Poison Ivy

A/N: Thank you for your kind support. I've got a bunch of exams coming up in the next few weeks, so here's a deal. You give me good reasons for updating and I'll post the rest of the story before things get hectic.

Also, check out the first chapter for added art by the wonderful Pax.

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Chapter Six

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Some people believe in love at first sight. Personally, I don’t. I’ve been burned too badly by the whole Angel fiasco to still believe in butterflies and sunshine and all the good things. Daisies and violins, right?

That kind of love just doesn’t happen. At least not to people like me.

The boys belong to me, and I to them but if it weren’t for the power binding us together, we probably wouldn’t be able to stand each other. Reid’s too loud, Tyler too bookish, Pogue too relaxed, Caleb too high strung and I’m too wild.

In another world we probably hate each other.

But in this world, we belong. And that’s an entirely different animal.

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Poison Ivy

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He watched from the shadows as he always had as a child. Always the freak, always outside, the kid his real parents hadn’t wanted, the guy the strange things happened around. And later, once he had learned how to control his power, the psycho nut job, the crazy kid, the madman. So many names and once upon a time, all of them had hurt.

Yes, he had become very good at watching unnoticed.

He was there when Buffy confronted her former lover and he drew his conclusions from the scene. He was there when Caleb got friendly with the blonde – Sarah. He saw as Pogue stormed out after fighting with his Kate. He saw the four Sons and the Daughter run all over town, dancing at Nicky’s, having a good time.

And while he watched, he looked for weaknesses. He was smart and he was powerful but they outnumbered him by far and they had the advantage of formal training, whatever that may have consisted of. No, he couldn’t face them up front. He had to be sneaky about it.

He couldn’t go for their families because there were enough of the last generation still around to make his life a living hell. He couldn’t afford to bring them down on his head. No, best keep this among the ‘kids’.

He considered the girlfriends. They were the only obvious weak spot in the game. But unlike the girls, he saw the way Pogue and Caleb looked at them, compared to the way they looked at their fellow Covenant members. They looked at the girls like lovesick teenagers and at each other like dying men looked at salvation. If it came down to one of the girls or their own, he knew which they would pick.

It made him jealous, to know how much they loved each other, how much they would sacrifice for each other and he could not help the spite he felt as he considered how different he might have turned out if he had had them to grow up with him. But the past was the past and they had to be his enemies now. He was the bad seed and they were glorious and golden and so full of power. Power he craved. He would get them.

The girls were only arm candy, toys. Distractions and potential brood mares. Not love interests, not soul mates. Oh, sure, they mattered. As much as anyone who was not Covenant could ever matter. He understood that. His adoptive parents had been in his way, trying to hold him back, to keep his real parents’ names from him. Trying to teach him order and discipline and pumping all sorts of drugs into him to heal his freakishness. He had loved them, yes, very much. They had only tried to help him. But in the end they had been in his way and they were expendable. They were not like him. They had no power.

Just like the two girls had no power.

They were favored pets, like a family dog, loved, cared for, spoiled and readily kept but essentially useless. They mattered nothing.

But they were the only weak point Chase Collins could find in the armor of his five hell bound siblings. So he used them.

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The creation spell was pathetically easy to plant. Kate was practically all over him anyway, just to spite Pogue. A few mumbled words and the spider snuck into her hair, stayed there until night. He felt it as it entered her body and started wreaking havoc on her poor, mortal system.

He was a bit disappointed when Pogue didn’t come rushing as soon as he heard his beloved little girlfriend was in hospital but figured that the others had held him back from the obvious trap. Buffy, probably. She pretended to be ditzy and all fun and butterflies but he had seen her face her lover in that alley and he knew that, if it came down to it, the boys all deferred to her. She was the leader of their little cult.

If she told Pogue to stay put he would. Screaming and raging, sure, but he would obey.

So he found himself deprived of his game of Beat the Parry. Pooh-hoo. Oh well, on to plan B. Paying sweet Sarah a visit.

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Caleb lay on the cold tiles of Sarah’s and Kate’s small bathroom in the dorms and relearned how to breathe after Chase had used him to beat the walls in. He was glad suddenly, that they never used against each other. Hell knew, he had made Buffy mad enough at times for her to beat him to shit and he had never quite realized just how different being ascended was from what he had.

He might as well have tried to fight with a rubber gun for all the good his power had done him against Chase. Plainly put: He fucking hurt.

And while he had been bouncing off the walls, Sarah dying on her bed, he had seriously doubted their assessment of the fifth son. The mad glint in Chase’s eyes, the sweat on his forehead, the edge of his laughter. The other man was on a hair trigger of desperation and need and he’d thought that maybe, maybe, putting him out of his misery was all they could do.

But then Chase had grabbed him, hissing his threats and demands, yes, and calling him brother. Brother with a kiss that was meant to be a mockery. But Caleb heard what was underneath the word, felt the lips linger on his skin too long.

Chase was desperate, no doubt about that. But not only for power. He was desperate for family.

Brother.

They could give him that.

