Chapter Text
The headlights of the car cut through the rain-soaked darkness of the deserted road. The twisted shapes of trees stretch ominously along the side of the road, shadowy outlines against the stormy black sky. A sound echoes through the night.
Crunch.
Crunch.
Buffy Summers tosses a third Frito in the air and catches it in her mouth with a resounding chomp.
“What?” she says, as Giles sighs deeply and shoots her an exasperated look.
“I’m keeping my reflexes sharp. Besides, I’m bored. I think the Chosen One should be chosen to drive.”
Spike smirks at her, drums his fingers against the steering wheel just to be annoying. She shifts her gaze to Faith, or at least to Faith’s scuffed leather boots resting casually on the dashboard. Attached to Faith’s long denim clad legs, which she’d clearly put there just to be provocative. Just to see if she could still get a rise out of her, maybe cause a little trouble. Because trouble was basically Faith’s middle name. Maybe her first name, too. And her last.
She refocuses on Spike. “Do you even have a license?”
“Well, I used to just bite anyone who bothered pulling me over,” he shrugs. “So it didn’t matter too much.”
She leans forward, poking her head between the seats, trying to study the map spread over Faith’s lap. “Are we there yet?”
“Red, I swear to God, you couldn’t just open a portal or something?” Faith asks, swatting Buffy’s hand as she reaches towards the map.
Willow looks up from the big binder of research she’s studying and puts a hand on Buffy’s knee. She smiles, her eyes bright with happiness even in the dim light of the car. Looking at her girlfriend still sometimes fills Buffy with a small sense of wonder, a huge gratitude that they’re together, that this is real. That they both made it out of Sunnydale alive and managed to wash up on the shores of adulthood with the realization that their connection went deeper than friendship.
“We’re trying to be incognito,” Willow reminds everyone. “Portals are all Woo-look-at-me-and-my-flashy-magic-arrival!”
“Portals say woo?” Buffy asks.
“Well,” Willow concedes, “only the really showy ones.”
Buffy leans back and puts her head on Willow’s shoulder, wishes her Slayer senses didn’t pick up the way Spike hastily averts his eyes, the way Faith’s posture tenses. She’s been with Willow for three years now, long enough for it to be old news, for everyone to get over themselves and get used to it. For Xander to have run through almost his entire stockpile of lesbian joke humor, even.
It wasn’t her fault if Spike normally dealt with it by volunteering for the most far flung assignments on the docket, keeping oceans and continents and impenetrable time zones between them. Or if Faith opted to spend the last few years underground, cleaning out nests of Pythius demons.
“Do you want to read up on the Hellmouthy stuff?” Willow asks, running a casual hand through Buffy’s hair.
“There should be a concert shirt,” Buffy muses. “Hellmouth: The World Tour. Sunnydale. Cleveland. Easter Island. Zhengzhou. And now Roseworm.”
“Rosewood,” Giles corrects her. “And as we’ve discussed, this particular location has a number of atypical elements.”
“Every Hellmouth’s it’s own special snowflake,” Spike mutters.
“Nah,” Faith chimes in. “You seen one, you seen ‘em all. Big hole. Freaky demons. Apocalypse dance party.”
“As I was saying, the Rosewood Hellmouth is actually quite unique. It exhibits some marvellously unusual characteristics, which -”
“Ooooh,” Willow says, raising her hand. “Like, it’s smaller! Not so much of a Hellmouth as it is more of a Hellnavel. Or maybe a Hellnostril?”
Buffy squeezes her hand. “You know I love you, but please don’t ever say Hellnostril again.”
Faith’s hand tightens on the map, rumpling the western part of Pennsylvania. Willow nods in agreement as Giles clears his throat.
“It is smaller,” he continues. “But if our initial research is correct, it’s also set into the Earth at such an angle that much of its energy appears to be refracted. The Hellmouth in Rosewood serves as a bit of a negative meniscus for mystical energy, you see -”
“We didn’t all eat a metaphysical maths book for breakfast, Rupert,” Spike interjects. “We’re nearly there, and if I’m going to be fighting mucas monsters, I’ll need to leave my coat in the car.”
Buffy grinned. It was actually kind of nice, having everyone squabbling together again. Like emotional comfort food.
“Think of it like a mirror,” Willow explains. “Or a magnifying glass. A lot of the mystical energy beams over to a town called Ravenswood. Ghosties, ghoulies, strange looking fireflies that are a big hit on the underworld pinterest boards.”
“Underworld pinterest boards?” Giles repeats, puzzled. “The point is, Rosewood itself isn’t quite as active as we might expect a regularly sized Hellmouth to be.”
“So what’s the big fuss?” Faith asks, curiously. She twists in her seat to peer back at Buffy, her face a mask of smoky eye make up. “Why the all hands on deck road trip, if it’s a mini-mouth or whatever?”
“Hellmouth’s a Hellmouth,” Spike says. “Heavy duty magic rumbling around inside it and such.”
“Which is why we’re scouting it out,” Buffy agrees, munching on more Fritos. “A few big guns are better than a squadron of newbies. They don’t blend in! Last month the we had a platoon battling a couple of warlocks, and we had to pretend they were chasing Justin Bieber to cover for why it looked like a herd of elephants had trampled downtown Cleveland.”
“We need a training site,” Willow adds. “The thing about calling all the slayers is that now, we have all these new slayers. A place to sort of ease them into all things Hellmouthy.”
“Rosewood may be ideal in that respect,” Giles agrees. “Low rents, lots of abandoned factories, fairly sleepy, as far as we can tell.”
“How sleepy are we talking here?” Faith wonders. “Like, power nap? Or six month coma?”
“Light on the end of the world stuff,” Willow answers. “But lots of creepy unsolved crimes and a twelve percent death rate.”
“Not bad,” Spike nods. “Though not good, I suppose, for the residents.”
“Indeed.”
Buffy grins. She loves hearing Giles all British and sarcastic. Can you have a good feeling about a Hellmouth? Not that they’re ever warm and fuzzy, but maybe forcing everyone to work together again will finally get them over the speed bump of post-apocalyptic big gay awkward. The Hellnavel will be a perfect base of operations, a place to break in green slayers and fight perfectly portion controlled evil. She almost laughs at herself. It’s Willow, she thinks, and maybe not having the weight of the world fall so heavily on her shoulders these days. She hasn’t died in almost seven years. She’s getting almost optimistic again, imagining this adventure will end with high fives instead of hard feelings.
The tires squeal loudly, interrupting her positive thought parade. The car slides into a controlled skid as Spike spins the wheel and slams on the brakes. The rear bumper hits the “Welcome to Rosewood” sign cleanly and deliberately, knocking it flat on the ground.