.

“You kissed me,” she corrected.

“Wouldn’t’ve happened if you didn’t want it.”

Fair point.

The fridge rattled. Buffy’s throat tightened, he wasn’t wrong, but—

“Jax—”

He leaned forward; his voice gravel-rough. “When I was down there… holding the chain to that thing… I saw things. Tellers and Summers, going back generations. Always circling each other. Always this close.” He held up blood-crusted fingers, a sliver of space between them. “How many times do you think we’ve done this dance? How many times did we almost get it right?”

He could’ve been talking about them, himself and Buffy, as well as their families, it would have fit regardless.

Buffy stood abruptly, chair screeching. “You’ve got a kid. A club. A life that doesn’t include haunted real estate, Dawn and I can—”

“You think I give a shit about any of that right now?” He rose too, crowding her against the sink. His eyes searched hers, intense, unyielding.

“I spent half my life trying to escape my father’s legacy, and the other half letting it chew me up. But you?” His thumb brushed the scar on her collarbone—the one he’d traced at sixteen, after she’d gotten it from climbing Arlene’s oak tree. “Opie’s right. You’re the only thing here that ever felt like home.”

The house sighed—a warm breeze carrying the scent of Arlene’s lavender.

Buffy’s resolve cracked. “I can’t be your escape hatch,” she repeated what she’d told him then.

“Then don’t.” His palm settled over the mark on her wrist, their tattoos aligning. “Just be in this all with me. In whatever this is. Demons, biker wars, diapers at 3 AM—we handle it together. Like we should’ve from the start.”

She searched his face—the boy who’d raced her to the river, the man who’d kissed her like a prayer outside the hospital where his son fought for his life.

The house thrummed, urging her forward.

“You’ll suck at the diapers,” she whispered, the words a soft surrender.

Jax’s smirk was pure Teller arrogance. “I’ll learn.”

When he kissed her this time, it wasn’t desperation—it was a promise.

The house hummed its approval, floorboards trembling.

Dawn had talked them into a “trauma-bonded dinner out”—a phrase she’d coined with far too much enthusiasm for people who’d recently wrestled a semi-sentient house and an Elder God into submission. 

The neon EAT sign buzzed over the diner’s door, its pink glow staining the rain-slicked pavement. Inside, the air smelled of bacon grease, maple syrup, and the faintest hint of lemon cleaner that never quite conquered the decades of fried food embedded in the vinyl booths.

Dottie, her platinum beehive defying both gravity and the passage of time, squinted at them over her cat-eye glasses. “Well, I’ll be damned. Summers girls, back from the dead.”

“Hi, Dottie,” Buffy said, sliding into the cracked vinyl booth with the ease of someone who’d spent half her childhood in it. Dawn flopped down beside her, immediately stealing the laminated menu from Jax’s hands—bypassing the untouched stack in the holder—just to be annoying.

Jax, unfazed, calmly grabbed another one.

“Last time I saw you, kiddo,” Dottie jabbed her pen at Dawn, “you were cryin’ over spilt chocolate milk. Now you’re all…” She waved at Dawn’s I Survived My Twenties and All I Got Was Anxiety hoodie. “Grown. Sorta.”

Dawn smirked. “Still crying over spilt milk. Just oat now.”

Jax snorted, stretching his arm across the back of the booth behind Buffy. The movement made the fresh ink on his forearm peek out. The winding design of interlocking chains, symbols and Celtic knots was still red at the edges unlike Buffy’s matching tattoo that had already healed.

“What’ll it be, princess?” Dottie drawled; pen poised.

Buffy rolled her eyes at the nickname—Gemma’s old barb turned town in-joke. “Stack of blueberry pancakes,” Buffy said. “Extra syrup. And coffee. Lots of coffee.”

“Same,” Dawn chimed in, “but make them chocolate and throw in crispy bacon.  The kind that cracks when you look at it.”