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Caleb met them at the hospital, a very confused and quiet Sarah in tow. Buffy looked at the other blonde and fought a grimace. The wheels in the girl’s head were turning at high speed and soon she would start asking questions. Uncomfortable questions.

They got her to sit with Kate, giving them a few minutes alone.

“Man, what happened?” Reid demanded as soon as the door closed being Sarah. “We all felt the spike in the power.”

Caleb rubbed his neck and pulled a face before admitting what they all knew already. “Chase happened. He gave me an ultimatum. Either I will him my power tomorrow at the exact moment I ascend in Putnam Barn, or he kills Sarah and Kate.”

“Well,” Tyler summed it all up rather nicely, “Shit.”

Pogue shook his head, patting the oldest son on the shoulder reassuringly. “This is what we wanted, right? Now how do we use it?”

Buffy shot Pogue a quick smile. He was usually the hardest to convince of anything, but once you had him on your side, he was game, no matter what. He would keep the others, especially Caleb and his noble streak from chickening out on the plan.

“First we got to catch him. Then we got to restrain him and then we have to make him see reason. Any suggestions?”

Tyler, ever the organized of the bunch, had apparently thought farther ahead than the rest of them. “I’d say be there early and knock him out with brute force, then use his down time to bind his power.”

“And then,” Reid deadpanned, “A two hour crash course seminar on how to be Covenant. Want me to prepare a slide show?”

Buffy simply smacked him upside the head as Caleb asked bitingly, “I don’t know Reid, do you think it would help? Or do you think he might just shove it down your throat and make you eat it in the state he’s in?”

“Guys,” Tyler complained as he leaned against a wall.

Pogue crossed his arms over his chest and joined him, commenting, “We gotta think small. If we were in his place, what would get through to us? I mean, try to get in his head. He’s a strung out junkie without relief, right? I don’t think preaching’s gonna do any good.” He turned to a glaring Reid and shrugged lightly, “Sorry man, but Cal’s right. He’d make us eat our shit.”

Buffy nodded in agreement and then asked, voice deceptively calm, “What do you think, Sarah?”

The four Sons all shot around fast enough to give themselves whiplash, staring wide eyed at the blonde standing in the doorway leading to Kate’s room. She looked half sheepish, half scared. Shuffling her feet she snuck a glance at Caleb before looking at Buffy and opening her mouth to say something.

“Careful,” the slayer suddenly warned, her voice still smooth, “You’ve figured out enough to know that trying to bullshit us isn’t going to end well, so think about what you’re going to say.”

Sheepish turned into angry as the girl’s eyes blazed at the challenge and the flat look that came with it. “I want to know what’s going on.” She directed her demand toward Caleb, “Kate is sick and this isn’t normal. I want to know.”

It was clear from the boys’ expressions that they were all considering messing with the girl’s mind and then dumping her at her dorm with varying degrees of intensity. Reid’s hands were twitching at his sides and his eyes flickered red occasionally as he stared unblinkingly at the newcomer. Tyler and Pogue had better control over themselves and Caleb looked as in control as anyone could look in a crisis like this.

He met Sarah’s gaze head on for a moment before looking each of his friends in the eyes, waiting for some silent signal from them. He found it in the lack of protest. Reid growled, but that was all. Buffy was the last he looked at and she merely rolled her eyes and grinned at him.

He nodded and held out a hand for his almost-girlfriend to take. She did, looking around with obvious distaste. There was no way she had missed the silent communication. Or the fact that her request, although directed at Caleb, had been approved by all before he agreed to anything. Covenant came first and no matter what became of her and Caleb, he would always put others above her.

It was a bitter lesson, one that Joyce Summers and her fellow Covenant wives had learned too late. Or maybe they had learned but refused to accept it, had tried to fight. It was likely. People in love did such things, tried to change the ones they loved, tried to make things right.

Buffy sighed as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and watched the couple leave to get some privacy. Pogue went into Kate’s room and the youngest two Sons tugged her between them, holding her close.

“What’s wrong?” Baby Boy asked, hearing her sigh.

She shrugged and leaned into him. “Just thinking that life was easier when I could actually hate my mom for being a bitch. But now… it’s not so easy anymore, seeing what we do to people.”

She waved a vague hand in Kate’s direction but it was understood that Sarah was included in her statement. Reid scoffed and tweaked her nose, declaring in his best Russian accent, “We are poison, baby.”

Tyler tried to smack him but he ducked and danced away, grinning widely. The problem with his statement was, Buffy figured, that they all knew it was true, despite the joking tone.

They were poison.

She wondered what the other blonde thought they were going to do once they had Chase.

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In the end it was pathetically easy. Chase was so desperate, so hungry that he threw all caution to the wind once had snagged a conveniently placed Sarah from the Ball.

Caleb got there just on time, entering the barn, letting the older boy have his moment of jeering glory. Oh, his words were vile things, designed to hurt. Ugly things, the accusations and observations, the jealousy and rage spewing from them.

