Chapter 1: My Way
Chapter Text
Author’s Notes:
Timing/Set up: Season 3, begins after Gingerbread and moves into Helpless and the Cruciamentum. There is not a full reminder of what’s happened thus far in the series, so if you haven’t read the previous Episodes, it might not make a lot of sense.
This story (Episode 4) is complete at 38 chapters. I am still working on Episode 5, which has not got a title yet. I *hope* that I’ll have it done by the time this one completes posting.
Warnings: This series is a VERY SLOW burn leading up eventually to Spuffy. This episode will be a bit darker/more angsty for Buffy than what we’ve had thus far in this series. There will also be a lot more action/fights/gore than we’ve had before. I promise it will get better for her (and Spike), but there are some challenges to face first.
No doggies were harmed in the making of this story, though it might seem like they were.
Thanks: All the sloppy, joyful doggie kisses to my two wonderful Beta readers: Holi117 and Paganbaby. Extra special thanks to Holi117 for all the time she spent brainstorming with me and keeping me from wandering off into the woods, which I have a tendency to do! She’s added SO MUCH to this story, so many details that I might’ve skimmed over are brought to full life because of her. I can’t be more grateful for her! And PB has my undying awe and gratitude for creating the wonderful banners for these stories (which you can see on AO3 or Elysian Fields)! She rocks, and never tells me what a pain in the butt I am! Thanks also to TeamEricNSookie for all the encouragement and pre-reading of these chapters.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
Chapter 1: My Way
Sunnydale.
My name is Spike. I am a good boi. Everybody says so. I have a few other names: Guardian of the Twilight, Cujo, chowhound, mangy mutt. I am happy with my names. Many names means many frens.
I am most happy running and chasing and crunching bad rabbits with my bestest fren, my hooman. She has many names too: Slayer, honey, my dear, Buffy, Buffster. She calls the ‘bad rabbits’ vampires, sometimes demons, too. I just like how they crunch, I am not their friend, so I am not so worried about their names.
There is another hooman who lives with us. Her name is ‘Mom’. She also has other names, Joyce and Mrs. Summers, but we call her Mom. She is very kind, and always drops treats to me when she is in the food room where she makes all the wonderful smells with all the yummy food. We love her very much.
I came to live with my hoomans when I was a tiny boi. Now I am a big boi. Everybody says so. Mom is afraid I am still growing. She says I am only a puppy. I have been feeling funny, very much sleepy and a little wobbly and my tummy is all gurgle-y. I don’t even want to crunch rabbits right now, even though it is my favorite thing. Mom says it might be a ‘growth spurt’ and that I will grow too big for my bed. I hope this does not happen. I am very happy in my bed in my hooman’s sleeping place. I like being near my fren. We watch over each other.
My hooman is the bestest hooman in the world. She is the smartest, the fastest, the strongest, and the bravest. I am lucky to have her as my fren. She has other frens, but I am her bestest fren. Everybody says so. Her other frens are my frens too:
There is the sweet one who always gives me hugs and cuddles. She crackles and sparks, very much power bubbling inside, but she never uses it on me or my hoomans. She smells like ancient things – frankincense and myrrh, fire and brimstone, but also fruit punch and Skittles. She has many names, but mostly we call her ‘Willow’.
There is the laughing, floppy one who always smells delicious – pizza and donuts and cheezeburgers. I like his smell very much. Cheezeburgers are my favorite. He is called ‘Xander’ and gives good ear scratches.
There is the wolf. Wolves should be crunched like rabbits, but my fren says no crunching. He is like the white rabbit – a good rabbit, a fren – so I do not crunch. But I growl at him to remind him I am watching. My fren calls him ‘Oz’, but I call him wolf.
There is the new one who is strong and fast, but not as strong and fast as my hooman. She is unpleasant. She never brings me cheezeburgers. She smells bitter; something inside her is soured. I am not trusting of this one who is called ‘Faith’. She calls herself ‘Slayer’, but that is my hooman’s name, not hers. I do not think this one is really a fren.
This new one is like the brown rabbit – he is called ‘Angel’. I do not like the brown rabbit. He smells of old blood and dead things. Something harsh lurks in the shadows. I think there may be rot at the core, but my hooman says no crunch. I do what I can to keep this rabbit away from my hooman. He dislikes it when I mark his shoes to remind him that I am dominate, or knock him down and drool on his smelly clothes. This makes me very happy.
These two not-frens have not been around very much lately. This also makes me very happy.
The alpha of our pack is called ‘Giles’. He has other names: Watcher, Rupert, Ripper, G-man. He is past his prime; his power is old and fading, he smells too often of fear and always of mold. My hooman could easily defeat him and take the pack, but she does not. He is the patriarch, and she submits to his wisdom. I think my hooman does not know her own wisdom is just as great. He is often stern with my hooman and with me, I do not like this, but he brings treats... though they are secret when he brings them. I do not understand why treats must be secret, but they are yummy, so I gobble them.
My second bestest fren, the white rabbit, has been gone a long time. Since he left, we have had two turkeys and corned beef with funny peas that had black eyes. It was all delicious, though not as good as cheezeburgers. There were mashed potatoes too. They are also good. I like them with gravy on top. We even had a tree inside, but I could not pee on it. This was strange. I like to pee on trees. It tells the rabbits that this place is mine. There were many boxes under this tree. Some of the boxes had treats and toys for me! But the tree and the treats are gone now. I never did get to pee on it.
I miss my growly fren, the white rabbit. He is the one rabbit I do not want to crunch, though I did at first. Then he gave me cheezeburgers, and fries and rings of onions. My Buffy-fren says no more onions. They make me fart. I do not know why this is bad, but she makes funny sounds and leaves the room when I do it. The white rabbit also has other names – he has my name! He is called ‘Spike’.
The white rabbit has many smells – smoky, but not like Willow, and of blood – but not like Angel. There is also a sharp tanginess and spice to him. I can feel power inside him – we have taken each other’s measure – we have an understanding. I am happy when I smell him nearby. We have many things that we agree on: keep my hooman safe, keep brown rabbit away, eat many cheezeburgers.