Dottie scribbled it down dutifully. “You payin’, Teller? Or you still charmin’ free meals like it’s ’96?”

Jax’s grin was all teeth and devil’s charm. “Put it on my tab, Dot, and I’ll have the double decker with fries and some of that bacon Dawn's fantasizing about.”

“Your tab’s older than my hip replacement,” she retorted as she scribbled down his order, but she winked, shuffling off as the bell above the door jangled.

Opie loomed in the doorway, rainwater dripping off his beard like a grumpy Saint Bernard. He scanned the room with the weary air of a man who'd rather be anywhere else, nodded at Jax, and slid into the free seat opposite with a grunt that passed for greeting.

"Clay's pissed; you missed church."

“Clay can kiss my—” Jax caught Buffy’s quirk of an eyebrow and amended, “—bike.”

Not what she’d meant by the look, but she’d take it.

Dottie dropped off a full pot of coffee with the practiced ease of a woman who'd been caffeinating Charming for several decades. Dawn immediately commandeered it, filling her cup to the brim with the thick black sludge that passed for diner brew.

Leaning forward, Dawn pinned Opie with a look that had made lesser men confess to crimes they hadn't committed. "So. How's Donna?"

Opie stiffened like a deer spotting a hunter—appropriate when dealing with Dawn in full interrogation mode.

“Says I’m married to the club more than her.”

“Romantic.”

“Realistic.”

“Kids?”

“Loud.”

“Existential dread?”

"Dawn," Buffy warned, grabbing the pot and filling both her and Jax's cups before Dawn could psychoanalyze Opie into an early midlife crisis.

Opie's gaze dropped to Buffy's sleeve as she reached for the sugar. "New ink?"

Jax tensed imperceptibly beside her. Buffy shrugged, stirring three packets into her coffee. "Midlife crisis."

"Looks Teller."

"Looks like a bad decision," Dawn muttered into her cup before taking a sip and immediately making a face. "Jesus, Dot, did you strain this through an old gym sock?" she huffed under her breath.

The booth fell into comfortable silence, the kind that only exists between people who've survived each other's worst haircuts and heartbreaks. Outside, the rain pattered against the windows in a rhythm that almost masked the distant rumble of motorcycle engines.

Dottie returned with plates balanced up her arm like a seasoned waitress from a bygone era, her orthopedic shoes squeaking across linoleum. "Eat up," she ordered, slinging pancakes with the precision of someone who'd been slinging hash since before the Nixon administration. "Food's better'n therapy and cheaper'n divorce. I'd know. And pancakes fix most things 'round here."

"Most?" Buffy arched a brow as she speared a blueberry.

"Not zoning laws. Or ex-husbands." Dottie slid burgers and fries in front of the guys with a thud. "But hey. Weirder shit's happened in Charming."

The conversation lulled as they dug into their food—Buffy demolishing her syrup-drenched stack with Slayer appetite, Dawn stealing bites from everyone's plates with practiced ease, Jax watching the door with half his attention even as he nudged his bacon toward Buffy.

After a while, Jax nodded at Opie's mostly untouched fries. "You gonna eat that or court it?"

“Depends.” Opie eyed what was left of Buffy’s syrup-drenched stack. “She finish corruptin’ you yet?”

Buffy kicked him under the table. “I’m a positive influence.”

“Positive he’ll need a liver transplant by forty,” Dawn snarked even as she slid one of Buffy’s last blueberry pancakes on her own plate while Buffy was distracted.

Opie’s phone buzzed and he glanced at the screen. He stood, tossing cash on the table. “Mayans’re sniffin’ around.”

Jax didn’t move. “Tell Clay I’m clocked out.”

“Since when?”

“Since I learned what weekends are.” Jax’s boot brushed Buffy’s under the table—just a nudge, just enough.

Outside, thunder still grumbled. Dawn's phone lit up with a text. She groaned. "Handyman's at the house early. We gotta go if we want the downstairs bathroom plumbing to work before the next ice age."

