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The guy at the bar was very clearly a vampire, but at least he was a vampire with style. He was wearing well-fitting jeans and a pale yellow sweater that helped to take some of the glow out of his lack of a tan, but clearly very old despite not dressing like retro was still popular if it contained elements from a historical museum. There was just something about the way he held himself. She couldn't define it terribly well, not without relying on her tendency to combine words to make up her own English, and Giles had told her that was a terribly unbecoming trait when she was creeping this close to thirty. Not that Buffy planned on admitting her age to anyone, ever.
The vampire leaned over to whisper something in a nearby brunette's ear, brushing her hair gently aside with a charm that contradicted the flush that immediately spread over her face. They'd been talking for a few minutes, if one counted slow confident smirks and increasingly bold touches of a vampire as a conversation. Since the girl nodded, her eyes glittery with booze, she apparently did. Honestly, kids these days - Buffy would have expected that after the vampires had revealed themselves, girls would be more cautious when getting picked up in bars. At least wear a cross or carry some holy water or something. Buffy had been part of the action committee behind a nationally-marketed Supernatural Mace (silver, wood flakes and holy water: bound to repel whatever monster of the week was plaguing you!) but it didn't look like the mini purse this girl was clutching could hold even that. Also, said purse was made out of fake pink leather that clashed really badly with her shoes: clearly this girl had no sense at all.
Buffy downed the last of her rum and coke and walked over with a confident swagger. Unlike the walking blood vessel at the bar, she had some common sense: the chain around her neck was a silver cross, and she had three stakes and a switchblade hidden away in her massively more tactful Prada. It was real, too - she could afford that sort of shit these days, which was so awesome it sometimes made her head spin in a way that was only stopped by lovingly caressing her growing collection of designer accessories. Faith had told her more than once that the affection she doled out onto leather purses was a sure sign that she needed to get laid, but Faith thought that sex cured the common cold and eliminated acne. Hell, Faith probably thought that sex could get rid of the slugs in Buffy's garden if judiciously and thoroughly applied.
"Excuse me," Buffy said, tapping the vampire on the shoulder. He was handsome, in that corpse-y way that she had really liked in her younger days (people go through phases, it was a thing, whatever).
The girl glared at her, and she smiled broadly in return. "Lieutenant Buffy Summers," Buffy continued, flashing her badge. It was as new and shiny as the position, and both the vampire and his jail bait did a double take as she waved it in the air. "Just performing a routine inspection. Would you mind standing up, please?"
"Am I in trouble?" the girl asked, suddenly nervous. Buffy wasn't above admitting she totally dug people's reaction to the badge. A couple of years ago, people who knew what she did just thought she was crazy. Now, she was an intimidating authority figure. The guy at the local coffee shop even gave her a discount for it.
"No trouble, not yet," Buffy replied cheerfully. "Just checking to see you haven't been, y'know, whammied." So much for professionalism and decorum - Giles would be rolling in his grave right now if he was dead. Since he wasn't, he was probably spinning around in the comfy wheely chair the government had given him to support him during times of inordinate amounts of paper work.
"I didn't glamor her," the vampire said dryly as the girl shuffled off her stool. He had an accent that was difficult to place. It was possible he was faking it - she'd seen some of the lamer vampires do that before. It wasn't strong, though, and it was clearly not a knock-off Transylvanian slur, so it was probably real. She'd bet English wasn't his first language, though she wasn't sure if he was cheesy enough to toss that fact around like being foreign made him exciting.
"What's glamor mean?"
"It's like magic roofies. Close your eyes and touch your nose, please."
The girl, predictably, jabbed herself in the eyeball, but judging by the way she'd stumbled off the stool she was pretty wasted. Buffy pulled out the tiny flashlight she kept in her purse for just this purpose, and the girl's pupils constricted and dilated pretty readily. Buffy checked for a little longer than necessary just to make the girl squirm.
"Great, thank you. Now, spin around three times in a circle."
"What?" the girl said, blinking slowly.
The vampire had the audacity to look amused. Buffy was wearing her badge, a button-up white shirt and a well-tailored suit jacket. Her hair was in a bun; he shouldn't have looked amused, he should have looked completely intimidated by her professional demeanor. Maybe Giles was right, and she did need to proper up her English.
"Spin around in a circle. Three times." She tried to put a little menace into it. It worked on the girl, at least: she immediately spun around on her wobbly stiletto axis four and a half times before leaning heavily against the stool. The vampire, conversely, leaned against the counter and cocked his hip out with a surety that was beginning to piss her off.