When I was a very little boi, the white rabbit gave my hoomans to me. I do not remember, but this is the story I have heard told. When I was older, we went for a ride in his moving metal box. Usually, the moving metal box goes to the V-E-T, which is not pleasant, but not this time! This time it was to save the skinny rabbit and it was very much fun. She is called ‘Drusilla’. The skinny rabbit has many funny smells, like arsenic and old lace, like fresh graves and thunderstorms. I do not think she is our fren, but the white rabbit says no crunch. She gives very good ear scratches and talks to the stars, so I no crunch.
I have kept my promise to my Spike-fren and kept our Buffy-fren safe while he has been away. When she was hurt, I healed her. She says I have magic slobber. I am happy to have magic slobber that can help my Buffy-fren if she gets hurt. She is strong and fast and clever, so it is easy to keep the promise, especially now that the brown rabbit does not butt into our rabbit-crunching fun. He is dangerous – a distraction to my Buffy-fren. On this the white rabbit and I have always agreed – brown rabbit should stay far away. I think my Buffy-fren has seen the wisdom of this now, too. I knew she would – she has very much smartness inside her.
I would like to show the white rabbit the good job I have done while he has been gone. I have been a very good boi. Everybody says so. I hope he comes back soon. And brings cheezeburgers. But now I am very tired, so I think I will have another nap, and save the cheezeburgers for another day when I am not so very... YAWN... sleepy.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Mexico.
Spike drove. He didn’t care where he was going as long as it was away. Away from Dru. Away from the pain. Away. He didn’t really pay any attention beyond that. He put on the Sex Pistols at full volume and he just drove. He took random turns, left, right, right, left. Away from the woman who he’d devoted himself to for decades. The woman who would never love him, whose heart was locked away by another.
He tried not to worry about Dru, about leaving her alone with the pixies. It wasn’t like she hadn’t managed on her own before, he reasoned. They’d gotten separated in the past, sometimes for weeks, or even a few months, and she’d been fine. Admittedly, it had been a while. Back when things were simpler. When there weren’t so many eyes; when the world moved more slowly, news traveled at a snail’s pace, and pitchforks outnumbered assault weapons. He’d been more reckless then, too – young and brash, happy to take on a mob or even a whole town all on his own. He still relished a good battle, a fists and fangs brawl with the odds stacked against him. But having David versus Goliath odds was one thing, having caveman versus astronauts-with-ray-guns odds was another thing altogether.
He stopped at a small gasolinera to fill up the petrol in the car and get some tequila for the road. He only remembered when he’d stuck his hand in his pocket and came out with nothing but his fags and lighter, that he’d left all his pesos with Dru.
He looked up at the young girl who was behind the register and shrugged. “Lo siento,” he apologized, giving her one of his most charming smiles. “No tengo nada de dinero.”
“Está bien,” she assured him, backing away as far as she could behind the counter and holding her hands up as if he had a gun. “¡Ok! Vete. No quiero problemas.”
It was only then that Spike remembered that he had blood splattered all over his face and down his neck and shirt. He must look a right hoodlum.
“¿Llave del baño?” he asked, not knowing if the bathrooms required keys.
“Si, si,” she replied, grabbing a key with a large wooden stick attached to the key chain, and tossing it to him nervously.
Spike caught it easily in one hand. “Ta,” he said as he headed out, turning to go to the back of the building and the bathrooms to clean up. Or maybe he shouldn’t – he’d probably need more tequila before the night was done.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Just before dawn, Spike pulled up in front of the familiar white building, on the familiar street, in the familiar town.
He’d driven most of the night and gotten exactly nowhere. He stared at the hotel, disgusted with himself for being so bloody pathetic, for coming right back to Dru. He folded his arms over the steering wheel and dropped his forehead atop them, his heart aching. He and Dru, they were eternal – literally. But what did that mean if she could never love him? If she’d always belong to ‘daddy’? No matter what he did, how monstrous he was, how much he tortured her, or how many children he raped and turned for her, she’d never love him.
But where was he supposed to go? What was he supposed to do now? He’d spent decades following her as she followed the pixies from town to town, country to country, continent to continent. Now that he’d declared it ‘his turn’, what the fuck was he supposed to do? Dru was his only family – not counting Angelus, which he didn’t. And he’d never exactly made friends in his travels, he was usually too busy watching over Dru.
Except for one… maybe two.
“Friends?” Buffy had asked at the end of their last truce, as they stood in her living room before he and Dru had left.
“Friends,” Spike had agreed.
Green eyes once again filled his vision, but this time they were welcoming, accompanied by a smile, maybe even a laugh. ‘Truce?’ she’d ask when he showed up on her doorstep, arching a brow at him, her arms crossed, stake tapping lightly against her biceps. ‘Truce,’ he’d agree, grinning back at her.
For the first time in what seemed forever, Spike genuinely smiled. He lifted his head and leaned over, opening the glove box and retrieving the mobile phone. Were they really friends? Would she really welcome him back to Sunnydale? Would she be happy to see him? Or had she and the enormous git made up? Did Angel have the Slayer’s heart locked up in a cage along with Dru’s? Had he turned Buffy against him?
“One way to find out,” he muttered, turning the phone on and waiting as it went through its little startup routine and played the jingle.
“Cujo’d be happy t’ see me,” he assured himself as he waited. “A few burgers, merry barrels of cheese, a few ear scratches… friend for life, that one.”
When it had finished its song, the phone made a new sound he’d never heard before, buzzing at him. Spike looked at it, furrowing his brows. “One new message?” he read from the screen. “Sodding telemarketers usin’ up my bloody minutes!” he cursed. “Reckon even Buffy’d let me eat a few o’ those wankers.”
Spike pushed the button to retrieve the message and waited as it connected. An automated voice announced in a measured cadence, “You have one new message. Message one:”
The next voice nearly made Spike drop the phone. If he’d had a heartbeat, it would’ve skipped and lurched. As it was, his breathing came to an abrupt halt.
“Hey – it’s me … uh, Buffy. Buffy Summers, the Slayer, from Sunnydale?”
Spike’s eyes went wide as he stared in disbelief at the phone. ‘How’d she find me? How’d she know the sodding number?’
“The one you wanted to choke on cheese and die?”
Spike cringed, bracing himself for whatever obscenities she was about to hurl back at him. His heart sank. So much for finding a friend in Sunnydale. He waited... and waited. Was that it? But no, to his relief, she did start talking again… and not cursing him or insulting his lineage. She was rambling, actually, in that adorable… annoying way of hers, “Anyway, I got your card and I just wanted to, you know, check on you… as a friend would do. So, this is me – checking on you. So, umm, if you want to make with the calling back you can just, you know, do that. If you wanted. To call. Okay… bye.”
