Chapter Text
"Hey, did you hear?"
Lance Pederson looked round nervously. People talking to him was usually bad news, and long experience had taught Lance to be ready to duck whenever he was addressed. Fortunately this time it was Jonathan Levinson coming scurrying up to him, and Jonathan was possibly the only kid more picked on in school than himself. "Hear what?" he asked.
"Someone saw Kyle and his gang around Herbert's room," Jonathan said excitedly, "and Flutie's called them into his office. He's really freaking out about this, man."
"For real? They really did that?"
"Can you believe it? Doing something like that to the poor little guy? They didn't even cook him first."
Both boys paused, grossed out by the thought of anyone eating raw piglet. It was kind of weird; Kyle and his buddies were bullies, that was something Lance was intimately aware of being their favourite target, but they had a lazy kind of cruelty. Going after the school mascot like that, it just wasn't their style.
"Flutie's going to throw the book at them," Lance said.
"They are totally expelled," Jonathan agreed.
Lance grinned. Closing his eyes, he imagined a future at Sunnydale High without Kyle or the others. It would be heaven, he reckoned. No more worrying every time he walked down the school corridors, no more wondering when they were going to spring something unpleasant on him, no more falling for it when they pretended to be the least bit nice to him. No more having no friends because no one else wanted to be bullied either.
"This I have to see," he said fervently. When Jonathan didn't say anything back to him, he opened his eyes.
Jonathan didn't object, because Jonathan had already hurried off.
Lance sighed and turned back towards class. He really would like to be there when Flutie tore a strip off his least favourite people and threw them out of school, but Flutie would never let that happen. There just wasn't any reason for Lance to be there. Maybe he could hang around outside the Principal's office, though, if he could think of something that he needed to talk to Flutie about. Flutie always said that his office was always open to any student who wanted to talk, although in Lance's experience that didn't mean that Flutie did any listening.
The trouble was he'd have to stand there with an ear pressed up against the door to hear what was going on, which would be pretty obvious to anyone walking past. Even then he wouldn't hear most of it, unless... Lance stopped dead, thought a moment and then headed outside.
Two minutes later, Lance was creeping very carefully around the outside of the Principal's office up to the window that Flutie always left open when he was in. Something about not wanting to give people the impression the office was stuffy and closed in, Flutie claimed; Lance didn't believe it for a minute, but he wasn't about to question it if it gave him an easy way to overhear Kyle being chewed out.
Not that it was all that easy a way. Lance knew he wasn't much good at sneaking around, always considering it ironic that people only noticed him when he was trying not to be noticed, so he was mostly worrying about not being seen or heard. He'd be in a lot of trouble if anyone caught him here, but it was going to be so worth it.
That was why it took him a while to realise that something was wrong. While Lance had been making sure he wasn't visible, something had changed in Flutie's voice. There was no more of the almost crying in anger that had given Lance a warm glow to know was directed at Kyle, even if it was about as effective as being mugged by a puppy. Now when Flutie demanded "What do you think you're doing?" there was a note of panic in there.
Lance edged closer. If he moved out just a little bit he'd be able to see in through the windows. It was risky, but he really wanted to know what was going on. It couldn't be too bad, whatever it was; this was the Principal he was talking about, and if Kyle and his cronies tried to intimidate him now Flutie could always decide to expel them later. Flutie might be nearly as much of a coward as Lance was, but he'd have to do something about that.
Then Flutie screamed once, and something struck the glass in front of Lance. Something liquid, red and viscous. There was no more talk now, just crunching and chewing noises accompanied by all too human moans of pleasure.
For the longest time Lance couldn't move a muscle. He was frozen with fear, watching the blood drip down the window. Only when the first of the drops hit the edge of the pane could he make himself turn and run, and even then he only made it round the corner of the building before stopping and heaving up his lunch.
Inside, the pack ate on, too intent on gorging themselves to notice.
*****
Instead he tried to make himself extra inconspicuous as he walked through the halls from class to class. He clung to the sides of the hallways, always trying to make sure that he was as far away from Kyle and the others as he could be. As usual, this only served to make him more obvious to everyone, and halfway through the morning as he made his nervous way towards Biology class, a meaty hand descended on his shoulder.
Lance squeaked, dropped his books and nearly fainted on the spot.
"Hey," Larry laughed, letting go of him. "You're blocking my path, dork. What do you say?"
With a sizeable fraction of the football squad standing around him, there was only one answer that wasn't going to get Lance immediately stomped on. "Uh, s-sorry," he stammered, "I'll move. Right now." He bent to retrieve his books, only to have Larry haul him upright by the collar.
"You said you were getting out of my way right now. Does that look like 'right now' to you guys?" Larry asked the others, to general snickers. "Are you trying to hurt my feelings here?"
Lance resigned himself to getting footprints on his science books. At least this way, even if a few pages got ripped, he didn't get beaten up. Hopefully. He took one hesitant step to the side, and for his troubles got shoved further out into the corridor.
Straight into Kyle.
This time Lance's squeak was much more of a strangled scream. He scrambled away from Kyle as quickly as he could, not caring that he was jumping straight back into the jocks and sending their books flying too. Larry would only kill him.