But Caleb remembered Reid shivering on cold turkey after he’d gone wild with the power on his thirteenth birthday, remembered Tyler barking and bitching, remembered Buffy calling them all worthless, pathetic bastards. He remembered how they had all, without fail, succumbed to their demons at one point or another, willing and ready to simply let the addiction eat them up.

Listening to Chase rant and rave he saw what Buffy had seen in him from the beginning. Himself. The others. Covenant. It was Chase’s turn to be held tight through the shakes.

Two minutes before he was scheduled to ascend, the others appeared out of nowhere. The boys distracted Chase while Buffy blasted him across the room and into a solid wooden beam before jumping down from the upper floor with inhuman ease and knocking him out with a very simple and well placed right hook. Caleb used his chance to free Sarah from the stasis Chase had put her in.

He pulled her to her feet, waiting until she had regained her footing. He let go of her and watched her take in the scene. The others were busy tying Chase’s hands behind his back. Not that it would do any good since he didn’t need his hands Use, but it might stump him if he woke ahead of schedule.

“It’s over,” the blonde breathed, relief palpable in the air around her and Caleb pitied her with the bile of guilt in his throat. He should never have involved her in this.

He shook his head as he muttered, more to himself than to anyone else, “This is the beginning.”

Sarah heard him, turning wide eyes on him. He sighed and shook his head, telling himself that if she still spoke to him after this, he owed her a very nice dinner. Or maybe to stay away from her for the rest of her life. He took her wrist in one hand, pressing his car keys into her palm with the other.

“Go. Go to my mother and tell her we’ll be fine and then go to the dance and have fun, okay?”

If possible, her eyes grew wider.

“What are you going to do? Shouldn’t you call the police or something? I mean, he killed that kid at the Dells, right?”

Right? Right. Only it didn’t matter and he couldn’t say that out loud because she might just call the cops herself then. He answered the only question he could.

“We’ll try to set him straight. Now go.”

He practically shoved her out of the old barn, closing the rickety door behind her in relief. No more innocents around. He turned back to the center of the high room where Tyler and Pogue were already drawing the pentagram on the floor while Reid was clearing away anything that even remotely resembled a weapon and Buffy stood guard over their…

Brother.

He had a fourth brother all of a sudden. That would take some getting used to.

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Buffy looked around the barn, trying to find any weakness in their setup and was pleased to find none. Everything seemed to be good and ready for Chase to wake up.

They had spent hours discussing this the night before, trying to figure out what it would take to get through to their lost brother. Nothing they had come up with seemed enough because there was always, always, doubt.

She remembered her first week in California, the shivering and the need. Mr. Parry and Mr. Garvin had both dropped in on her on business trips and promised that things would get easier. They had told her that everything would be fine if she just held on and didn’t give in and she remembered slamming her door in their faces, refusing to believe them because the need to Use was everything right then.

Chase hadn’t been alone for a week like she had then, or a few months, a couple of years. Chase had always been alone.

Experience told the slayer that they had to wait at least another thirty minutes before Chase started stirring and she couldn’t spend that time staring at him and doubting the success of this intervention. If she did that, she’d be a wreck by the time he came to. Besides, she should probably check on Caleb, who was very silent and determined, but also sweat soaked by now and still jittery as hell. She remembered her own ascension and damn, he was dealing a lot better than her. But then he wasn’t alone either and that was what this was all about, wasn’t it?

Pogue, thinking along the same lines, was suddenly there behind her, hugging her around the waist, his chin resting on her shoulder. “Come on,” he told her, “Reid brought cards and Caleb’s going stir crazy.”

She made a sound that was half snort, half laugh as the man in question huffed in indignation but didn’t outright protest. “While we were all gearing up for a fight, and Caleb ascended, Reid remembered to bring cards.”

Behind them, the blond clacked his tongue and chirped, “Be prepared!”

Buffy shook her head as Pogue shrugged in resigned amusement and picked her up, carrying her over to where the rest of the group was sitting on old hay balls. Caleb looked a bit worse for the wear after he had just ascended, but he’d blasted a few trees with the excess power and he was nothing if not stubborn.

Tyler’s hand was resting under his shirt, on bare skin, giving him an anchor, something to cling to while he adjusted to the new power levels inside his body. Buffy had no doubt that tomorrow would be spent in the woods, getting Caleb and his power reacquainted but tonight they had other things to do.

Smacking Pogue on the arm to get him to put her down she planted herself between Caleb’s spread legs, her back against his chest. She pulled his jeans up to his knees and maneuvered them both so their bare calves were touching. Immediately she got zapped with a spike of power that quickly settled into a semi-comfortable hum as she leaned back and watched the boys play cards around her.

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So that’s what I believe in. Belonging at first sight. You look at someone, you touch them, and you feel a spark, a connection. It’s not sunshine and roses but something deeper, darker. It’s like chocolate and cigarettes and split lips.

It’s the knowledge that it doesn’t matter who or what this person is, if you like them or not. All that matters, is that they belong to you and you to them. For better or for worse, it just is.

And there’s nothing at all you can do about it.

You’re defenseless.

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