The girl wasn't glamored, that much was clear - she wouldn't have followed directions if that was the case, just stared lovingly at the guy without paying attention to anything else. Buffy once had broken a chair over a thrall's head, and he'd still thought his vampire hung the goddamn moon. However, Buffy was a licensed cop of the Federal Supernatural Services Agency now: if a girl was too drunk to spin around three times (or, apparently, too trashed to correctly count to three), she was too drunk to head home with a vampire, and it was Buffy's moral obligation to fang-block.
Buffy pulled out her notebook. It had carbon copy paper, and looked terribly official. She used it mostly to write grocery lists on (because she always lost the first copy). She hastily scribbled a note about vampires and where to get more information about defense (and safe sex, though she hadn't advised on that part of the website and accompanying pamphlets or the section would have just said "Don't Have It With Vampires"), then called the girl a cab. Suitably impressed by her carbon copy "ticket," the girl thanked Buffy as she knocked her head against the open taxi door.
The vampire was still in the bar when Buffy headed back inside, looking as calm as before. "I told you I hadn't glamored her." He slid a drink over to her, something toxic looking (neon green drinks were only cool when she was in College, thank you) that she didn't touch.
"No, you were just planning on taking advantage of a very drunk girl. Glamour or no glamour, you're still a creep." Three years ago, Buffy would have followed the guy out back and staked him. Now, she has to do all this stupid paperwork first.
The vampire shrugged. "I was hungry."
"So suck on some True Blood."
"She wanted to be taken."
That much, at least, was probably true. The girl came to a bar by herself, dressed to kill and proceeded to get trashed and flirt outrageously. Lots of people these days thought that going home with a vampire sounded just dandy - maybe she'd been one of them. Back in the day, Buffy'd been a life saver. Now, apparently she was a glorified cock-blocker. Kinda depressing, but she did have all those expensive handbags at home to console her. "Well, she can get 'taken' another day. Maybe when she's less trashed she'll go for someone who doesn't think she's the next best thing to a blood-flavored Gusher."
"Ahh, you're a racist cop, how original."
"Specist, not racist. Though I gotta admit, you are pale enough to make a convincing bid for transparent as another skin tone. They have fake toner for that, you know."
The asshole smiled at her, showing her some brilliantly white eyeteeth. Sometimes, in the old ones, they started to turn yellow. Buffy didn't think the gleam of his was an indication of age so much as a thorough adherence to modern hygiene standards. Bastard probably went to the dentist, which was a really weird image. "My name's Eric Northman."
Buffy raised an eyebrow. She'd heard of the guy before - he had been one of the head runners of the PR campaign against the institution of the Federal Supernatural Services Agency, stating that since the vampires had their own form of law enforcement they didn't need outside regulation. Luckily for Buffy (regular employment suited her), the government hadn't agreed. "Oh look, a vampire that volunteers unwanted information, how original."
"I've heard of you, Miss. Summers," Eric said. "You have quite the impressive resume of rumors and hearsay."
"All true, especially the not so nice stuff."
"I heard you came back from the dead. And that sex with you could make a man lose his soul, if he was unlucky enough to be burdened with one." Eric stared at her blandly, a small smile curling the edges of his lips.
Buffy winced internally, and gave him the Patented Summers Death Glare. Dawn was much better at it than she was, and it didn't do anything but fuel the amusement lurking in his eyes. "Yeah, well I heard you were handsome, so I guess the rumor mills don't always churn out truth." It wasn't her snappiest comeback, to be fair, but she'd been trying half-heartedly to be a professional here. Of course, a true professional would have walked out of the bar ten minutes ago, but she was so bored these days. If she was lucky she could bait him into making a move, and if Sheriff Eric Northman was everything he's been made out to be, it would at least take her another ten minutes to stake him.
He looked pleased. "So you have heard of me."
She rolled her eyes. "Oh lord, you're not trying to make a move on me, are you?" She didn't think that unwanted sexual advances were enough to justify staking him, though.
Eric took a sip of what looked like whiskey. The ice cubes rattled around in the glass as he set it on the counter, and the way he looked her slowly up and down made her shiver like he'd dumped it in her lap instead. "And what if I am?"
It was a good question. It shouldn't have been a good question. Clearly Faith was right - Buffy did need to get laid more often. She bit her lip. "I'd rather fight you than fuck you."
"Who says you can't do both?" Finishing his drink, he placed his fingers deliberately on the pulse point of her wrist, tucking his fingers just slightly under the suit sleeve to do so. His touch was cold, and his smile was feral as he leaned forward and spoke, his breath smelling like whiskey and dust and his words pitched just loud enough to reach her ears only. "Whoever wins the fight gets to be on top."
Well shit, Buffy thought, her eyes glued to his ass as he walked away. Apparently that vampire phase she suffered a half decade ago hadn't gone away as thoroughly as she'd hoped for.