Lance was so busy first trying to get away from Kyle and his friends, then simply surviving being whaled on by Larry and his friends, that he didn't see Kyle and the others leaving. If he had, he might have wondered why they looked so panicked themselves, or why they kept so tightly together as if no one else was to be trusted.
That set the pattern for the day. Lance would try to keep out of the way, fail abysmally, see all four of his nightmares in the hallway and panic. More often than not it would be the football team that stopped him, eager to continue the payback for his earlier misdemeanour, and Lance let them do it rather than risk getting any closer to the others.
His body felt like a mass of bruises by the end of the afternoon, and he hurt so much he was almost crying. All he wanted to do was crawl home — or maybe crawl into a corner in the library where no one would find him, since home seemed a very long way away — and forget about the entire day. Without doubt, it had been the worst school day of his entire life.
Lance didn't know he was living on the Hellmouth when he thought that, otherwise he might have realised that "It can't possibly get any worse" was the very last thing to say to himself under the circumstances. Moments later, he was wondering if it was the very last thing he would ever say as the person passing him by turned and slammed him against the wall.
"What?" Kyle demanded. "What do you think you're doing? Don't think we haven't noticed you keeping an eye on us all day. What do you want?"
There is only so much fear a body can live in before the adrenal glands give up and assume that things are normal. Tired and hurting, Lance couldn't summon up the energy to be scared any more as Tor, Heidi and Rhonda crowded round him as well. "Leave me alone," he whined.
"You stalk us, and you want to be left alone?" Rhonda asked incredulously.
"Look, I've got bruises on my bruises and I just don't care any more. If you're going to kill me, get on with it." It took Lance a while to realise he what he'd said, and even then he couldn't bring himself to care all that much. He'd never been so miserable in his entire life.
All four of his tormenters went very still. "We... No..." Kyle managed to stutter before anger took hold of him again. "What do you know?" he demanded, getting right into Lance's face.
Finally, belatedly, Lance felt afraid. "I know what you did yesterday," he squeaked quickly. "To Flutie. I was listening in."
There was a moment's silence again. "Maybe there's still time," Tor said to Kyle, sounding as panicked as Lance felt. "We could..." He trailed off, turning to stare at Lance.
They could kill him, Lance realised. They could kill him and there wouldn't be anyone around who knew what they'd done and they'd be safe and no one would even find his body if they ate him, and oh God he had to think of something now!
"I wrote it down," he gabbled. "I wrote it all down and hid it in places where people will look if I disappear." Please don't eat me, he thought wildly.
Kyle looked like he'd just been hit in the gut. "What do you want?" he asked in a small, defeated voice.
"Huh?"
"What will it take to keep you quiet? What do you want from us?"
I want you to leave me alone, was Lance's first thought. He opened his mouth to say as much, then shut it again as a beautiful thought suddenly came to him. They would do anything to keep this a secret, he realised, anything at all if he just promised them and made them believe it.
Lance was a boy of small expectations. He didn't want a lot out of life beyond getting through school, getting some kind of job, and getting a girlfriend some day. Or any kind of friend for that matter; being a geek wasn't exactly a group experience. What he didn't want was to be constantly hassled, bullied and beaten on all day every day, just like had happened today.
"I want to you to protect me," he said.
"You what?"
"I want you to stop the jocks from picking on me. Whatever it takes, I want you to hang around with me and stop them from hassling me. Not after school, obviously, you've got lives of your own, I mean I assume you don't—"
"Shut up, motor mouth," Rhonda said distantly. She was clearly thinking about it, so Lance obediently shut up.
Finally having something to hold over the people who had bullied him for all these years felt good, he decided. They didn't know what to do when someone could fight back, beat them at their own game by changing the rules. He could terrify them now by threatening to reveal what he knew, and it felt great. Maybe he should ask them for something big — but no, start small. First, Lance thought, make sure that no one else would do to him what they had. There would be plenty of time to think big later.
"Protect me," he said quietly. "That's all."
Kyle's gaze flicked across his friends before coming back to rest on Lance. "We'll do it," he said bitterly.
For all he'd been sure that they would give in, Lance still nearly slumped in relief. "Great," he said, "that's great. Hey, where are you going?"
Tor looked back at Lance from where the foursome had started walking away. "Not after school, you said. School's out, bozo."
Lance sighed as he watched his tormenters leave. He still ached, and he still had to get himself home. Now he had to write down what he knew and hide it for real, too.
Some days you just couldn't win.
********
It wasn't until he happened to spot Tor and Heidi hanging around the lockers and unobtrusively keeping an eye on him that Lance realised he was wrong. The four of them were keeping their word to protect Lance, hanging around in case they were needed, they just weren't hanging around in any way that might imply they were with Lance.
That was fine, he thought a little bitterly. He didn't want them to be friends with him anyway. They were stupid, cowardly bullies, monsters who were scared to be seen for what they were, and no one in their right mind would want to associate with them.
Lance kept repeating that to himself through his next lessons until he almost believed it. The truth, as well he knew, was that he did care. If they showed the slightest scrap of friendly behaviour towards him, he'd fall for it. He always did, every time. Even when he knew full well that they were just setting him up for another pratfall, like back at the zoo, he still let them do it. Just so that for a few minutes he could believe that he had friends, that he was part of something larger than himself.
