"Five."

Xander was practically bouncing. Eyes glued to the clock, he muttered "come on! come on!" in a continuous stream, under his breath.

"Four."

Buffy and Willow exchanged glances, and shared a grin at the anxious Xander's expense.

"Three."

"Move it, clock hands! You're slowing down just to get to me, aren't you?" He griped.

"Two."

Xander took two steps closer to the door, so that he was just a foot away from freedom. Stretching out a hand, he let it hover impatiently over the knob.

"One..."

Still grinning, Buffy and Willow shook their heads.

"Zero!" The entire English class chorused, triumphantly.

"Have a good Winter Break, everybody," Mr. Williams intoned from his perch by his desk, just after the fateful countdown was completed.

Xander was out the door almost faster than Buffy's Slayer-trained eyes could follow. The press of thirty-odd teenage bodies through a 3-foot wide frame quickly became a bottleneck situation, and the resulting shoving contest to exit the classroom kept Buffy and Willow trapped inside for a few more minutes.

"Meet you at your locker in five!" The Slayer called when they finally escaped into the hall. She strode away to the right, easily slipping between large clumps of high schools students as they milled about, hugging and exclaiming emphatically. Buffy reached her locker and dialed her combination without even thinking about it, then jiggled the latch until it reluctantly popped open. She pulled her bag off her shoulder and removed her textbooks, happily throwing them inside.

"I'm not going to get teary-eyed about being parted from these for two weeks," she muttered to herself, taking extra care with her hated Chem text, raising it higher than the others before dropping it, just for the louder clank as it hit the metal shelf.

Buffy tugged her jacket off the left hook below the shelf - it was December, after all, and even Southern California could get a little chilly. Wrapping it around her shoulders, she slammed her locker closed, jostling the latch once again until she heard the lock click.

Trudging back through the forest of Happy People, she reached Willow's locker within the five-minute time limit she'd set for herself. Buffy grinned as she arrived, noting that Xander had already dropped off his books and was currently buzzing in circles around his lifelong friend as she calmly unloaded her shoulder bag.

"Hey, Will." She called and settled against the wall of lockers next to the redhead's. Xander extended his crazy circles to include her. Buffy watched him oddly for a moment before speaking.

"Xand, have you been bingeing on advent chocolate again?"

"Naw, Buff. One a day, just like you told me. But it's hard... those little pictures on the chocolate are so cute. I like to bite Santa's head off," Xander replied, smiling impishly.

Willow caught Buffy's gaze and rolled her eyes, finishing quickly with her textbooks and closing her locker. They started off together through the halls, instinctively finding the clearest path to the library.

"Hey, be happy!" Xander continued, "We may not have to go to school ever again, if the Y2K bug knocks out the world."

Buffy blinked. "For once, we're faced with possible end-of-the-world, and it's not Hellmouthy. That's a change for Sunnydale."

Willow huffed. "The Y2K 'bug' is the biggest crock of hype since... well, since the last really big crock of hype. Yes, modern society is becoming extremely dependant on computers - and, sure, if they all went *poof* it would be a problem. But they're not going to! I mean, we've already spent 100 billion dollars on fixing anything that might come up. Plus, the media has blown it way out of proportion. The only major problem that *could* happen is if people get that 'end of the world is nigh!' stuff engrained in their heads and I'm babbling about something really stupid, huh?" She stopped.

"Yep," Xander agreed cheerily.

"You might try pausing for breath once and a while, Wills," Buffy smiled.

Willow blushed a little. "Yeah. Maybe it's the chocolate I've been eating at Xander's... do you think your mom is buying the kind with liquor in them? Or mocha-flavored ones? 'Cause you know coffee and I don't exactly take calmness breaks..."

"Entirely of the true," the Slayer affirmed.

"No, no, no, my lovely ladies." Xander shook his head. "Our little Willow here has simply entered into the Christmas happy bubble. The joy of the holidays. And the entirely school-less two weeks!"

"...and the annoying relatives..." Buffy added.

"...and the rush to get everything done in time, just the way you want it..." The redhead ticked items of on her fingers.

"...and the stress of buying the right presents for everyone..."

"...and the busy stores..."

"Okay! Okay! So the happy bubble is really pop-able by the likes of the Witchy-Chosen One Cynicism Committee."

"Besides, Jewish girl." Willow added. "So Hanukkah happy bubble."

Xander held up his hands. "Yikes! Just because a guy wanted to get into the spirit of the winter season of joy..."

"Hey, Xand, I'm all with you on holiday fun." Buffy told them. Together, they took the last turn in the halls and the library doors loomed before them. "I just reserve stepping into any happy bubbles until I've gotten the okay from Giles on demon activity for the Break. Always sucks when the Hellmouth eats your Christmas tree."