Jax frowned at the storm-dark windows. "I'll ride with—"

"Finish your fries, Marlon Brando." Buffy swiped his last strip of bacon, crunching on it. "We'll handle the plumbing crisis. You handle not getting stabbed before you can help me paint the porch like you promised."

Dottie reappeared with the check. “Y’all come back now. Town’s been dull without Summers women causin’ trouble.”

As they stepped into the parking lot, rain needling their faces, Buffy caught Jax’s wrist. His tattoo peeked out—just ink, just lines, nothing that meant more than any club ink. Except it did.

"You're really sticking around?" he asked, voice low enough that Dawn pretended not to hear as she sprinted for the car.

Buffy nodded at the diner's flickering sign. "Somebody's gotta keep your tab from outliving Dottie."

His laugh got carried off by the wind as they parted ways.

Somewhere down the road, a crow cawed. Dawn turned up the radio, drowning it out with classic rock.

The rain petered off as they reached the house, washing away tire tracks and yesterday’s chaos.

Somewhere deep below Charming, the chains held firm.

And for now—for as long as they could—the Summers sisters would pretend the normal would last.

Chapter Text

The Summers house bathed in honeyed evening light, its weathered clapboard siding glowing like the inside of an old whiskey bottle. The scent of Arlene's overgrown gardenias mingled with the faint tang of motor oil still clinging to Jax's clothes—a strangely comforting aroma that smelled like childhood summers and reckless teenage nights.

Dawn had made her exit the previous day with typical dramatic flair (“I’m not third-wheeling your unresolved sexual tension—text me when you’ve stopped eye-fucking”), swiping the key to Jax’s room in the clubhouse on her way out. Her parting gift had been leaving them alone with a half-repaired porch rail, three cans of paint ("Sunshine Kiss" yellow, according to the lid), and an ominous text about "adult decisions" that made Buffy simultaneously want to laugh and throw her phone into the creek.

Buffy sat cross-legged on the weathered porch swing, a paintbrush dripping sunset-yellow onto the newspaper she had laid to protect the floorboards every once in a while as she touched up the peeling trim.

Jax stood nearby in paint-splattered jeans and a plain white tee that had seen better days, his leather kutte discarded over one of Arlene's wicker chairs on the other end of the porch. The late sun haloed him as he reached up to touch up the trim above the window, the movement stretching the fabric across his shoulders in a way that was frankly distracting.

For once, the silence between them held no weight—no club business, no unspoken tension, just the rhythmic swipe of brushes and the occasional protest from the swing chains that had borne witness to a hundred Summers family moments. The kind of quiet that only exists between people who know each other's scars and silences equally well.

"You missed a spot," Jax said finally, nodding at the trim near her knee where a sliver of weathered wood still showed through.

Buffy flicked her brush with Slayer precision, sending a droplet splattering across his forearm where it blended with the fresh ink of their shared mark. "Oops," she deadpanned, not even pretending it was an accident.

He smirked, swiping a thumb through the droplet and smearing it across the bridge of her nose. "Real mature, Summers."

"Says the guy who taught me how to hotwire a lawnmower when I was fourteen—really it’s no wonder my parents thought you were a bad influence," she countered, not bothering to wipe away the paint, letting it dry like war paint.

The memory warmed her—Jax at fifteen, all sharp elbows and sharper grin, showing her how to bypass the ignition on Mr. Kowalski's riding mower so they could take it joyriding through the cemetery. er parents had grounded her for a month. Totally worth it.

The swing creaked as Buffy leaned back, studying his profile silently. The fading light caught the paler gold strands in his beard that hinted at what was to come. The new lines around his eyes that hadn't been there when they were teenagers. The years had carved their stories into both of them—Buffy with her Slayer scars and Jax with his club ones.

He quirked an eyebrow in question when he caught her staring.

"Why'd you really stay, Jax?" she asked softly, the question that had been hanging between them since the binding ritual. "After everything..."