He was still trying not to think about the depths of his patheticness as he queued for lunch. The unidentifiable glop and the vegetables that had seen better days that landed on his plate suited his mood. It was all about as dispiriting as Sunnydale High could possibly manage, and somehow Lance wasn't surprised as he headed for a table to find his way blocked by Larry and friends.
"You ready to apologise yet, jerk?" Larry somehow managed to make that sound like ordinary conversation, Lance realised. No one more than a few feet away from them would notice, but the menace in Larry's eyes was unmistakable. It was way too public a place for Larry to beat Lance up, but long experience told Lance that an 'accidental' nudge was about to send his dinner crashing to the floor.
Suddenly Kyle slipped between him and Larry. "Larry, Larry, Larry," Kyle said sadly, "I'm disappointed in you. Picking on little Lancie here? Anyone might think you were getting lazy going after such an easy target. You should be trying for something harder, like embarrassing McNally in front of both of his friends. No, that's still too easy..."
Lance found himself being quietly cut out of the herd of jocks by Rhonda and steered over to where Tor and Heidi were sitting with their lunches. He looked back at Kyle, who seemed to be confusing the hell out of Larry still. "Uh, thanks guys," he said.
Heidi pulled him into a seat unceremoniously, nearly causing him to drop his plate anyway. "Only you could get bullied in the middle of a crowded room," she said witheringly.
Tor also favoured him with a black look. "If he gets into trouble because of this," he said, nodding towards Kyle, "they aren't the ones you'll need protecting from."
Lance shrank away from him for a moment before remembering why the foursome were helping him out at all. "If I get into trouble because of you, I won't be the one you'll need protecting from," he reminded them.
"Oh, now you're the tough guy," Heidi said scathingly. "Shut up and eat."
Lance shut up and ate. A minute or so later, Kyle dropped into the seat next to him. "Thank you for that timely rescue, Kyle," Kyle said. "Here, please have my dessert. Why, thank you, Lance, I don't mind if I do."
Lance watched wistfully as his dessert — green-flavoured jello dampened by something which might once have been cream — disappeared from in front of him. He sighed quietly but didn't say anything, partly because he didn't want to push his luck and partly because he couldn't shake the feeling that he really ought to have thanked Kyle. It annoyed him no end. How could he be scared of and grateful to this bunch both at the same time?
"So what were you planning on doing for the rest of lunch break?" Rhonda asked eventually. "Standing around with a placard saying 'Pick on me'?"
Lance was pretty sure she didn't care, not that it mattered anyway. He told her what she asked out of sheer reflex, annoyed at himself for being so pathetic that he'd take even that reaction from her as positive. "Well, there's a chem test this afternoon, so I thought maybe we could go study in the library." He looked over to Rhonda, just managing to stop himself from asking her if that was OK, and was startled to see that she and the other three had all frozen.
"You'll be safe there," Kyle said smoothly.
Lance frowned. Something was going on here; Kyle was trying way too hard to sound like it was no big deal, and Tor still looked like a rabbit stuck in headlights. "How can you know that?" he whined.
"The librarian's always in his office," Rhonda said, trying to sound dismissive.
Something in Lance snapped quietly. They were trying to get out of protecting him, he realised. They'd actually had to stand up to someone and they didn't like it. They had finally had a taste of what it was like to be Lance, and they didn't want to do that again. Well, that was tough; it wasn't their choice, and Lance wanted to rub their noses in it so hard that they'd never mess with him again.
"So my books will be fine," he said, a hard edge creeping into his voice. "We have an agreement."
"Summers is usually hanging around there," Tor said. The others glared at him.
"I feel safer already." Lance couldn't believe he was saying what he was saying, or that he could get so much sarcasm into it. He didn't know how he'd done it, but he'd got them on the run. "Come on, are you scared of a few books? You should be more scared of a little note waiting for the new principal. Which is it going to be?"
He was getting the hang of this intimidation thing, Lance thought as the four of them practically growled their agreement. They were coming with him no matter what they thought about it, and he was going to make them study through their lunch break too.
******
Then Monday morning rolled round, and Lance was met at the school gate by a smiling Rhonda. "Lance," she said cheerfully, slapped an arm around him and propelled him down the corridor before he could get his head around what was happening.
"I've given this a lot of thought," she said, still smiling, "and if you force us into the library again I will kill you myself."
"But... I... We..."
"Trust me, some things are worth risking that anyone would believe your fairy story."
Lance blinked, not quite sure how the situation had managed to escape him. He wasn't even sure why; sure, the librarian had watched them like a hawk, but that was his job. He was supposed to look after the books, and Rhonda and the rest weren't exactly renowned for taking good care of anything belonging to other people. If Mr Giles wanted to walk around making the others really uncomfortable, well it was only what they deserved.
Rhonda was still smiling like nothing was wrong and she hadn't just threatened to kill him. "O-ok," Lance said eventually. At least she hadn't told him the whole deal was off, and he did feel guilty about blackmailing her. And felt stupid for feeling guilty, because if the four of them didn't deserve some payback for everything that they'd done to him, then no one did. "I'll take study breaks outside," he said in a spirit of compromise.