Spike tried to figure out how to save the message. He remembered the salesman going over this with him when he’d bought it, showing him how to set up the voicemail and all that rot. He knew the monotone voice should tell him what to do, what button to push, but so far, it had remained irritatingly silent. He was about to start cursing the blasted thing when Buffy’s voice surprised him again. “Sorry – probably would help to have the number, right? Don’t be a smartass. Okay, it’s 831-555-2409. Okay, hate you… bye.”
He smirked. “Already got your number, don’t I, Slayer?” he asked the phone, only to be interrupted again by Buffy, her voice quiet and heartfelt, “I hope you’re okay, Spike.”
Spike stared at the phone as if he could see her expression, understand what the bloody hell that was about. Was she… worried about him? The Slayer? Actually worried about him? Even after the ‘choke on cheese and die’ missive?
“To play this message again, press 4. To save this message in your archives, press 7. To hang up, press pound. For more options, press zero,” the dull, helpful voice informed him.
Spike played it again. And again. And again. He laughed at her introduction… Buffy Summers, the Slayer, from Sunnydale. How many sodding Buffy Summerses or Slayers did she reckon he knew? Clearly, she’d gotten his card… the ‘fuck you’ card. He still hoped to all that was evil and wicked in the world that he hadn’t sent a card to her when he’d been drunk. When had she called and left this message? The bloody thing didn’t tell him that. He hadn’t had the phone powered on since the bar... and he wasn’t entirely sure how long ago that was now. The days were all muddled in gallons of Patrón.
“Stupid sodding machine,” he cursed it, trying to figure out how to tell when she’d called, but he stopped and just listened to her last words instead. “I hope you’re okay, Spike.”
A lump formed in his throat as he played the message again and again.
“I hope you’re okay, Spike.”
“I hope you’re okay, Spike.”
“I hope you’re okay, Spike.”
He finally saved it to the archives, having every word, every nuance of tone, every pause and hitch in her voice memorized. When he disconnected, the screen asked him if he wanted to save the number to his contacts. He did, painstakingly spelling out the name on the small keys: ‘Buffy Summers, the Slayer, from Sunnydale.’
He looked up again at the hotel. At the hallway that would lead to Drusilla. Then he looked back down at his phone, Buffy’s voice still playing in his head, ‘Okay, hate you… bye.’
Spike bit his lip, hesitated only another moment – his decision made. Remembering how grumpy the Slayer could be early in the morning, he decided a pre-dawn callback wouldn’t win him any points. So, Spike turned the phone off to save the battery, planning to call her that afternoon when she’d be home from school. His mind made up, his resolve set, he put the phone back in the glovebox, started the car, and backed out of the parking lot. This time, he wouldn’t be back.
“Hate you, too, Slayer,” he muttered, a smile curving his lips. He turned up the volume on Sid Vicious bellowing out a remake of ‘My Way’ as he pulled away, Spike’s voice joining in as he disappeared, heading north into the breaking dawn.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Story Board
If you have downloaded this story and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link.
End notes:
Thank you so much for reading! I know this was a short chapter. Eep! Sorry about that! But! He listened to the message – FINALLY! That’s gotta get extra points, right?
I plan on posting a couple of chapters a week (and I promise they’ll be longer than this) – usually on Thursday and Saturday.
The version of My Way that Spike was listening to in Lovers Walk is this one: https://youtu.be/arMXYEDuWPg by Gary Oldman from the movie ‘Sid & Nancy’, but of course, we know Spike would actually be listening to Sid’s original version IRL, right?
Chapter 2: Not Good Enough
Chapter Text
Chapter Notes:
No doggies were harmed in the making of this story, though it might seem like they were.
Remember: When we are in Mexico (or anywhere other than Sunnydale), that ‘Spike’ refers to the vampire; and when we’re in Sunnydale it refers to the puppy. Eventually this won’t be necessary, eventually we can be totally confused with them in the same room (because I’m clearly insane having two main characters with the same name), but until then, that’s the rule.
Thanks: To all of you for reading! It means so much to me, like Milk-Bones for my muse! Sending all the sloppy, joyful doggie kisses to everyone who has left a note, a like or a kudo. I love hearing from everyone!
Thanks also my two wonderful Beta readers and friends: Holi117 and Paganbaby, and to TeamEricNSookie for pre-reading. All mistakes are mine because I keep fiddling with stuff. If you see any, PM me and I’ll fix it.
Chapter 2: Not Good Enough
Mexico.
Spike drove north. Each mile further away from Dru and closer to Buffy was at once heart wrenching and heartwarming. Above all, it was terrifying. Just because the Slayer wanted to know if he was okay, didn’t mean she wanted him to show up on her doorstep. He should just call, but he’d stalled too long – she’d be in school now. He’d have to wait for later… later would be better. Not like he’d be there in a few minutes, or even a few hours. Take three days or more before that doorstep, and the Slayer, came into view. Yeah, he could wait – he’d call later.
Doubts swirled and buzzed like bees in his gut, but he kept driving. Away from Dru. Toward Buffy. Away from the devil he knew and toward… well, a completely different kind of devil that he knew. Away from a lover that couldn’t love him and toward a mortal enemy that had called him ‘friend’. ‘I hope you’re okay, Spike.’
Tears leaked from his eyes unhindered. Tears of loss, but also tears of relief. After more than a century, maybe it really was finally his turn.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Sunnydale.
Buffy tried to lure her dog into the Cherokee with cheese and Giles’ treats and even bologna, but Spike just stayed on the ground where he’d flopped after reluctantly trudging out to the car. She sighed as her mom came out, keys in hand.
“You didn’t tell him we were taking him to the V-E-T did you?” Buffy asked as Joyce approached.
“No,” her mom replied. “But you probably just did. I really think he can spell.”
Buffy huffed out an annoyed breath and tried lifting Spike back to his feet. The big dog grunted in protest, but finally got up with her assistance, wobbling unsteadily as he did so. “Okay, Spikey,” she cajoled when he finally made it up. “I need you to jump. Jump! C’mon!” she encouraged, patting the back floorboard of the Jeep with her hand to get him to load up.
