Chapter 1
Sibling Revelry
A hurricane kick sent the vampire sprawling to the ground. With the practiced grace of experience, Buffy almost casually plunged the stake into the creature. It had time to gasp once before exploding into dust. She turned to address her companion.
“Okay, one down. Dusk, how’s life in your corner?” she queried wryly.
Her companion, Alec “Dusk” Giles, was busy doing some sort of kung fu fighting with the second vampire. As opposed to Buffys’ ‘Beat them senseless and stake them’ approach, Dusk preferred a sort of liquid-dancing style of fighting that was one-part gymnastics, one-part dancing and involved almost a Hollywood quality choreographed fighting style, consisting of a lot of blocks, parries, summersaults and combinations of punches and kicks. She watched, admittedly a little impressed, as Dusk snapped out a few kicks to the vampires head, then torso ending the combination of strikes with some kind of spinning/summersault roundhouse kick that propelled the vampire into a tree and impaled him upon a tree branch, where he too, exploded into dust. Dusk took a moment to savor the victory before addressing the slayer.
“No complaints here,” he quipped in that inherited light British accent of his. For a moment, his head tilted in a perfect imitation of his fathers when he was amused or pleased with himself. The difference being that his father, her newly exonerated Watcher, Rupert Giles, was usually more proud of himself having unearthed a obscure, yet vitally essential piece of lore, than his fighting prowess. Still the resemblance between father and son was, at times unmistakable.
“You know,” Buffy started as she picked up her bag that had been discarded during the fight, “You never did tell us what style of fighting that was,” she arched an inquiring eyebrow to the older man. Buffy herself was quite skilled at martial arts, however unlike Dusk, she saw it as a means to an end. Dusk turned it into an art form in and of itself.
Dusk shrugged “It’s a base style of Wushu with a mixture of several types of different martial arts; capoeria, muy thai, ju-jitsu, aikido, jeet kune do,” Dusk fell into step next to her, “I’ve never found just one set of movements and philosophies that totally agree with me.”
Buffy snorted, “Obviously. Guess you’ve had a lot of time on your hands,” she turned to regard him as they left the graveyard.
Dusk hesitated a moment before carefully offering an explanation,
“Time moves differently in the demonic dimension. I’ve had several decades to practice,” Dusk ceased to speak, clearly uncomfortable to offer any further information.
Since Dusk's arrival to Sunnydale less than four months ago, he’d revealed several interesting tidbits about himself to the slayer and to his father. He was Giles’ son by birth, having been the result of a fling between the watcher and an acquaintance of his, Diedre, during his youth. Along with a circle of friends, they had practiced dark magic to savor the rush it gave them. Unfortunately, they’d made the grievous error of summoning a very powerful demon named Ehyghon. The demon in turn, possessed and murdered nearly everyone in the circle, before finally being slain by the combined efforts of Buffy, Giles, and her lover at the time, the vampire Angel. Before being stopped however, Ehyghon had possessed Diedre, upon doing so discovering the unborn child in her womb. Rather than simply killing the baby as he had her, years later having finally tracked down Giles in Sunnydale, Ehyghon infused it with his own demonic energy and transported it to his home realm: the demonic realm. There, it was further infused with a greater Keeper demon, a darkness demon. Unlike most other demons, the Keeper demons were notoriously pragmatic and disdainful of their demonic brethren, this particular one found other demons especially distasteful. It took the child under its wing and tutored it in all matters of both the occult and combat, in the hopes of unleashing it against other demons.
Time moved differently in that realm. A hundred years in the demonic realm was barely three and a half on earth, his aging was retarded by the keeper demon’s power, giving him much more time to train and prepare. Upon reaching maturity, the child now man, christened 'Dusk', in honor of his darkness demon-half, was ready to be returned to Earth. Before doing so, however, Dusk ventured into the realm of the dead, where all souls resided, in search of his mother. Instead, he encountered the soul of the technopagan, Jenny Calendar; who had been attracted to his presence because of the blood he shared with her beloved, his father the elder Giles. She revealed to him his heritage, his family name and told him where to find his father. She implored him to join his fathers’ crusade against the forces of evil. Dusk readily agreed, and now bearing another name, Alec Giles, he left the realm of the dead…and arrived in Sunnydale California. That was as much as he was willing to reveal of himself, to Buffy anyway, and she respected his privacy enough not to pry. Besides, her experience with Angel had taught her that sometimes, there are things better left unsaid.
“So,” Buffy tossed out trying to uplift the mood of the conversation, “Are we going to go see your dad?” She smiled, noticing that Dusk's expression softened a little.