"Good for you," Rhonda told him, her smile not changing one bit.
For some reason this ticked Lance off. Stupid, he told himself. She was bullying him into backing off, and he'd given in just like that. "If you really want to be seen cracking books with me in public," he added, trying to reclaim some self-respect.
Rhonda's smile did slip slightly this time. "We're your security blanket, not your study buddies," she said pointedly.
Lance smiled nastily. "Would that be one of those things worth the risk?" he asked. Before she could reply he turned into a class room for the first lesson of the day. "See you later," he said, trying to sound every bit as cheery as she had earlier.
He could get to like this, he thought.
He was peripherally aware of his entourage throughout the morning, but didn't really pay them much attention. It was enough that they were there, that he could feel smug about having them do what he wanted — mostly — and that no one else was hassling him. It didn't take long for his confidence in pushing back at Rhonda to wear off, leaving him alone with his books and whatever the teachers were saying. It was pretty sad, he thought as the class got their chemistry quiz results back before lunch; the only real friends he had were books, and he somehow didn't think that he could blackmail the others into actually liking him. Even surrounded by people, Lance was still lonely.
He was a little surprised when the four of them sat around him at lunch without any of their usual sarcasm. Without saying much at all, in fact, which finally prompted Lance to look at them. For a moment he thought someone else must have discovered their secret, until Tor broke the silence.
"B minus," he said, something between shock and awe on his face. "I got a B minus."
"In the chem test?" Lance asked dumbly. Tor nodded. "Not bad," Lance told him, trying to sound at least a little like he cared.
"Not bad? Dude, I've never had a B before in my life. How the hell did this happen?"
Lance rolled his eyes. "There was this thing we did called 'studying' that you bitched about the whole time, remember? Maybe that had something to do with it?" Four faces turned to look at him. "Never mind," he said quickly.
"Lancie," Heidi began, then paused. "Sarcasm is not a good look on you," she finished after a glance at Rhonda.
"Sorry," Lance said automatically.
"But if it keeps the parents off my back, I'll put up with it."
Lance blinked in surprise. "You too?"
"Straight C," she told him, "but hey, it's better than a D."
"Wow." They were being friendly, Lance realised. Vaguely friendly, anyway, which was a good thing because if they'd been too friendly he'd have known that they were up to something again. He'd have gone along with it anyway because he was stupid like that, but he'd have known. At least this time they were still a bit shell-shocked from getting good grades, though how anyone could think of a 'C' as good was beyond him. "I guess you'll have something to celebrate tonight then."
"Yeah," Heidi said in a way that clearly meant 'No'. She sighed and looked down at her lunch. "I guess I'm not really in the mood for people."
Lance didn't really get that, particularly not when the others agreed with her, but he wouldn't have been invited to any night out at the Bronze anyway so he didn't think about it much. He just dug into his food and luxuriated in the lack of hostility around him. Pathetic, he knew, but it was all he was going to get.
So he was surprised when he stood up to dispose of his plate, saw Larry and his pals grinning at him in a way that promised no good at all, and then suddenly found himself surrounded by the whole pack.
"Larry," Kyle said, the disappointment writ so large in his lazy drawl that even a jock couldn't miss the sarcasm, "I thought we'd talked about this. I distinctly remember you saying you'd go bother someone else."
"Are you trying to tell me what to do, DuFours?" Larry asked threateningly.
Rhonda leaned over Lance's shoulder, with a smile on her face that Lance was really glad wasn't pointed at him. "We're telling you to pick on another geek," she said sweetly but firmly. "This one's taken."
She scared Lance, and it seemed like Larry and his buddies didn't know what to make of her either. "Yeah, well," he said, trailing off as he seemed to have no idea what to say. He turned for the door, pausing only to point back at Lance. "We'll be seeing you later."
"Not if we see you first," Heidi said softly.
Lance watched Larry's departing back, trying to work out what that had felt different to the first time Kyle had run interference for him. "I... um... thanks," he said eventually.
Kyle gave him a cock-eyed look, smiled and shook his head.
******
On the other hand, he never could believe it. He fell for their friendly overtures time and time again, no matter how much he reminded himself that they had to be playing him. Even when he stood up for them and any reasonable person might just imagine showing some gratitude, or at least lay off him for a bit, they still turned round like some bad-tempered dog and bit him anyway.
He worried at the problem as he walked home, while he mechanically ate his dinner, and even as he worked his way quickly through the small amount of homework he had. Then, still unable to understand Kyle and the others, Lance did something he normally never did; he went out. Not to the Bronze, because frankly being anywhere near his classmates was very rarely any sort of fun, but just to see if the cool night air would help him make any sense of their behaviour.
He really wasn't expecting to come across Kyle, sitting by himself in the park, apparently as wrapped up in thought as Lance was. "Oh," he said almost involuntarily. Kyle whipped around rapidly to face him, scaring the living daylights out of him. Again. "Sorry," Lance said quickly, "I didn't mean to disturb you. I'll just... um..."
Kyle looked at him levelly for a moment, then turned away and sat back down dismissively. "You shouldn't be out on your own," he said.