Spike crouched down, readying himself for the usually effortless leap. He pushed off with all fours, lifting his front feet from the ground, but they didn’t rise as they should, the normal strength and coordination lacking. He ended up banging his nose on the bumper as his feet plopped back down on the driveway.
The huge dog whined, shaking his head slightly in confusion or pain, or both. He then sat down hard on his butt and just looked at her plaintively, clearly wanting to do as she asked, but simply unable to.
“This is so not good,” Buffy muttered bending down to hug him, her worry and fear quadrupling by the moment. She looked up at her mom, who was also looking concerned. “Maybe I should try and call Uriah,” the Slayer pondered, chewing her lip as she stood back up, keeping one hand comfortingly on Spike’s big head.
“The breeder from Romania that Drusilla stole him from?” Joyce asked, brows furrowed.
“Yeah, I mean, if they’ve been breeding these types of dogs and raising them for centuries, you’d think they’d know what would cause this… except that I don’t know where he is or have a phone number. God, why didn’t I at least ask for his stupid phone number?”
“Probably because you were concentrating on saving Drusilla – and by extension, our Spike – seeing as the man kidnapped her to get the puppy back?” Joyce suggested.
“Yeah, pretty much.” The Slayer rolled her eyes and sighed. Maybe some of Giles’ books on the Guardians of the Twilight would have some clues. If the stupid MOO people had left any of them…
“Well, in the meantime, we need to get him to the V-E-T,” Joyce pointed out.
Buffy nodded, looking back down at her dog. “Okay, boy, I’m gonna pick you up and put you in the car,” she told him, squatting down and wrapping her arms around his entire body. They actually didn’t make it all the way around, but she adjusted her grip until it felt solid and safe, and then stood up.
Or tried to stand up. And failed.
She tried again, grunting with the effort, and still no joy. Spike remained steadfastly planted on the driveway. “What the hell?” Buffy muttered, trying a third time, adding in a jerk instead of a smooth lift. Spike lifted maybe a hair off the ground, then just dropped back down as Buffy panted with the effort.
“Have you been eating barbells or something?” she demanded breathlessly, letting go and standing back up.
“What’s the matter?” Joyce asked, coming up to stand on the other side of the dog.
Buffy shook out her arms and legs. ‘Maybe just not warmed up,’ she thought, and squatted down to try again. She strained and pulled and lifted and gripped him until he groaned, and could not lift him even a little bit. She let go abruptly, squeaking in surprise when she felt something in her back pull and ‘pop’.
The Slayer huffed out an exasperated breath, standing up, and rubbing her lower back, which had a pronounced and very un-Slayer-like ache beginning. She was able to lift headstones and boulders and big, ugly vampires and throw them across cemeteries. Why couldn’t she lift her dog into the back of the Jeep?
“Let me help you,” her mom suggested, setting her keys and purse on the roof of the SUV. “Maybe just do his front half first, and then the back?”
Buffy nodded. With Joyce on one side and Buffy on the other, they managed to lift Spike’s front feet onto the bumper, then with another heave of effort, they got him in the back up to his chest. Finally, with Spike whining and pulling with his front paws as well as he could, and them lifting and pushing on his rear-end, they managed to get the huge dog into the back of the Cherokee. Buffy and Joyce both leaned on the SUV panting from the effort as Spike tried to get into a more comfortable position in the truck.
“I guess…” Buffy said between gasps for air. “I better… go with you… to help… get him… in and out.”
“I’ll write… you a note… for school,” Joyce agreed, grabbing her keys and purse and heading for the driver’s door.
Buffy leaned in and gave Spike a hug, his long, coppery mane tickling her nose as she got her breathing back under control. “Don’t worry,” she assured him. “You’ll be back to normal soon. They’ll figure it out… it’s probably just too many cheeseburgers or something.”
Spike whined and nuzzled against her neck with his cool nose.
Buffy snorted a small chuckle. “Yeah, I know, cheeseburgers are your life… but it’s never broccoli that doctors want you to give up, trust me.”
** X-X-X-X-X **
Mexico.
By the time the bright, Mexican sun was at its zenith, Spike’s eyelids had begun to droop dangerously. He’d jerked awake more than once, horns blaring, the DeSoto drifting off the road or into oncoming traffic. Finally giving in to the exhaustion from lack of sleep and emotional upheaval, he pulled into a rundown but functional gasolinera that had an expansive parking area in the back for big rigs. He drove around and parked at the very back in a patch of shade cast by an oak tree, as far away from the noisy bustle of the business as possible.
Spike climbed wearily into the backseat, shifted once or twice to find a slightly less uncomfortable position, and was literally dead to the world before he could even pray for dreamless sleep.
He was awakened two seconds later – or so it seemed – by the wail of a horn and impassioned shouts from hot-blooded Latinos some distance away, apparently set on living up to the stereotype. He yawned widely, stretching his aching body as best he could in the cramped confines of the backseat. Joints in his back and neck popped in relief as he straightened them, and he groaned with the small pleasure of it. The vampire lifted a hand to rub his gritty eyes, but jerked it back with a yelp when pain bloomed in his nose and radiated out to devour his entire face in searing agony. He’d forgotten about his smashed nose.
“Bloody hell,” he muttered, gingerly feeling his swollen eyes and broken nose. “Must look like a sodding raccoon… who’d had his nose smashed by his barmy sire.”
He sighed and climbed back over to the front seat to peer out of the opening in the sunscreen. He’d been asleep more than two seconds, maybe three or four hours, he reckoned. Buffy’d likely be home from school now. His stomach started fluttering with chittering squirrels as he reached over and retrieved the phone from the glovebox and turned it on.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he grumbled to himself as he waited. “Acting like a right fop in short pants… like ya never talked to a sodding girl before.”
Doubt crept into Spike’s thoughts. Was he doing the right thing? He still couldn’t figure out how she’d gotten his number or what had prompted her call. Was it the ‘fuck you’ card he’d sent? Was she really concerned about him? Did she really want him to ‘make with the calling back’? He’d soon find out, he supposed, gathering up his nerve to punch the entry for ‘Buffy Summers, the Slayer, from Sunnydale’. This would be so much easier if he could see her – see her face, read her expression, hear her heartbeat – he’d be able to tell if she meant it without having to say a word. But he was still many hours away from being able to do that.