Why didn't you walk away like your ancestors? was what she really meant. Why choose this haunted house, this mess, me?

He abandoned the trim work, settling beside her with a quiet exhale that made the swing dip under his weight. Their thighs brushed, warm through the denim of their jeans. "Told you. Someone's gotta save you from your shitty DIY skills."

"My skills?" She gestured to the crookedly hung shutter he'd "fixed" that morning, which now sat precariously a couple of degrees off. "That's not home renovation, Teller. That's modern art. Avant-garde."

Jax laughed, low and warm, and something in Buffy's chest unraveled at the sound. The house sighed around them, the porch light flickering as if rolling its spectral eyes at their banter.

Leaning back, Jax stretched his legs out, his boots nudging the paint can. “The house’s a meddling asshole, huh?”

“Oh, please, since the binding it’s been weirdly fond of you. Thrilled you’re corrupting me.”

"Corrupting?" His grin turned wicked, all white teeth and promise. "Oh, sweetheart, I haven't even started—"

The porch light flickered—once, twice—before flooding them in a warm, buttery glow. The ancient radio in the living room crackled to life without anyone touching it, mellow music trailing through the screen door, filling in the silence and breaking the tension.

"My girl you've got nothing to lose / Cold nights and the Sunday mornings..."

Buffy groaned, throwing her head back against the swing. "Really, house, full on romcom? Subtlety's dead, huh?"

Jax raised an eyebrow, amusement dancing in his blue eyes. "It does this often?"

“Only when it’s feeling romantic.” She huffed with exaggeration, but her cheeks flushed. “Last week a bookshelf spat out an old motorcycle manual. Highlighted the chapter on passenger safety in neon pink.”

He leaned closer, their shoulders pressing together firmly now. "And what'd the manuals say?"

"That your idea of 'safety' is handing me a helmet and yelling 'Hold on tight!' like we're about to jump the Grand Canyon," Buffy deadpanned, recalling another incident from their past; Jax had pissed off both Gemma and her parents by taking her on an ill-advised joyride.

Jax grinned, unrepentant. "Worked, didn't it?"

The swing swayed gently, their laughter mingling with radio in the background. Buffy's paintbrush hovered, forgotten, as Jax's fingers brushed against hers, calloused and warm.

"You know..." He turned her hand over, tracing the tattoo circling her arm that matched his own. "This thing itches like hell."

"Slayer healing," Buffy said smugly. "Sucks to be a regular mortal."

"Regular mortal's underrated." His thumb swept over her pulse point, feeling the quickened rhythm there. "Gives me an excuse to stick around. Y'know. In case the magic tattoos act up."

Buffy rolled her eyes at the cheesiness, but didn’t pull away. “You’re terrible at flirting.”

Jax grinned, leaning in just enough to make her breath catch slightly, "Seems to be workin' just fine from where I'm sittin', Summers."

“Keep telling yourself that, Teller. We both know you skate on by your looks.”

“You saying I’m pretty?” Jax asked, delighted.

Buffy laughed at his reaction. “Sure.”

The radio swelled into the chorus—“Crowded town or silent bed / Pick a place to rest your head and / Give me a minute to hold my girl…”

Jax’s smile softened. He reached into his pocket, pulling out a familiar charm he’d put on a fresh cord—the one he’d given her at fourteen, the charm tarnished but intact from years of hanging along her keys. “Found this in the attic. House kept dropping it on my head when I took the boxes up there.”

Buffy’s breath caught. “You kept it?”

“You kept it.”

“Semantics.” She noted the new cord; it was things like that that reminded her how sweet he could be.

He looped it around her wrist, fingers lingering. “Funny. Felt like yours either way.”

The house held its breath. Buffy’s heartbeat thundered in her ears, louder than the lyrics.

