A/N: Thanks to DoS for betaing this for me, and to all of you who have reviewed so far. I hope to hear from you all again... or at least some of you ;)



“The Virus of Life”

…You're relaxed, you're so blind, you're amazing.
You don't even know the danger you're facing.
If I'm quiet, I'll slide up behind you-
And if you hear me I'll enjoy trying to find you…

~Slipnot



Less than twenty minutes after Buffy’s less than forthcoming explanation, Joyce and Dawn saw her flee once again from their place on the couch in the living room. Except this time, instead of running up the stairs to the bathroom, Buffy ran down the stairs and out the door, refusing to talk to either of them. Dawn watched from her peripheral vision as her mother shook her head, rising from the couch.

“Mom, where are you going? I thought we were gonna watch the movie?”

“Oh, I know, sweetheart. I just…I have to go make a phone call,” her mother explained, heading for the stairs.

“You’re going to your room for privacy, huh?”

“Well, sweetie…yes.”

Dawn decided to not ask any more questions, already knowing that she wasn’t going to get a straightforward answer.

“Okay. But when all of my fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches are gone, don’t look at me,” Dawn threatened lightly, taking another bite from her experimental snack.

Joyce made a face that fell somewhere between a grimace and a smile. “I’m sure that I’ll be missing out. Maybe we can order a pizza for dinner?” On Dawn’s nod of approval, she made her way upstairs.

Dawn waited several minutes after her mom left, flipping from the originally planned film “Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion” to see what else was on.

The black and white scene, apparently taken with a modern day camera, caught her eye mid-flip. That— and the male nakedness of the full frontal variety in the scene gave her pause as well. Dawn quickly turned the volume down a bit, as she leaned forward on the couch, glancing nervously toward the stairs. She listened intently, relieved when she didn’t hear her mother’s footsteps returning just yet.

She turned her eyes back to the television screen, and saw that guy from “Keeping the Faith.” He was naked too. She frowned when she saw the large, dark swastika covering his entire left pec, along with other racially-themed tats covering his upper body. Dawn surmised he was in a prison shower, due to the guard in the corner and all. She gasped as she saw his naked rear end, and lower torso as the camera angle changed; desperate hope born of her curiosity about the male anatomy made her long for the camera to go just a bit lower…

The camera cut to the guard, leaving the shower room along with the rest of the inmates as a group of men entered, coming up behind the guy she recognized from the romantic comedy. One slammed him into the wall as he screamed a “fuck you!” as three others joining the first man. Each grabbed an arm or a leg, pinning his naked form to the tiled shower wall, making sure to hold his legs apart.

The scene literally slowed down as a really big guy threw a towel around the restrained man’s neck, yanking his head back. The look in his eyes was that of power, lust and hate all rolled into one. Dawn’s heart raced as she watched the scene unfold.

Wanna be a nigger, sweet boy?

Fuck you!

We gonna treat you like one.

No!

Come on!

Dawn sat in silent horror, mouth slightly agape and suddenly dry as the large man rammed into him, raping him. Though the sound on the television was low, his cries of pain were still audible enough to be terribly disturbing. His face, contorted in sorrow and hurt as he weakly tried to yell another “fuck you”, broke something in her, and she felt tears welling in her eyes at the horrible injustice of it all, especially the way that the guard just turned a blind eye to it all, closing the door to give the rapists privacy.

It had never occurred to her that something like that could happen to a man. The scene was so disturbing, that she forgot all about the many penises that were being shown, and found herself sitting there, a few tears traveling down her face as she waited for it to end.

That was real sweet.

Fuck you!

The rapist slammed his victim’s head into the wall, knocking him out. The camera showed him sprawled on the floor as blood ran from his temple where it had hit the wall, and from…from his…

It wasn’t fair—he had been outnumbered, and completely defenseless…

Defenseless…

Something was niggling at the back of Dawn’s mind, but she couldn’t quite figure it out.

It only took six stitches.

Dawn gasped aloud when she realized what the doctor on the television screen was referring to.

She dropped the remote when she heard someone knocking at the door. Shaken, but quickly gathering her wits about her, she picked it back up quickly, looking for something mild and innocuous—stopping when she found a children’s program on Nickelodeon.

Dawn quickly wiped at her eyes as she headed for the door, tucking her long, brown hair back behind her ears as someone knocked at the door again.

“All right, I’m coming!” she called out, placing her hand on the knob. She opened it, and furrowed her brow at the person on the other side. The thoughts whispering at the back of her mind grew a bit louder as things slowly began to click into place.