He swallowed as the phone started up, but instead of the normal screen the message, ‘no signal’ appeared. His brows furrowed, but the squirrels in his stomach settled slightly. He took a deep breath and let it out, a profound sense of relief rolling through him.
“Just have to wait, I reckon,” he decided with a sniff, trying to sound disappointed but failing miserably. He flipped the phone closed but left it on, setting it in the seat next to him so he could see when it had a signal. With the squirrels scampering off to do whatever they did when they weren’t making his stomach flutter, Spike dug in his duster pockets for his fags and lit one before starting the engine. As the motor rumbled to life ‘The Clash’ began to blare from the speakers urging him to ‘Rock the Casbah’.
He snorted, the warmth of memory suffusing his chest and bringing a smile to his lips as he pulled back onto the highway. He headed north. North to the infuriatingly adorable chit that inspired that comforting sensation. North to find out once and for all if she was still his friend.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Sunnydale.
Joyce and Buffy returned home from the vet with Spike, and with far more questions than answers. According to the doggy doctor, there was nothing obviously wrong with their beloved pet. Nothing showed up in the blood tests they’d done. No heartworms, no intestinal worms, no worms at all. He wasn’t anemic, there were adequate white blood cells, and kidney and liver function were ‘within normal range’. There were no tick-borne diseases. His electrolyte and protein levels seemed fine. All the basic tests showed nothing wrong with him.
By the time the three of them had arrived home, and Joyce had called in to excuse Buffy from school for the day, Buffy had begun to realize that she might be coming down with something herself. Throughout the morning, she’d felt as though she was getting weaker and weaker, all her normal easy strength and nearly-unburnable-energy drained away, just like Spike’s. Now she felt as though she was weighed down, like gravity had suddenly increased. Not exactly sick, but not exactly well, either. It was more than a little concerning, honestly.
Spike seemed too tired from all the exertion at the V-E-T to make it up the stairs, so Buffy trudged alongside him into the kitchen, and settled him onto the cool, tiled floor near to his food and water bowls. After retrieving a Coke from the fridge, she dropped herself down onto a stool with a huff.
Joyce turned, gathering bits and pieces for her purse, preparing to leave for the gallery. She paused, frowning at her daughter. “Honey, are you okay?”
Buffy glanced up, waving a weak, dismissive hand. “Yeah, I’m fine. Feeling a little ooky.”
Her mother rounded the counter and placed a gentle palm against her cheek, then her forehead. “You don’t feel like you have a temperature, or anything.”
“No, nothing like that. Tired… maybe I didn’t eat enough at breakfast,” she suggested.
“Maybe you should spend the day on the couch with Spike, hmm? Both of you look like you could use it.”
“Can’t,” Buffy sighed. “I need to go find Giles at the library. If the vet says Spike’s fine, then maybe it’s something from the spooky side of the street. And with me feeling all ‘ergh’, today, I’m starting to think there’s no ‘maybe’ about it.”
“Buffy, are you sure you want to –” Joyce cut herself off with a sigh, her mouth twisting in that new way it did whenever she tried to mom over Slayer stuff, and caught herself doing it. “Why don’t I drive you? It’s not too far out of the way to the gallery.”
Buffy smiled gratefully, but shook her head. “No, it’s all good. You’re late as it is. I’ll make a sandwich, see if Spike’ll eat something, and head out in a bit. Anyways, sunshine and fresh air always makes Buffy a happier camper.” She gave her mother another reassuring smile, determined not to worry her more than was needed. “Besides, I can still walk!” And she could. So far…
“You sure? It’s no trouble.”
“I’m all with the sureness. You go. Sell art. Be business lady. I’ll just grab a bite, make sure Spike’s settled, and skedaddle. It’s all good.” She tried to sound perky, but really wasn’t sure she’d nailed it.
Her mother gave her another concerned glance, and nodded. “I’ll see you tonight then. Don’t overdo it.” She pointed to her daughter and the pup in turn.
“Promise,” Buffy nodded once, holding up three fingers in a Girl Scout promise.
After her mom left, Buffy got some peanut butter and jelly out to make herself a sandwich. With the fabulous Wonder Bread on her plate she tried to twist the lid off the peanut butter, looking forward to plunging her knife into that smooth, fresh surface. Somehow that first dip into a new jar was just better.
The lid didn’t budge. She frowned and tried again. Nothing. Buffy grunted and groaned, putting her whole body into the effort. Nope. She ran it under hot water, she tapped it with a spoon, she got one of those rubber ‘gripper pads’ her mom used out of the drawer and tried that.
The Jiff remained stubbornly un-jiffy. Just as she was considering getting an axe from the weapons cabinet, the doorbell rang.
Spike barely looked up at the sound – foregoing his normal habit of running for the door, pushing aside anyone who was in his way, and letting out an ear-splitting bark at the intruder on the other side.
“So not good,” Buffy muttered as she headed for the door alone, shaking out her hand, which was sore and tired from trying to get into the stubborn jar.
The impatient delivery man outside was about to hit the doorbell a second time when she pulled the door open. “Buffy Summers?” he asked curtly, reading from a card on the vase of flowers in his hand.
“Present,” she confirmed, reaching for the beautiful yellow and white bouquet, the flowers overflowing a lovely cut glass vase. The terse delivery man had her sign for them and headed away, off to deliver more fragrant cheer across town, apparently determined to complete his mission in the most cheerless way possible.
She closed the door and inhaled the sweet scent of the flowers, her mind racing with possibilities. Would Spike send her flowers to apologize for not calling her back? Or for his rude ‘fuck you’ postcard? Or… or maybe because he remembered her birthday? Would he remember her birthday? Oh, God, what if they were from Angel? Angel most certainly knew when her birthday was. Just a few days away now.
Buffy went back into the kitchen, set the vase down on the breakfast island, and pulled the card from the little holder. Her heart skittered and lurched in her chest… Spike or Angel? Who else could it be? Certainly not Percy. ‘Please be Spike,’ she chanted silently, too tired and worried to even bother chastising herself for it, as she pulled the card out of the envelope. A couple of other bits of paper came out with it.
Her eager smile fell. Her heart sank.
Hey, pumpkin! I’m so sorry, but I’m not going to be able to make it this year. My quarterly projections are unraveling and I just can’t afford the time off right now. I promise to make it up to you! Here are the tickets; I’m sure you can find someone else to go with you.