"I don't need a nursemaid!" Lance retorted, stung out of his usual timidity. Kyle just shifted a little to turn and give Lance a look that said everything. "Anyway," Lance carried on, unwilling to concede that nursemaiding was exactly what he had demanded Kyle do, "you're here — on your own — and besides it's all your fault I'm out here."
This time Kyle nearly laughed. "How exactly do you figure that, Lancie?"
For once Lance let the hated nickname wind him up rather than put him down. "You... all of you... you just..." he spluttered incoherently. Unable to find the words he wanted, he angrily stamped over, sat himself down beside Kyle and fixed him with his best glare. "Why?" he demanded.
"Why what?" Kyle still seemed amused, at least enough that he didn't try to evict Lance.
"Why anything? Why..." Lance struggled to put his questions into words, with no better success than he'd had for the previous few hours. "Why Flutie?" he asked more quietly.
Kyle's good humour abruptly vanished. "There are some things you don't want to know," he said.
"OK then, why Herbert?"
"Because he was weak and defenceless, just like you."
In some ways, the implied threat was familiar. Lance knew everyone picked on him because he was an easy target, he was almost resigned to it. On the other hand, this wasn't one of those threats, this was Kyle trying to get Lance to shut up and go away. And for once, Lance knew that threat had no force behind it.
"I don't believe you," he said, almost daring Kyle to go for him. He was determined to get some sort of answer, and right now with Kyle's buddies nowhere around seemed like the best chance he'd ever get.
Kyle seemed to realise that Lance wasn't going to back down. He shook his head. "You wouldn't believe me even if I told you the truth."
Lance snorted. He'd listened to some of his classmates eating his Principal; after that there wasn't much that he wouldn't believe. "Try me," he said simply.
Kyle looked away. "We were possessed by hyenas," he told him baldly, refusing to make eye contact. "Now they're gone."
Lance was about to tell Kyle to pull the other one when Kyle looked back at him. "You really believe that," he said instead. He could see it in Kyle's eyes. Kyle was crazy for sure.
"Told you you wouldn't believe me," Kyle said with a bitter little smile.
Lance frowned. He didn't believe Kyle's crazy line for a moment, but why did Kyle believe it? What could have happened that was so bad that Kyle would prefer a story like that? What was he so scared of?
Unfortunately, he said that last bit out loud. "I'm not scared of anything," Kyle hissed, getting right up in Lance's face.
Lance knew his tormenter too well not to see the lie. He knew as he spoke that this was going to get him beaten black and blue, but he couldn't stop himself looking Kyle straight in the eyes and saying, "Except yourself."
"Naw," said a new voice, "what he should be scared of is me."
"Oh good," Kyle muttered. He turned and swung his fist hard at the newcomer. It struck the young man, no one that Lance knew, square on the nose.
"Ow! That hurt, you bastard!" The young man rubbed his nose, glaring at Kyle.
"It was meant to," Kyle told him, swinging again. This time, however, his intended victim almost lazily grabbed his fist before the blow could land.
"For that," he said, "I'm going to kill you slowly." Lance watched in shock as ridges appeared on his — its? — forehead and his teeth elongated into vicious fangs, while his suddenly yellow eyes almost seemed to glow briefly.
Kyle struggled, but it was obvious that the creature was much stronger than him. It slowly pinned Kyle with one hand while the other pulled his head aside to expose his neck, leaving Kyle plenty of time to realise what was going to happen. Lance found himself frozen to the spot until Kyle's eyes locked with his, and Kyle shouted at him to run.
Lance ran. Forwards. "Let go of him," he yelled at the monster, flailing away as best he could. He wasn't expecting to do much damage, but he had to try, and he was pleasantly surprised when it howled in pain when he kicked it solidly in the shin.
"Oh for crying out loud, I'm trying to eat here. Wait your turn, blood-bag." The creature swiped at him, and Lance stepped backwards quickly before it could connect. He had no intention of waiting his turn, not that he had much idea of what to do next.
He'd done enough, it turned out. Kyle managed to twist free, turned and raised his knee sharply. Whatever that thing was, Lance thought, it reacted about as well to a knee in the groin as a person did.
Kyle grabbed hold of Lance. "This time, when I say run, you run," he said, suiting actions to words. "Let's get out of here."
They ran into the wooded section of the park, following their instincts and heading for cover. They heard more cursing and threats from behind them as whatever it was recovered and gave chase, evaded something or someone else that was running in the opposite direction, and somehow managed to get away. They waited a full minute after losing the sounds of pursuit before they stopped running.
"What the hell was that?" Kyle asked.
Lance shook his head as he tried to regain his breath. "No clue," he said eventually. "I don't know about you, but I'm scared shitless."
Kyle leaned back against a tree with a little laugh. "You don't give up, do you?" Lance gave him a little grin then bent over again, still trying to catch his breath. When he looked back, Kyle was looking off into the distance, sombre once more.
"You really want to know what scares me? What if it's not gone for good?"
It took Lance a moment to sort back through their conversation. "The hyena?" After nearly being eaten by something that shouldn't look so much like a man, whatever it was, suddenly being possessed by a hyena didn't sound so far-fetched any more.