“It’d be a good idea,” he turned to regard the blond woman with a wry smile, “You know how Dad worries,” Dusk knew that Giles loved the slayer with a fathers love, rather than being threatened by it, Dusk decided to treat the girl like the younger sister he never had. Buffy and Dusk had grown especially close over the last few months, though often Buffy found herself attempting to placate her far more serious “older brother”. His time in the demonic realm had emotionally aged him far beyond his apparent twenty-three years to her twenty.
Buffy smiled at him, “Yeah you know how fathers can be,” she caught herself just as Dusks face fell, “or you don’t, but if you did,” she added hurriedly, “You’d know that Giles is top notch. Really. He’s just the best,” she finished; fervently hoping that she hadn’t sent him on another melancholy trip. Dusk smiled slightly, much to her relief.
“Yes. My father truly is ‘the best,” he smiled indulgently at her and tousled her hair affectionately, appreciating her efforts to cheer him up. Buffy squawked in protest,
“Cut it out, Alec! I have a date tonight!” she socked him in the shoulder as Dusk chuckled.
“Oh yes, I forgot, teenage girls can’t afford to have a single hair out of place, lest their attractiveness plummet to abysmal depths,” he sighed melodramatically, “Americans.”
Buffy chuckled good-naturedly, “Oh really? Perhaps I should clue Willow in towards this attitude,” referring to her best friend and Dusks’ current paramour. They had met his first day here and it had been love at first sight. They had been inseparable ever since and their relationship had been so disgustingly super-romantic, their friends began referring to them as “Mr. And Mrs. Giles,” a thought that neither of them seemed to have any problem with. Dusk shot her a wry look.
“Willow is the exception,” Dusk added carefully. Buffy snorted.
“R-i-i-i-ght. And this would have nothing to do with the fact that if I did tell her this, she’d turn you into something icky?” Willow had become a witch of no small ability over the past four plus years. Dusk stopped, his face suddenly grim, Buffy jolted to a halt a few steps ahead of him.
“What? I was kidding. Joke. Ha ha?” Buffy exclaimed. Dusk shook his head.
“It’s not that, I just…I hate having to keep things from her,” Buffy instantly understood. Aside from herself, her boyfriend Spike, and Giles, no one knew that Dusk wasn’t completely human, a fact that Dusk kept under very tight guard. Buffy placed a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.
“Look, you have to tell her sooner or later. She’s Willow, she’ll understand,” Dusk sighed.
“I know it’s just…” he struggled for the right words.
“Hard to trust when you have so much to lose?” Buffy gently asked. Dusk sighed again.
“Exactly. I haven’t felt about anyone the way I feel about her, not ever, and between her breakup with Oz and Tara up and leaving her right after that whole debacle with Adam, the last thing she needs is the stress and uncertainty that accompanies dating outside her species,” Dusk spat out, a large dollop of self-loathing readily apparent in his tone.
“Hey….” Buffy took his arms and looked up into his face, “What Willow needs is a guy that will love her like crazy, that’ll take care of her and help her take care of herself,” she placed his hands on the sides of his face, shaking him for emphasis, “ and I know that you certainly qualify. So cut yourself some slack, Willow could do a lot worse than you,” she smiled at him. Dusk relented and smiled back, leaning in to kiss Buffy’s brow, resting head against hers.
“You’re a good sister,” he whispered. Buffy smiled wryly.
“Yeah well, I’ve gotten kind of used to having a big brother around, even if he does mess up my hair right before a date,” laughing she reached up and tousled his hair in revenge, he chuckled. She released him and fell back into step beside him as they headed towards Giles’ magic shop.
A voice called out in a thick British accent.
“That was touching, fetch me a hankie, I think I’m gonna cry,” Buffy rolled her eyes and turned not surprised to see a pale, peroxide-blond vampire there leaning against a tree smoking a cigarette.
“Oh you are, are you?” she sauntered over him, “That doesn’t sound very effective. Bet I could do some things to you that would have you bawling like a widdle baby,” Buffy finished this in a little-baby voice, pouting her lip. Spike snorted,
“Yeah right, you and what army?” He flicked the cigarette and looked down to regard the slayer arrogantly. She leaned in close to him, eyes batting seductively.
“Oh I think you know,” she whispered demurely. Spike grinned.
“Yeah? Well maybe I need a reminder,” he shot back challengingly. Buffy put a perfectly manicured fingernail to her lip and contemplated.
“Hmm, well, okay,” reaching out she grasped a fistful of Spikes black T-shirt and pulled him into a long kiss. Dusk had the courtesy to keep his eyes averted. Finally after what seemed like quite a while, they parted. Spike smacked his lips pleasantly.