Happy birthday!
Love,
Dad
“Love, Dad,” she muttered bitterly. Was he even serious right now? Did he even know the meaning of the word?
Buffy blinked back the tears that stung hotly in her eyes as she read the card again and again, setting the two tickets to the Ice Capades down on the counter. Quarterly projections. Clearly, her eighteenth birthday wasn’t as important as quarterly projections. Her life wasn’t as important as his job. Just like her mom wasn’t as important as his secretary… or secretaries. He couldn’t even call – too much of a coward – he had to send flowers! Fucking flowers! Flowers that should make her feel happy and be from someone who... who actually cared about her.
Pure, unadulterated fury boiled up in her belly, filling the Slayer with a primal rage she’d rarely ever felt. Buffy grabbed up the vase of flowers and stomped angrily to the back door, making Spike look up from his sprawl on the floor. Buffy flung the door open, stepped out onto the porch, and hurled the vase at the oak tree at the back of the yard with all her strength. She needed it to shatter. To be crushed. To splinter into a thousand pieces. She needed it trampled, demolished, destroyed, just like her father had done to her family. To her hopes and expectations. To her heart.
Even propelled by all that hostility, the vase only went a few feet, falling to the grass just beyond the steps. It was completely unharmed except for some of the posies falling out or being crumpled, and the water spilling, dribbling out onto the lush, green winter ryegrass.
Buffy screeched in frustration, her throat burning with the effort. She dropped down to sit on the top step, covering her head with her arms as she cried, unable to do more. She felt like her entire world was falling to pieces. Something was wrong with her dog – her loyal friend, her constant companion, healer of broken hearts, and stalwart slaying buddy. And now, something was wrong with her!
Buffy felt like she’d been kicked when she was already down, like a sucker punch from out of the blue had slammed into her. When she really needed her dad to be there for her, to add some comfort and even normalcy to her life, he turned his back on her. When she really could’ve used some cheering up, all he’d done was stick another dagger in her heart.
It was her eighteenth birthday, for heaven’s sake! It was a huge milestone in her life, and he’d just walked away. Like he’d walked away from his family. Like he’d walked away from his wife.
The memory of a nightmare come to life flooded Buffy’s mind, her dad telling her that the divorce was all her fault, that the reason he couldn’t stay was because of Buffy and all the trouble she’d gotten into. He’d said she was sullen and rude and selfish… and not very bright. He’d said he never wanted to see her again. It hadn’t been really real, that nightmare, but it had ended up coming true, hadn’t it? Hank had slowly stopped coming, then stopped calling. Every other weekend and several weeks over the summer turned into a weekend now and then, which turned into sporadic phone calls when he had time. When his ‘quarterly projections weren’t unraveling.’ Whatever the fuck that meant.
And now? And now even the phone calls had stopped. Now she got flowers and a note in someone else’s handwriting. He wasn’t coming for her eighteenth birthday. And if he wasn’t coming for that, then he wasn’t ever coming again. She knew that as well as she knew that demons walked the Earth.
Buffy sat on the back porch steps and sobbed, her heart shattered, half of her hating her father for what he’d done, the other half wondering if it was all her fault. She hadn’t been the best daughter. She had embarrassed her parents and gotten into all kinds of trouble. But she was the Slayer – it hadn’t been a choice. It wasn’t like she’d done all that stuff just for fun; she’d been saving lives!
Only now, she was the Slayer without any Slayer strength. And her dog was a Guardian of the Twilight without his Guardian strength.
Her stomach twisted and her heart ached – she was angry at her dad but feeling guilty at the same time – the two emotions waged war inside her. If she’d only been more lovable, maybe he wouldn’t have left them… or maybe he’d at least have come for her birthday. But shouldn’t he love her unconditionally? Wasn’t that what love was supposed to be?
Painful, gulping wails tore from her throat as her shoulders shuddered and quaked miserably as the weight of it all pressed her down and continued kicking. Maybe she just wasn’t enough. Maybe she just wasn’t loveable. If your own father couldn’t love you... what did that mean?
Despite his exhaustion, Spike lurched up to his feet and padded out to her. He brushed against her tiredly, knocking her gently to the side, as he made his way down the stairs on wobbly legs. On the lawn, he stopped by the vase of flowers, sniffed it, then raised one leg, and with a concerted effort to not lose his balance, showered it thoroughly and disdainfully.
Buffy couldn’t help but smile through her tears, her ragged breaths combining with an amused snort to make a very unladylike sound. Spike looked supremely pleased as he came slowly back up the steps, right to her. He pushed in between her legs and settled his big head on her thigh.
“Good boy, Spike,” she whispered, leaning down to wrap her arms around him and bury her tear-streaked face in his soft fur. “I love you so much,” she continued. “We’ll figure this out, get you better… I swear,” she vowed. She had to. He was the one man in her life who could always heal her heart – the one who loved her unconditionally, who would never, ever turn his back on her, who always thought she was enough.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Later that day, Spike raised his head up from the floor when the talking device began to ring. He blinked at it as it continued disturbing his fifth afternoon nap until, finally, he heard his hooman’s voice put an end to the annoying sound.
“You’ve reached the Summers’ residence. We’re not available right now. Please leave a message after the beep and we’ll get back as soon as we can.”
The big dog sighed and settled his head back on the pillow Buffy had put under it when she’d left for school a little earlier, his eyes drifting closed again.
Beeeep.
“Slayer? …Buffy? …Joyce?”
Spike’s brown eyes shot open, suddenly alert – or as alert as he could get through the fog of exhaustion that he was steeped in. His head lifted again as the familiar voice of the white rabbit filled the living room.
“You lot home? It’s Spike…the vampire… from Mexico. Thought all good schoolgirls would be tucked up studyin’ their maths at this bright, sunny hour,” the white rabbit said, the words coming from the square plastic box on the end table.
“Rrrarf!” Spike replied as he grunted and heaved with all his might to get himself to his feet. He padded gingerly over to the source of the voice, his ears cocked, listening. “Rrrarrf!” he repeated.
“Jus’ now got your message, Slayer. Nice cover with the ‘worried about me’ bit, but no need for charades. Know ya just can’t keep your mind off me. Miss me, did you? Got no one to humiliate you at Trivial Pursuit? Don’t reckon Peaches would fare well on that ‘less you get one for senile ol’ codgers.”