Kyle nodded. "I remember what it felt like when we... It... I loved it. I loved every fucking minute of it. Everything was so much clearer, sharper, simpler, and I could do whatever I wanted. It was only afterwards..." He looked over at Lance, and Lance couldn't see his old tormenter in those eyes. Just a lost, lonely, scared boy about his own age. "What if it's not gone? What if it's just waiting? What if... what if I just lose it anyway and kill someone again?"
Lance straightened up, wincing in sympathy. "What do the others think?" he asked quietly. "For that matter, where are they?"
"I don't know. We just..." Kyle trailed off, apparently lost for words.
"You needed some alone time?" Lance suggested. He got that; then again, he spent most of his time alone. Then a really unpleasant thought crossed his mind. "We've got to find them. If they're out here that thing might go after them!"
Right on cue, a female scream cut through the night.
"Rhonda!" Kyle shot off towards where the sound had come from. Lance paused to pick up a fallen branch before following him through the trees, cursing the inconsiderateness of whatever it was that didn't even let him catch his breath after the last panic.
When he burst into a clearing moments later, he saw Kyle pulling Rhonda away from another one of the crinkly foreheaded things. "You are dead," Kyle spat out.
The thing grinned. "Guess I am at that," it said. "Why don't you join me?"
Lance didn't join in the banter. He hadn't got any breath left for it anyway. He just swung his branch as hard as he could, trying to catch the creature by surprise. Unfortunately for him, it caught the branch one-handed and tried to wrench it away from him. Unfortunately for it, the branch was old enough that it just snapped in two, leaving both of them holding jagged, shorter sticks.
"Dream on," Kyle snarled, lashing out himself. This time he didn't try swinging, just kicked viciously at its knee while it was distracted by Lance. It collapsed in pain, so Lance took the opportunity to hit it smartly round the head. That didn't seem to do more than annoy it.
"Run?" he suggested to Kyle. The thing was getting back to its feet again, but it was still favouring its knee. Maybe it would be slower than them, he hoped.
"Run," Kyle agreed. They both grabbed Rhonda and legged it, Lance keeping a firm grip on his stick. It might not have done him any good, but at least it made him feel better.
Again they were followed by much crashing and cursing, and again something else had them veering off to avoid another confrontation, but before long there was only silence behind them.
"Enough," Lance gasped. "Please."
They stopped. Lance had to lean against a tree, desperately trying to suck in precious oxygen and persuade the stitch in his side to go away. The build up of lactic acid might have been interesting from the point of view of his last biology paper, but in real life it sucked.
By the time Lance was capable of taking in his surroundings again, Rhonda was batting Kyle away from her and insisting she was fine. Two small punctures at the base of her neck — a bite mark, Lance realised — suggested that she wasn't fine, but Lance knew better than to argue.
Kyle evidently didn't care. "You're bleeding," he said, trying to inspect the bite again. Oddly, he seemed more sure of himself than he had earlier. Maybe it was just having someone else to take care of, Lance thought.
"It's not that bad," Rhonda told him firmly. "You showed up before he could do anything." She noticed Lance finally, and looked surprised. "Both of you. Thanks."
If he hadn't already been leaning against something, Lance might have fallen over in shock. Rhonda was thanking him? For real? "Uh," he said, aware that he ought to say something but not really sure what, "you really ought to get that looked at. Maybe the emergency room...?"
"And tell them what?" Rhonda said in withering tones that were much more like what Lance was used to. "That I fell on a barbecue fork? I'll put some peroxide on it when I get home, if that makes you feel better."
Kyle didn't look any more convinced than Lance felt about that, but he didn't say anything and Lance's brief introduction to self-confidence seemed to be over. "O-ok," was all he said.
"What was that thing anyway?"
"No clue," Kyle and Lance said simultaneously. Kyle smirked and shook his head. "One attacked us earlier. Nearly got me, if it wasn't for Lance."
Rhonda looked surprised again. "Way to go, Lancie," she said.
Lance almost asked her not to call him that, but he knew better. With both Kyle and Rhonda looking and sounding more like their usual selves, Lance was not about to tell them just how much their nickname annoyed him.
"So, where did Tor and Heidi go?" Kyle asked. "I'll feel better when all four of us are together again." He looked over at Lance, who was trying not to sigh. "Five of us," he amended.
"They were sticking together, they should be OK," Rhonda asserted confidently.
"Those things are strong," Lance pointed out. "Kyle and I only just got away from our one."
Kyle smiled thinly. "You're not exactly Mr Universe, Lance. All the same, he's right. Those things are as strong as we were."
Lance shivered at Rhonda's simple acceptance of that statement. There was no panic, no 'Oh my God, we've got to save them,' just a frown and a nod. It wasn't like Kyle was acting upset either, for that matter. The two of them were just more confident right now. Together. Like a pack. Lance shivered again.
"They mentioned something about the Del Mar memorial, you know how Heidi is about roses." Lance didn't, but the statement wasn't directed at him. "This way," Rhonda continued, striding off through the trees.
Kyle started after her. "Come on, unless you want to be eaten," he called back to Lance.
Not wanting to be eaten, Lance followed. Which might not have the right move another time, but all things considered Lance reckoned that Kyle and Rhonda weren't going to eat him tonight. Not with those things out there.