“Jax, I—…”

He exhaled, as if steeling himself. “I’m not askin’ for forever, B.” His voice roughened; all biker bravado stripped bare. “Just… let me be here. However you’ll have me. Partners, friends. Whatever the hell we are.”

She kissed him.

It was nothing like the desperate hospital parking lot kiss. This was slow, sweet—a promise whispered against lips, the porch swing creaking as he pulled her into his lap. The paintbrush clattered to the floor, forgotten, as his hands cradled her face like she was something precious.

The radio faded out at the perfect moment. The house's approval rumbled through the floorboards, the old oak tree showering down acorns like nature's applause.

Buffy broke away, laughing against his mouth. "Subtle."

Jax tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, his smile brighter than the porch light now glowing steadily above them. "So. Partners?"

"Partners." She pressed her forehead to his, breathing him in—under the chemical scents of paint and motor oil lingered something uniquely Jax. "But you're redoing the shutters."

"Deal."

Dawn's text buzzed in Buffy's back pocket. The attached photo showed Jax's bike barely visible in their driveway last night, followed by:

Took you long enough. I want pancakes AND details. Hope you're enjoying the alone time because this is the last night I'm bunking at the clubhouse. And, FYI? For your sake, I hope he's house-trainable. His room leaves space for improvement.

Buffy showed the picture to Jax, who snorted. "Kid's got a future in surveillance."

"Or, knowing her, blackmail," Buffy laughed.

The house's windows glowed warmly as Jax stood, offering her his hand. "C'mon. I'll make you pancakes for dinner."

“You burn water, Teller.”

“Yeah, but you’ll fix it.” He pressed a kiss to her knuckles, the charm on her wrist gleaming. “That’s what partners do.”

“I think you’re putting too much stock in my cooking skills,” she responded wryly, but let him pull her towards the kitchen.

As they disappeared inside, the porch swing swayed empty behind them, and the couple's laughter carried through the screen door. Somewhere in the distance, a crow cawed and the house stood silent and watchful, its foundations steady, its keepers safe.

Chapter Text

The garage bay doors of Teller-Morrow stood wide open, sunlight glinting off chrome and grease-stained concrete. The rumble of engines and clang of tools harmonized with the hum of classic rock blaring from a rusted radio.

Jax leaned over the engine a vintage Softail, his kutte hanging off a nearby stool, temporarily shed skin. His henley sleeves rolled to reveal the faint edge of the Celtic-Teller mark curling up his forearm. The ink was fresh enough that the skin around it was still pink, but old enough that it had settled into his flesh like it belonged there.

A familiar engine growled outside, and Jax didn’t have to look up to know who it was. The Chevy rolled into the lot, parking smooth as always next to the row of bikes.

Buffy stepped out in faded jeans, scuffed leather ankle boots, and a fitted black tank top layered under a caramel-colored leather jacket—practical but sharp, the kind of outfit that said I could stake a vamp or change tires.

Her hair was swept into a loose braid, a few sun-bleached strands escaping to frame her face. Around her wrist, the leather cord Jax had restrung for her glinted with the old charm he’d given her at fourteen, now paired with a new addition: a small obsidian pendant, innocuous to outsiders but humming with protective magic.

Heads turned.

Tig paused mid-solder, eyebrows climbing. Chibs looked up from the engine he’d been elbow-deep in, wiping his hands on a rag. Opie smirked into his coffee, and Happy—well, Happy just watched, silent as ever, though his eyes tracked her like she might pull a blade at any second.

Good instincts, Jax thought wryly.

“Well, well, well,” Tig drawled, elbowing Happy. “If it ain’t Jax’s personal hellraiser.”

Buffy shot him a look that could’ve peeled paint. “Flattery will get you nowhere, but keep trying. I like watching you embarrass yourself.”

Tig barked a laugh, and Jax straightened, wiping his hands on a grease-streaked rag. His smirk softened at the edges when he met her gaze. “To what do we owe the honor, Summers?”

Buffy dropped a paper bag from the diner on his bench. “Dottie said you skipped breakfast. Again.”