“Wooof!” Spike responded, his tail wagging languidly as he looked around, waiting for his friend to appear. “Woof!” he urged again.
There was a pause, a click, then a deep inhalation and a quiet crackle of burning tobacco as a cigarette flared to life. “Right, then. I reckon this makes you ‘it’, eh? Sodding phone doesn’t seem to work outside the cities – bloody inconvenient, that. But, I reckon you can still leave a message if you feel the overwhelming tingling desire t’ hear my voice.”
There was another long silence, another deep inhalation and slow exhale. Spike nudged the machine with his nose, sniffing all around it for the familiar scents of the good vampire, but smelling only plastic coated in lemon-fresh Pledge.
“Right, well, best be off ‘fore I gotta buy more sodding minutes. Give a bell back when ya get in.” There was another pause, another sizzle of tobacco and paper flaring with an audible draw of breath. When he spoke again, his voice was softer. “Hate you, Slayer. Ta.”
Spike whined unhappily as the gadget made some clicking and whirring sounds and a small red light began flashing on its face. Confused, the dog looked first at the back door and then the front, expecting his friend any moment. When nothing happened, he nudged the plastic box again… and again. Still, the white rabbit didn’t appear.
He huffed out a heavy sigh and laid his chin down atop the source of the comforting voice of his namesake. “You have one new message,” a strange person announced, making Spike jerk back. With his brows drawn down in confusion, he stared intently at the new sound.
The Guardian perked his ears up as the white rabbit’s voice began again, repeating what he’d just said, word for word. The dog backed up and looked under the table and then sniffed under the couch, but couldn’t find his friend. He nudged the curtains aside and looked behind them, but no one appeared. Finally, worn out from the hunt, he huffed out a heavy sigh and trudged back over to the pillow Buffy had put down for him. He turned around three times before dropping back down with a thud.
The big dog settled his chin on the pillow, soft brown eyes trained on the magic machine where the white rabbit had been, the flashing light now having gone dark again. He watched diligently for his friend to appear, but his eyelids grew heavier and heavier as each minute passed. Soon, the big dog was starting his sixth nap of the afternoon, dreaming of cheezeburgers and french-fries and the white-haired rabbit who’d become his friend.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Mexico.
Spike flipped the phone closed with a sigh, not sure whether to be relieved or disappointed that no one had been home. He was pretty sure he’d sounded fine, normal, on the message. Like the big bad returning a call, not a heartbroken ponce who needed a friend. This was probably better, he decided. He wasn’t sure he could’ve kept his composure if Buffy had asked him again if he was alright. Didn’t need t’ start blubbering like a sodding fledge. Bad for the image, that. If she called back that would tell him if he was heading in the right direction or not.
He squinted, peering out of the small opening in the sunshield at the highway that stretched out before him, the seaside town of Los Mochis spread out to either side. It was getting on toward evening, the sun would be setting over the Gulf of California in the next hour or so. As soon as it was full dark, he needed to find a crowded tourist spot to replenish his pesos and get a bite to eat. Then he could be on his way again with enough dosh to pay for his petrol all the way to Sunnydale. Pickpocketing was easier and less risky than leaving a string of bloodied gas station attendants in his wake – be like a trail of breadcrumbs leading the Federales right to him. That was trouble he didn’t need – trouble that could slow him down or force him in a different direction. It had nothing at all to do with the green eyes that always seemed to be looking over his shoulder… nothing whatsoever.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Sunnydale.
“Giles!” Buffy called breathlessly as she rushed into the library, not realizing he was standing at the counter just a few feet away. God, she was tired. Had that hallway always been so long?
“There’s no need to bellow,” he pointed out, turning to look at her, one brow raised. “This is still a library, after all.”
“Giles!” she exhaled in relief at the sight of him. “Something’s seriously wrong!”
“With Spike?” he asked, looking concerned.
“No. Yes! Yes – Spike, but me! Something’s wrong with me, too!” Buffy explained. “Watch!” she instructed, walking around behind him. She wrapped her arms around his waist and tried to lift him off the floor. Buffy grunted and leaned back, straining with everything she had, making her back twinge and burn again, but barely raised his heels off the ground.
“What, pray tell, are you doing?” he wondered, stepping out of her grip and turning to face her.
“Trying to pick you up! …In a literal sense not a… you know, dating sense, cos… gross,” she clarified, wrinkling her nose.
“I see. And you are doing this why?” he asked.
“To show you I can’t! I can’t pick you up! I can’t pick Spike up, I can barely pick up a basket of laundry!” the Slayer exclaimed, panic rising in her voice. “How am I supposed to slay vampires if I can’t even slay the laundry!?”
She didn’t give him time to answer before whirling away from him. Buffy grabbed a basketball they sometimes used for training out of the book cage, took aim, and flung it with all her strength. It sailed past Giles and struck a short, brunette boy, who had just opened the library door, right in the head.
“Hey!” he exclaimed. “That hurt!”
“Sorry, Jonathan,” Buffy apologized, moving toward him. “Library’s closed for… basketball practice,” she insisted, pushing him back out the door and picking up the basketball. She turned to look at Giles. “Well!?”
“Well what? That seemed quite good, actually,” he observed. “How did you know he would be entering just then?”
“I didn’t! I wasn’t aiming at him!” she explained in a rush. “I was aiming at YOU! From, like, ten feet away! There’s no way I could miss… except I did! I… I throw like a… a…”
“A girl?” Giles suggested.
“No! Not a girl! Like a blind zombie with no arms!” Buffy declared. “Something is seriously wrong. It’s not just Spike now, it’s me too. Maybe I caught whatever he has. Maybe there’s a curse, a spell or something on us. Maybe…”
“That’s quite a lot of maybes,” the Watcher pointed out. “What did the vet say about Spike?”
“She couldn’t really find anything wrong with him. My mom spent half the national debt on tests, but they didn’t show anything. If we want more tests, she’ll have to mortgage the house.” Buffy sighed and tossed the ball back toward the open cage. It missed the open door, bounced off the wire and ended up knocking Giles’ empty mug off the research table. It hit the floor and broke into several pieces, the ball rolling to a stop against the stairs that led up to the stacks.
Giles sighed. “That was my favorite mug,” he complained dourly.
“I’ll buy you a new one! Focus here – Buffy and Spike badness!” the girl reminded him emphatically.