They walked in silence. Kyle and Rhonda didn't seem bothered, and weren't making a lot of effort to be silent, they just didn't talk. It scared the hell out of Lance, even though they ignored him. There were monsters about, and the people he was with were acting like they were just strolling through the park. Which they were, but that wasn't the point. The point, Lance thought, was that they ought to be being at least a little bit cautious about what might be out to get them.
It wasn't until they neared the memorial that Kyle and Rhonda started moving more carefully. Lance figured that they just wanted to sneak up on Tor and Heidi to scare the crap out of them. Then he heard a snarl from up ahead, and Kyle and Rhonda started running. With a sense of deja vu, Lance hurried behind them.
This time there were three of the things. As Lance got there they were circling Tor and Heidi warily, and frankly Lance couldn't blame them. Both of his sometime tormenters were back to back, crouched ready for a fight, and Tor was the one doing all the growling. All of them were taken by surprise as Kyle and Rhonda burst out into the open, ran more or less through one of the creatures in order to knock it down, and moved to protect the flanks. Lance gave it a solid whack with his trust broken branch as he passed, ending up between Kyle and Tor.
"What the hell is going on?" the creature demanded, getting back to its feet and looking most aggrieved.
Rhonda ignored it. "Need a hand?" she asked Heidi cheerily.
Heidi looked surprised for a moment, then caught on. "We had it covered," she said with a smile, "but hey, you're here now. Have your fun." She straightened up somewhat, looking a lot less like she was about to fight for her life.
"Oh sure, you say that now. Later on it'll be all about me coming in and throwing my weight about."
Lance couldn't help but laugh. Rhonda was small enough that her weight wasn't going to make a difference to anything, and that on top of all the other insanity happening tonight was too much.
"What's he doing here?" Tor asked. He too had relaxed somewhat, though his eyes were still fixed solidly on the creatures circling them, promising bad things to anything stupid enough to close with him.
"Oh, you know Lance, you can't leave him alone for a minute," Kyle said easily. "The moment you turn your back on him he goes and does something that takes hours to fix."
"Hey!"
"But we love you for it anyway," Rhonda threw in. Lance didn't quite know what to think about that.
Neither did the creatures, it seemed. "Are you insane?" the one they'd knocked down demanded. He looked angry enough to make Lance flinch back slightly.
"He's questioning our sanity," Rhonda said, mock-incredulity lacing her voice.
"So he is," Kyle agreed. "See, Lance, that's why it's important to do the insane giggle, not the manly snort thing. Otherwise the nice monsters have to ask us stupid questions."
"S-sorry," Lance said automatically. One of the creatures growled at him as it circled, and he couldn't help but flinch again.
"It doesn't matter," the one who'd done all the talking said. "The only real question is which two of you we're going to keep for dessert."
He feinted at Lance again, and Lance almost backed up. Almost, but not quite. Years of being intimidated, years of people sometimes beating him up and sometimes only threatening to beat him up, whatever it was, Lance just knew that this was the real thing. So instead of stepping back, Lance screwed up all the courage he could and jabbed forward with his stick.
It wasn't going for him, he realised vaguely as the creature became a blur of motion. It was expecting him to break, leaving it a clear path to light into Tor from the side. Lance felt it trying to rip his stick off him and held on for dear life. Then his brain caught up with what really happened three seconds too late, the way it always did in a fight; the thing had actually run itself onto his stick.
It looked surprised and shocked, though not as surprised and shocked as Lance felt. "What the fuck," it managed to say as it staggered back a step, pulling itself off the stick Lance was still grimly clinging to. Then before Lance could do anything stupid like offer first aid, it disappeared in a cloud of dust.
"I... It... I..." Tor smoothly took the stick out of Lance's nerveless fingers. Lance didn't care. I killed it, he thought to himself. Oh my God, I killed someone.
"Well, that's told us," Kyle said, voice thick with sarcasm.
"Omigod, they staked Mikey," one of the two remaining creatures said.
"For that, we're gonna kill you slowly," the other one growled out.
"Oh puh-lease," Kyle said before it could take more than a step towards them, "like I haven't heard that one already tonight. Besides, the odds aren't looking so good for you guys anymore. Five to two, it hardly seems fair. Lancie, why don't you sit this one out?"
"Huh?" Lance hadn't really taken in the last few seconds. He'd been too freaked out about killing something to pay attention.
"You've had your shot, and you know how moody Tor gets when we don't let him have any fun." The words were pretty nonsensical as far as Lance was concerned, but he got the idea when Kyle gently pushed him behind the others. He was being protected. He clung to that idea for all it was worth.
"O-ok," he said.
"And no poaching," Tor said, grinning nastily.
Lance managed not to laugh. Or giggle insanely for that matter. "Hey," he said, trying weakly to get into the spirit of things, "i-if one of them comes for me..."
"Yeah, yeah, like that's going to happen."
"I'm gonna break every bone in your body," the bigger of the two remaining monsters threatened, looking straight at Lance. "Then Vince and me are gonna make you watch while we kill your friends." It was bluster though, Lance realised. It was so absurd he had to smile; he'd spent his life being intimidated by experts, and that was the worst that this thing could come up with?
"You need to work on your delivery," Kyle said, obviously picking up on the same thought. "I'd stretch to a six out of ten, but there's the whole credibility thing."