"And getting demon guts out of that *special* holiday dress is just *so* stressing," Xander quipped in an overly emphasized teenage girl voice. Buffy glared and hit him in the arm.

Having reached their destination, Willow extended a hand and propped open the library doors for her two friends.

"Hey, Giles. Happy Winter-event-of-your-choice." She greeted, cheerily.

The Watcher looked up at her over the rim of his glasses as he hunched over one of his musty tomes. Seeing who it was - not that he was truly expecting anyone else - he smiled.

"Uh, yes." He shut his book and rose. "Happy holidays to you, as well. And to you two, o-of course."

"So, G-man, what *do* you celebrate at this time of year?" The teen strode across to the library table, pulling out his usual chair and straddling it backwards. "Are you a Catholic kinda guy, or do you take your holy stars with six points, like our Wills here?"

"I'm, er, an Episcopalian, actually. Though I haven't been a practicing one for a long time. Is there some point to the question?"

"I think it's food for Xander-thoughts," Buffy supplied. "Speaking of, I'd like to earn my happy-bubble privileges. What's on the demon roster for the next two weeks?"

"Well," Giles bent down again and opened the ancient leather-bound book he had been examining. "There's been something rather intriguing going on with a Gi'tar demon that is rumored to be nearby."

"Rumored? What do you mean, 'rumored'? Is there a demon grapevine in Sunnydale, now?" Xander asked.

Giles looked at him. "Willie mentioned one of his... er, customers seemed to be a 'Gi'tar'."

"You've been talking to Willie?" Willow's brows rose.

He paused. "Yes, well, we should never discount a possible source o-of information."

"Riiight. And you weren't just beating him up to enjoy a re-bound flash to your bad-ass days in leather pants. Of course."

"Xander, whatever colorful opinion you may have of my past, I would appreciate it if you let it remain *in* the past." Giles shifted, sifting through the crumbling pages of his book. "Besides, I never wore leather pants."

"Uh, huh." Xander nodded, looking entirely unconvinced. Giles glared.

"*Anyway*," Buffy inserted, "back to the Guitar guy. What can he do?"

"Gi'tar demons are rather like leeches, in certain ways." The Watcher finally looked away from Xander. "Only they feed off misery. Human misery, specifically. When they can't find misery, they create it - but generally only as a last resort."

"Any particular reason he's decided to grace our collective doorsteps?"

"I-I'm not entirely certain. But, to hazard a guess, I would say that this Gi'tar felt that the Hellmouth would be a place of misery, even during the holidays."

"Hey!" Willow spoke up, for the first time since entering the library. "I think we should be offended! We can have lots of fun here! We do... stuff."

"Uh, Wills, when's the last day you *didn't* spend either preparing for something miserable to happen or recovering from something miserable that already happened?" The dark-haired teen asked.

"There've been plenty of times!" She paused. "Okay, okay... there were a few. Or... none."

"So, demon comes to town thinking Sunnydale is the biggest no-fun zone on the planet. Putting aside the extreme sadness of this fact, I'd like to know how to kill it, so we can go on with our misery-filled holidays," Buffy put in.

The Watcher scanned a few pages. "That's the part that has been concerning me. All the references I've been able to find of a Gi'tar demon being killed involve decapitating him mid-feed. While he's soaking up the misery of a specific victim, apparently, is when he is at his weakest."

"Bait situation, then. We set up a grief-fest, wait for gutter-guy to make his appearance, and..." she made a cutting motion across her throat. "What's the problem?"

"The p-problem is that, if a Gi'tar demon dies while it's feeding, its victim is also killed."

"Ah," Buffy bit her lip. "So, bye-bye bait."

Willow walked over, next to Giles. "May I have the book, please?"

"Of course."

She flipped through a few pages. "For some reason, this Gi'tar demon seems familiar... Uh-oh."

"What's 'uh-oh'?" Xander rose and examined the page from over her right shoulder, as Giles peeked over the left. "Uh-oh."

"What is it?" Buffy came over, and stole Xander's spot from him.

There was a large, dark box drawn midway down the yellowed page, with an old-style pen-and-ink sketch inside. The caption scrawled below read "Gi'tar, feeding form". The drawing of the Gi'tar was obviously made by a less-than-professional hand, but it was enough to understand the general shape of the demon. Stubby tail, lumpy body, giant talons on three-fingered hands and four-toed feet, large, pointed ears and no hair. But, the most ominous feature of all -- this Gi'tar demon had no less than seven heads.

"Yikes," Buffy muttered. "Anybody got a French Revolution we could use?"

Next Part

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