Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Shadowed Suspicion Chapter 32

[madimpossibledreamer]

I have no excuse.  I've been out of school for a week, and this has been written.  (But Dynasty Warriors...)  Uh, yeah, that's it, really.

Main Points:
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure/Buffy the Vampire Slayer AU
Chapter Summary: Buffy, Josephine, and the Scoobies are recovering from the attack, as well as doing some investigation of their own.
Word Count: 1616
Rating: K
Note: HERE THERE PROBABLY BE BUFFY/JJBA SPOILERS.  READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

 

            “—murder of a husband and wife yesterday in Uttlesford.  The police are not releasing any information on the deaths, but sources say that they were particularly gruesome.  After the strange incident just a few days ago, the public is raising concerns that—”

            “Slaypire, or not Slaypire?”

            “—upstanding members of the community, having served as foster parents to a number of—”

            “Not.” Dawn decides, glancing over at Andrew, who’s still fiddling with their new computer system.  “It probably was one of the kids.”

            “Dawn!” Buffy’s voice is sharp, and her sister merely rolls her eyes in response.

            “What?  According to Xander, the foster system sucks.”  She realizes that she’s probably said more than she should have, but it’s too late to take it back.

            “When was boytoy in the system?” Faith asks, attention caught.

            “Briefly, when he was seven.  He wandered away, and wouldn’t answer any questions about his parents, so they assumed he was a runaway orphan.  Or something,” Willow explains after a few long moments of silence, looking apologetic.

            “Jessica me was probably too drunk to notice him wander off.”  The voice sounds flippant, but Josephine hits the wall with her good hand.  She grunts a little at the pain and carefully lowers herself into one of the computer chairs, spinning listlessly.  “I don’t need this,” she whines yet again, gesturing with the sling carelessly.

            “Until June declares your arm fully healed, you’re not to take that off.  And stop jostling it so much.”  Giles limps in, carrying a pile of books.

            Josephine waits until he’s walked past, then sticks out her tongue at the former librarian’s back.  Willow starts giggling helplessly, and they earn a Watcher’s long-suffering sigh.

            “Well, at least it’s really cool that you have witches who can heal stuff and see the future,” Josephine’s enthusiasm has returned, none the worse for wear.

            “Should you be carrying that many books on your own?  And shouldn’t you be wearing your boot thing?” Buffy asks innocently, which earns yet more giggling, even from Andrew.  Her entire right shoulder is bandaged, and she can’t move it much.  It’s a pain getting dressed or anything else, but there’s some satisfaction in doing better than Giles or Josephine at this.  She’s not sure how long it’ll postpone the complaints, but at least it’s an improvement.

            Giles decides to ignore the question and pretend he hadn’t heard it.  It’s a skill he’s very good at, but Buffy will hound her Watcher if she has to.  “These are the books Angel recommended.  Most cover the line of Aurelius and what little is known of vampire magic, but at least one might reference the stone mask depending on how it’s translated.”

            Josephine slips out, fairly surreptitiously.  Buffy would write it off as another Xander mannerism, Josephine not wanting to get involved in the research party, if she didn’t see the woman sneakily pulling a phone from her pocket as she got to the door.  Buffy nods to Giles and follows, as quiet as a Slayer can be.  It’s an odd phone, a flip one with an odd combination of silver and pink and a strap with a weird pink bunny hanging off it.  It seems cute and girly and not at all the sort of thing a mom would have, but then again, this is Josephine.

            She has to move slowly to not get caught, so she doesn’t catch the start of the conversation.  And what she does hear is disappointingly useless.  It’s in Japanese.  At least, she thinks it’s in Japanese.  Andrew and Xander had forced her to watch a few of the Japanese animation things, and even though they had subtitles she had no idea what was going on, but then again, she’d had training watching things she didn’t understand.  She needs to bug Willow and Xander, whenever they finally find the moron, to watch Bollywood movies again.  It’d been too long.  She has to quickly get out of there and wipe at her eyes before the tears actually started, because that, as Xander would say, wasn’t of the good.  He’d be all right.  He had to be.

            Buffy grabs soda for everyone, just to have an excuse to be out of the room.  Andrew looks like he could kiss her, despite the fact that he doesn’t really think of her like that, and wipes away some sweat before going back to messing with whatever wiring setup thing he’s doing.