“That was a pretty convincing argument, I’ve got a better one though,” grinning wickedly he leaned in and cupping his hand over her ear, whispered something to Buffy. Buffy’s face went from amused, slid right into shocked and finally settled at mock outraged.
“Spike!” she cried out swatting the chortling vampire. She turned to look back at Dusk who was making a pointed effort to not stare at them, then she turned back to regard her lover demurely, “Later,” she whispered, her voice full of innuendo towards hours of ‘convincing arguments’, before nestling against his chest and kissing him again. Spike still chuckling, wrapped an arm around her and walked over to the waiting Dusk. Dusk coughed once in politeness then turned to regard the pair. They had started seeing each other shortly after Buffy’s previous boyfriend, the ex-commando Riley Finn, had been recalled by the government and reassigned to God-knows-where, Nevada. What had started out as a particularly bizarre rebound relationship seemed to have deepened past that for despite, or perhaps because of their constant bickering, there was a real undercurrent of mutual care and affection between the two.
“Still got that hankie Spike? I think I may need it now after THAT display,” Spike shot him a wry look and laughed.
“Sod off, mate. I’ve got the most beautiful girl in the world here,” he gave Buffy a tight squeeze, causing her to squeal in delight. His expression became wicked, “and later on I intend to-Oof!” he gasped as Buffy casually slammed her elbow into his abs. Shooting him a dangerous look, Buffy interrupted.
“He intends to be a perfect gentleman and not say things that are going to get his ass kicked,” she looked up at Spike with mock adoring eyes “Right honey?”
“Right. Sure. What she said,” Spike managed to groan out, gingerly rubbing his aching stomach, “Bloody hell,” Buffy smiled and turned back to Dusk.
“Good,” she added perkily, “then let’s go visit Giles and then we can discuss what you intend to do later, all right lover?” Leaning forward, she patted Spike’s stomach, eliciting another groan of protest from the vampire, before flashing a huge little girl grin at the both of them and bounding away gaily. Dusk and Spike exchanged looks, Spike held up a warning finger.
“Not one word, mate I mean it,” he growled out. Dusk held his hands up placating.
“Furthest thought from my mind, honestly,” Dusk reassured him. Spike snorted and pointed to his head.
“Good 'cause remember, this bloody chip in my head says I can’t harm people, you being half-demon and all, I think it’s within my capacity to beat you senseless,” Dusk sent him an amused look.
“Well, it’s within your capacity to TRY. But I don’t think the Initiative installed a chip that would allow you to actually succeed. Unless, of course, government issue is now capable of miracles,” Dusk finished wryly. Spike was about to comment when Buffy’s voice echoed from up the street.
“Boys?”
“Coming!” Dusk and Spike answered in unison, sending Dusk another dangerous look, Spike headed up the street, being mindful of his still-aching abs. Dusk chuckled and slapped Spike on the shoulder comradely.
“Look at it this way, it could be worse,” Spike sent him an amazed look.
“I’m a vampire dating the bloody slayer, I can’t pummel anything without horns. I can’t even feed myself without raiding a blood bank. How could it possibly be any worse?” he demanded. Dusk leaned in and whispered something to Spike whose eyes widened in terror.
“That’s not due for another two and a half weeks!” he cried out. Dusk grinned wryly.
“You’ve got it memorized?” Spike snorted and nodded emphatically.
“You bloody well better believe it! She’s enough of a handful the other twenty-seven days out of the month,” he leveled an accusatory finger at Dusk, “And don’t tell me the man dating the powerful witch doesn’t have her little cycle-o-joy committed to memory as well.” Dusk acquiesced the fact and grimaced.
“Point. It’s knowledge vital to our survival as men I suppose,” Spike snorted.
“Yeah well, most men suffer from broken chinaware during their girls' monthly insanity. I suffer from possible broken bones and you may wind up turned into a newt,” Dusk grinned,
“A newt?” He asked innocently. Spike caught his eye and grinned.
“’I got better!’” they finished in unison, laughing.
“God bless Monty Python, mate,” Spike said grinning, “only good thing to come out of England in the last thirty years." Dusk nodded.
“That and Sid Vicious,” Dusk added, Spike agreed emphatically.
“Amen”
“BOYS!” Buffy’s voice barked out, Spike and Dusk shot each other alarmed looks.
“Coming!” they repeated in unison. Spike regarded the other man.
“Let’s-“
“Yeah let’s be going,” Dusk nodded.
“Good idea.”
“Yeah.”
Spike and Dusk quickly hurried up the street.
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