"Oh Vince," Heidi cooed. The smaller creature — Vince — looked at her in confusion. Tor used the distraction to jab forward a little with the stick, making the increasingly worried-looking creature jump back.
Heidi giggled. Insanely, Lance had to admit. "Can we keep that one," she asked, pointing to Vince.
Rhonda looked over at her. "I suppose he is only little," she said dubiously, "he wouldn't take up much room. But you're clearing up if he makes a mess on the carpet."
"You... you..."
"See, now that's just getting worse. Maybe you should have quit while you were ahead." There was steel in Kyle's voice at the last there, and Lance could almost feel the shift in the atmosphere. He tried to go along with it as the others abruptly stopped snickering and became deadly serious.
"Who the hell do you think you are?" the bigger creature demanded, sounding much more intimidated than it had probably intended.
"Wrong question, ugly," Kyle said softly. "You should be asking 'what do we think we are?'" He paused for a moment, letting the uncertainty in their opponents have a chance to turn into fear. "I wonder what you taste like?" he mused dreamily, licking his lips.
This was too much for Vince, who broke and ran. His companion stayed only a few seconds longer, enough to growl at them in a way that even Lance thought was pathetic before it too legged it into the woods. Lance would have found the mocking laughter that followed them downright chilling if he hadn't been trying his best to add to it.
"They're gone," Heidi said after a while.
"Thank God," Kyle said, and sat down on the grass rather suddenly. Lance knelt to check that he was OK.
"Keep an eye open in case they come back," Rhonda warned, but she too sank to the grass.
"You OK?" Lance asked anxiously. Kyle was shaking. Tor, kneeling on the other side of Kyle, was looking pretty pale and concerned too. It was only later that Lance wondered why they hadn't pushed him away, and why he hadn't even remotely thought that they might.
"I can't stop shaking," Kyle said, a little shocked.
Lance held up his own quivering hand. "That's just the adrenaline running out," he said. All four of them looked at him dumbly. "We did it in Bio last semester." Except apparently they didn't remember. Oh well. "We were all wound up for a fight," he explained, "and then we didn't have to. This is the reaction."
"Oh, the fight or flight thing," Rhonda said. Lance grinned at her.
"I guess I'm OK then," Kyle said. He was looking better already, all of them were. Even Lance felt like he wasn't about to drop dead from relief any more.
"I don't think you need to worry about losing control," he said.
The four of them froze, then turned to look at him as one. Strangely, that was OK. "If you were going to lose it at all, you were going to lose it just then. And you didn't."
"Did you hear what I said to them?" Kyle demanded.
"Yeah, but I remember what happened in the dodgeball game too. If you'd really gone all hyena again you wouldn't have been standing up to those, um, things, you'd have been going after the weakest person around." Which was himself, Lance realised. If they had lost it, he'd be dead. "And I think I need to sit down now."
"Now is not the time to pass out on us, Lancie," Rhonda said sharply.
It was one thing too many, finally, hearing that nickname yet again. "Could you not call me that?" Lance asked. It was meant to sound annoyed, but his voice was weak even in his own ears. "Please?"
"OK, for a moment there I was worried that something had got into you," Rhonda told him. The sarcasm was so normal that Lance perversely found it rather soothing.
Apparently happy that Kyle was OK, Tor flopped back onto the grass himself. "Man," he said, "what did we do? I wasn't even thinking about it, just..." He waved a hand vaguely in the air, unwilling to actually say what he was thinking about.
"Just like before," Kyle finished grimly. Clearly the brooding wasn't over. "I knew what would scare them, and I went for it."
Which was what they did to him pretty much every day, but Lance had the presence of mind not to say that. Instead he said, "You saved our lives, that's what you did.
"All that stuff that you've got, all the memories and so on, they're just knowledge. Knowledge isn't good or bad by itself, it's what you do with it that matters. You used all of it to save our lives tonight, and I'm sort of thinking that's a good thing. Right?"
There was silence for a while, and Lance wondered whether he'd pushed his welcome too far. Finally Kyle stirred. "When did you become the philosopher?" he asked, but there was a smile on his face and the mocking was gentle.
"Well my mom got me this history of science book..."
"And that's enough of that," Rhonda said firmly. She seemed more relaxed as well, though. "Time to move, boys and girls, before any more nasties turn up. C'mon Lance, we'd better walk you home before you attract more trouble."
******
"They dusted Mikey, Jase," the smaller one said. "And they weren't scared. They only had one stake between the lot of them and they weren't scared."
Jase considered that. "D'you think that girl was the Slayer, Vince? She's supposed to be blond isn't she? If we took her down, we'd be made. No one would ever touch us."
Vince looked dubious. "I dunno, she didn't sound like she was in charge. Come on, man, let's go find someone easier to eat."
"Or you could find out what fighting the Slayer's really like," said a female voice from behind them.
They looked round slowly. "Oh crap," Jase said.
Moments later, with two piles of dust drifting gently towards the ground, Buffy strode from the clearing. It had been a busy night, one way and another; this pair made four vampires that she'd taken out, and all of them had blundered into her rather than the other way round. "It's so much easier when they run towards me instead of away," she muttered.