He peeked inside—egg sandwich, extra bacon, black coffee—and snorted. “Snitch.”

“The snitch added extra bacon in the order, so I wouldn’t point fingers,” Buffy said, leaning against the bike he’d been working on. Her fingers brushed the fresh ink on his arm, a silent acknowledgment of the bond hidden underneath.

A crow landed on the garage’s “Teller-Morrow” sign, tilting its head curiously. Buffy glanced at it, and the obsidian pendant at her wrist warmed faintly—Just checking in, the house seemed to whisper through their shared mark. She gave the bird an almost imperceptible nod.

Opie ambled over, wiping grease off his hands. “Heard you’re stickin’ around. Finally gonna teach this one some manners?” He jerked a thumb at Jax.

"Doubt it, that seems like a fool’s errand" Buffy said, stealing Jax's coffee and taking a sip before making a face. "Ugh, jeez, motor oil would taste better." She handed it back. "But I did bet him twenty bucks he couldn't fix that shutter on the house. Pay up, Teller."

Jax rolled his eyes, but the warmth in them betrayed him. “You cheat. That hinge was cursed.”

“Excuses.”

Chibs chuckled, lighting a cigarette. "Careful, Jackie boy. Women like that'll saddle you with a white picket fence and a minivan before you know what hit you."

"Nah," Jax said, gaze locked on Buffy with an intensity that made even Tig look away uncomfortably. "She's more the 'burn-down-the-fence-and-ride-the-dragon' type."

The club’s laughter rumbled through the garage. Buffy flipped Chibs off playfully, her Slayer reflexes catching the wrench Tig knocked off the shelf before it hit the ground.

"Handy," Happy muttered, watching her toss the tool back without looking.

“You’ve met Dawn,” Buffy lied smoothly. “Years of babysitting her, you need fast reflexes.”

The crow hopped closer, pecking at a loose bolt on the workbench. Jax tossed it a scrap of bacon from his sandwich, earning an approving caw. “Your feathered spy’s getting bold,” he muttered to Buffy.

Buffy smirked. "He's just making sure you're not slacking. House doesn't trust your wrench skills after the whole shutter incident."

As the others’ attention went back to their work, Jax jerked his head toward his cluttered office. "Need a hand with paperwork."

Buffy raised an eyebrow at the obvious lie but followed, the club's knowing laughter trailing after them. Inside, he kicked the door shut with his foot and pressed her against it in one fluid motion, his mouth finding hers like a live wire finding ground. Her hands fisted in his shirt, pulling him closer.

"The house," he breathed against her neck, teeth scraping the sensitive skin below her ear. "All good? It's quiet?"

"Quieter than your garage," she gasped, nipping at his jaw. The crow tapped its beak insistently against the office window, and Buffy laughed against Jax's lips. "But the chaperones are relentless."

He groaned, pressing his forehead to hers. "Tell it we don't need a babysitter."

"Tell it yourself." She kissed him again, fierce and fleeting, before shoving him back with just enough Slayer strength to make him stumble. "Now, hate to cut this short, but I got errands to run."

When they stepped out, the crow was gone, replaced by a single black feather on Jax’s toolbox. The others pretended not to notice their swollen lips or Buffy's now-messy braid, though Tig's shit-eating grin spoke volumes.

As she revved her Chevy’s engine and peeled out of the lot, Chibs shouldered up to Jax, nodding at her taillights. “She’s trouble.”

Jax watched her disappear down the road, the weight of the bond—and the future—settling comfortably on his shoulders. “Yeah. The best kind.”

The crow returned in a flurry of wings, perching on the Softail's handlebars with an almost judgmental tilt to its head. Jax tossed it the last bite of his sandwich. "Keep an eye on her," he murmured.

The bird cawed once—a promise—before taking flight toward the Summers house. The garage swallowed Jax whole again, but the mark on his arm stayed warm.