“Hey, Dawnie. Buffy home?”

~~~~~


“God, I cannot wait until this menopause is over. When is this period going to end?” Joyce asked herself, frustrated at being in the bathroom so long just because she had to change again. She had anxiously wanted to call Giles, but nature called her first, demanding that the Aunt Flow situation be remedied immediately. She rolled her eyes at how rapidly she was going through her Kotex, having been on her period almost two weeks already, as she put the purple box back in the cabinet underneath the bathroom sink.

She washed her hands, contemplating how exactly she would ask Giles what exactly was going on in her daughter’s love life. If there was anyone who would be privy to such information, it would be him or Willow. Joyce sighed—one way or another, Buffy always ended up being a complete mystery to her, or a complete stranger, depending upon one’s perspective on things.

She hadn’t been aware of her being the Slayer for so long, hadn’t been aware of Angel, had only vaguely known of Riley until the past summer…and now it turned out that the guy had some sort of violent streak, for some reason or other deeming it fit to beat up on a vampire who literally couldn’t touch him—at least, not in a harmful manner, anyway.

Truth be told, Joyce was quite fond of the unusual vampire. He was an excellent conversationalist, and knowledgeable about so many things—history and philosophy, and traveling, for he’d been to so many places. He had excellent taste in music, and knew lots of pertinent (although mundane) information in regards to “Passions.”

In certain aspects, he reminded her of Ripper.

Joyce chuckled at the similarities between the two as she sat down on her bed. Then she quickly sobered at the thought as she recalled Ripper…and the handcuffs…and the police car…

Really not going there. But Spike’s not so bad. If he were human and employed, why’d he be perfect…

She laughed to herself as she imagined Buffy’s reaction to that particular thought—a mortified look accompanied by an “oh, gross mom!” Or possibly an “if you like him so much, then you date him,” which would be a fruitless statement, because by then, her daughter would most certainly have threatened to stake him. She wasn’t sure why Buffy and the others talked badly about him so much—he truly was a pleasure to have around.

“He’s much more fun than Angel, and Riley’s as dull as ditchwater sometimes,” she thought aloud, not realizing that she had picked up the phrase from the platinum blonde. She bit her lower lip as she picked up the phone, dialing the Magic Box.

Four rings later, someone answered.

“You’ve reached the Magic Box, how may I help you?”

“Giles? It’s Joyce.”

“Joyce? How are you?”

“I’m fine—it’s Buffy I’m concerned about. She had some kind of falling out with Riley, and said that it wasn’t safe to be around him. Do you know anything about that?”

There was a terribly long silence on the other line, followed by a clearing of the Watcher’s throat. “Well, um, I…I’m not sure—”

“Rupert, please,” she pleaded with him. “What’s happened?”

Giles sighed into the phone. “Oh, dear. It appears that Riley has…taken up quite a few nefarious activities as of late.”

“What kind of ‘activities?’ Buffy told me not to let him in the house.”

“I suppose that’s for the best.” He was really saying the statement to himself, momentarily forgetting the woman on the phone as he thought back on an uncharacteristically unwound Spike.

“Why? What did he do? Buffy mentioned Spike—”

“She did? What did she say?”

“She mentioned something about Riley attacking him, but was very vague and then ran off. Literally. Is Spike hurt? Does he need some kind of help?”

Giles smiled slightly to himself at her overt concern for the vampire. “He’s…he’ll be all right. He’s staying with me for the time being.”

“Oh. That’s nice of you. But you still haven’t told me what happened.”

There was another of those awkward pauses from the shopkeeper, and Joyce just waited patiently, knowing that he would eventually give in to her and answer.

When he did, however, she wished he hadn’t.

Joyce was disturbed, to say the least, when he explained what had transpired between her daughter’s beau and the vampire, and the events of the vampire bites that had led up to the incident. She grasped at the neckline of her shirt in worry, not sure how, or if it was even possible to make this right— not for Riley, of course, but for her daughter, and for Spike.

It was times like this when she found herself forced to reevaluate the definition of “monster.”

Spike managed to fit less and less into that category of late, but never had she fathomed that the ex-soldier could be defined as such himself. Riley was supposed to have been safe, solid and potential husband material. But that was officially over now. Joyce swore that if the lumbering bastard ever came near one of her babies again, there would be hell to pay.

It wasn’t until after she had ended her conversation with Giles that she realized that she had unconsciously included Spike on that list.

~~~~~

After her extremely late night of partying, Harmony made her way through the tunnels (to avoid the now setting sun) back to the crypt, and her blondie bear. She was warm and full from a recent meal, and more than eager to share the warmth with her pseudo-boyfriend.

“Spikey! Your Harmony honey is baaack,” she called up to him after seeing he wasn’t on the lower level. She was halfway up the ladder when she realized that he wasn’t home, and with a pout, decided to wait for him in her lingerie in the easy chair and watch a bit of television until he came back. Or take a nap, and have him pleasantly wake her up…

Her thoughts dissolved into dust as the aroma of sex and blood infiltrated her nostrils. She breathed in deeply as she surfaced on the upper level, walking around the crypt until she made it into the center of the room, where the scents were strongest.

She frowned as she smelled Spike, blood, cum, and a scent that was familiar, though she couldn’t exactly place it. When she realized how much of a feminine scent it was not, her frown turned into a grimace, knowing that her Spike would never do such a thing.

“Spike’s so not into guy-on-guy action,” she thought to herself, recalling their conversation about a three way. She squatted down, closer to the scents, and inhaled deeply, shuddering slightly as her mind darted off to a more than dark place at the possibilities of what could have happened to him.

At least there’s no dust—that’s something.

She closed her eyes, and inhaled slowly once again, concentrating. Her eyes flew open as the image in her mind’s eye connected her to the distinct smell. Yes, though she wasn’t terribly familiar with the scent, she knew. His sweat and his stink was all over the room, just as it had been that night of Spike’s failed attempt at removing his chip.

The Slayer’s boyfriend.

Harmony’s expression hardened as comforting thoughts of vengeance filtered through her brain…