            Only a few people are actually helping out with the research.  Faith is blowing bubbles with her gum.  Spike looks like he’s more interested in the gruesome pictures than actually trying to translate whatever heavy book he has.  Giles is massaging his head as if he’s already starting to get a headache, but at least they haven’t driven him to the point of glasses cleaning yet, and he’s sitting down.  So it’s fairly easy for Willow to get everyone’s attention by clearing her throat.  “I did some digging.  They really tried to hide it from me, but I’m better than they are.  It turns out that Wesley was Xander’s source of information.”

            “Wesley?  Didn’t he end up in LA?” Buffy asks, surprised.  Wouldn’t Angel have mentioned this?

            Spike frowns and looks like he’s about to answer, but is interrupted.

            “Actually, no.”

            They all whip around.  Josephine looks ready for a fight, so the blonde Slayer moves slightly in front of her, just to give her the message.  With whatever thing Xander’s mom does with doors, that might not actually stop her at all, but.  It’s the thought that counts.

            Angel looks apologetic, but then, that’s nothing new either.

            “Nobody asked for you, Peaches.”  Spike is trying, hard, not to go into Game Face, but they really don’t have time for the two to get into another ‘who’s the better vamp, then’ match.

            Giles moves to a standing position, wincing a little as he does so.  “Angel, as an employee of Wolfram and Hart, I cannot allow you to—”

            His statement is met with a tired if wolfish smile from the vampire.  He still looks good, but then, as a vampire, that’s kind of to be expected, too.  “I resigned under duress, sort of.  The Circle of the Back Thorn’s mostly dead.”

            “What do you mean by ‘actually no’?” Andrew asks, gingerly leaning against the desk.  Buffy had learned a lot of fictional curse words when he’d accidentally slammed his splinted fingers when setting up the computers earlier.  Josephine had looked as if she was filing away some of them for future reference.

            “Wesley’s dead,” Angel tells them bluntly.

            Willow frowns.  “But that’s what I found—it’s all legit…”

            “Wolfram and Hart…” Giles begins, voice mostly that of yet another Watcher lecture with only the faintest trace of horror, “…has been known to continue their contracts of servitude after death.”

            Angel nods, adding, “…and that’s not even counting all the shapeshifters we know of.”

            “I think it’s safe to say that whoever it was, they had their own agenda when helping Xander,” their former warlock comments.

            Faith just whistles.

            “Yes, thank you Faith.”  Giles is frowning.  Was his hearing hurt in the battle, or does he just have a headache?  Yet another thing she needs to bring up with June, and then maybe the witch can force her stubborn Watcher to actually rest.

            “You’re all right, Buffy?”  She hears Spike swear, kick something, and storm off, but it sounds like someone’s actually following him, so that’s something.

            “Yeah, well, you know me.  I’m a-ok.”  Buffy smiles, and gets a smirk in return.

            “I do know you.  That’s why when the Devon Coven mentioned that you haven’t been complaining about your shoulder, I thought something was wrong.”

            She pouts playfully, but they’re interrupted very insistently by a loud cough coming from somewhere around her Watcher.  “Does anyone happen to remember the utter catastrophe we have on our hands?”  He’s two seconds away from throwing up his hands and following Spike.

            Instantly, Angel sobers.  “You’re talking about the stronger fledges I was running into, right?”

            “They’re Slaypires.”  Dawn corrects him cheerfully, and watches as the varying shades of horror cross his face.

            “That explains how I felt around—” He cuts himself off mid-sentence, mostly because this is the point that Xander would have started to tease him for phrasing.  Not that it was what it sounded like.  Just as a Slayer can sense a vampire, a vampire can sense a Slayer.  Pretty much Giles-rote.

            Buffy occasionally wonders how it differs, but is perfectly content to let that stay academic, thank you.  She’d prefer not to be a Slaypire if she can help it.

            “How can I help?” Angel corrects himself, looking to Giles.  “And…where’s Xander?”  From the look on his face, he’s not sure how to feel about the Scooby that pretty much hates him, but he doesn’t want to hear he’s dead, either.

            Giles looks tired and older than usual and not a little bit guilty.  “He warned us about the mask, and had we listened perhaps further events would not have gone so horribly awry.  As it is, he’s…elsewhere.”

            “We’re looking for him, and we’re going to find him alive,” Josephine adds.  She sounds just as cheerful as Dawn, but there’s a fierce undercurrent that earns a look of respect.

            She’s not sure exactly how long it takes them or how much of the story Angel follows, from everyone trying to tell him what’s happened all at once or adding things that seemed important and were left out or commenting, but there’s a sense of home, of belonging, that’s been gone since before Sunnydale fell, and she allows herself to enjoy the feeling.