“Yes, well, I’m certain it’s nothing to worry about, my dear. As I said before, probably a simple virus… perhaps something he picked up on patrol that a bit of rest will cure,” her Watcher assured her, walking over to pick up the broken bits of his ‘Kiss the Librarian’ mug.
“No, there’s no stuffy nose, no puke-fest, no fever… Giles, it’s something else,” she insisted. “Do you think the Powers have paid a visit to Count von Count?”
“I’m sorry, am I supposed to know what that means?”
“From Sesame Street… The Count! He… you know, counts,” Buffy began to explain in exasperation flinging her arms out, but stopped, shaking her head at his blank expression. “Never mind. Do you think they figured out that there are two girls in all the world now, not just one girl, and they’re making with the subtraction?”
“Ah,” Giles acknowledged finally. “No, I don’t believe that’s the case. If that were their plan, then logically they would deactivate the newer girl… Faith, not you…O-or simply not have Called her when Kendra…” Giles’ voice trailed off uncomfortably.
“Was killed by Dru while Angelus distracted me,” Buffy filled in when he didn’t finish the thought.
“Y-yes…” he agreed sheepishly, dropping his gaze from hers.
Buffy felt a wave of guilt wash over her, just as it did every time she thought about that night. She couldn’t indulge in that now, though, so she wrapped it back in its bloody chains and pushed it back into that hidden corner of her heart where she kept all that pain.
So, if it wasn’t the PTB suddenly taking Slayer inventory, then… then it must be something specifically about her or Spike. He’d started feeling bad first. Maybe if she found out what was wrong with him, it would tell her what was wrong with her. “Do you still have those books about the Guardian of the Twilight? Maybe there’s something in them about it happening to other Guardian dogs.”
“Yes, I have them at my flat,” he told her, carefully picking up the bits of mug and tossing them into the bin. “I can bring them in tomorrow for you, if you’d like. But I really think a few days of rest will…”
“Should I be looking for a pod?” she asked him, her eyes narrowing suspiciously.
“I beg your pardon?”
She sighed. “You aren’t acting like Giles… Giles, president of the research-until-your-eyes-bleed club.”
Giles took his glasses off and began scrubbing them dutifully. “I simply think we should give it a few days and see if it passes. It’s very likely just a bug.”
“That both Spike and I have…” Buffy retorted, unconvinced.
The man put his glasses back on and looked at her. “Yes. You do spend an inordinate amount of time together and he isn’t the most hygienic animal I’ve ever encountered. Why don’t you take off patrolling for a while and see how you feel next week?”
“Next week!? That’s your advice? Wait and see?” she asked incredulously. “What if there’s an apocalypse tomorrow? What if the Hellmouth opens? What if the sky starts falling? My birthday’s coming up, after all! Badness abounds!”
“Yes, well, I see no cause for a ‘Henny Penny’ impersonation. In any case, I thought you were going with your father to the ice show and shopping this weekend. I don’t see how the wholesale purchase of inordinately unsuitable footwear or watching other people spin about on frozen water while balancing on knives could cause, errr… ‘badness’, as you say,” he assured her, turning his back and heading for the office.
“Dad, yeah…” she muttered as hot tears stung Buffy’s eyes. She watched Giles walk away, her heart sinking, the conversation clearly over. It felt like the men in her life were all turning their backs on her, literally walking away. First her dad, now Giles – both had just blown her off as if she were nothing, no one.
This was not a virus. She knew it. What Buffy couldn’t figure out was why Giles wasn’t taking this more seriously. Why wasn’t he calling in the troops for a research party? Did he think she was lying? Faking it to get out of patrol? What had she ever done to make him think that? She’d always done her best, killed the baddies, saved the world, given her life, sent Angel to hell, even. Why wouldn’t Giles help her now? What had she done to make them all turn away? Was she suddenly not good enough? Not a good enough daughter? Not a good enough Slayer? Not a good enough person?
Buffy blinked back her tears, clenched her jaw and whirled on her heel. Her steps were as hurried as she could get them given the pain radiating from her back and the exhaustion that seemed to permeate every cell of her body. If he wouldn’t help her, she’d figure it out herself. She’d show him that she was still a good Slayer, still… still worthy and capable and… and loveable.
** X-X-X-X-X **
STORY BOARD
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link.
End notes:
Thank you so much for reading!! We will be having a bit more of Sunnydale in the next couple of chapters as Buffy tries to figure out what’s wrong with her and doggie-Spike, but never fear, vampire-Spike is on the way!
I plan on posting a couple of chapters a week – usually on Thursday and Saturday.
Who remembers having that stupid ‘no signal’ thing on their phone? I think the only place I’ve had that happen recently is traveling in the back hills of Alabama. And how about ROAMING CHARGES? I didn’t get into that here, but... wow, I’m really old. Haha!
And if you like Count von Count, this is the funniest video of him ever. I love it: https://youtu.be/6AXPnH0C9UA
Chapter 3: Fay Wray, Lois Lane, Buffy Summers
Chapter Text
Chapter Notes:
Warning (sort of?): I want to make you aware that the next few days in story-time will seem a lot longer because each day will have 2-4 chapters PER DAY (24 hours). So, it might seem like a lot of time is passing, but really, it’s only because of each day being covered from different POVs or because there’s a lot happening and we’re following it all in ‘real time’ for the most part. Don’t let it throw you.
Apologies for lack of Spikes (both) in this chapter.
Thanks: To all of you for reading! It means so much to me, like Snausages for my muse! Sending all the sloppy, joyful doggie kisses to everyone who has left a note, a like or a kudo. I love hearing from everyone!
Thanks also my two wonderful Beta readers and friends: Holi117 and Paganbaby, and to TeamEricNSookie for pre-reading. All mistakes are mine because I keep fiddling with stuff. If you see any, PM me and I’ll fix it.
Chapter 3: Fay Wray, Lois Lane, Buffy Summers
Sunnydale.
Just as twilight was dwindling into night, Buffy descended the stairs into the walled garden at Angel’s mansion on Crawford Street. She hadn’t been here since the candlelit ginger ale and Triscuit party, but she needed answers and he just might have some. She hoped this wouldn’t blow up in her face, but desperate times called for desperate measuring cups.
She knocked on the glass door between the garden and the living area, hoping the vampire was up. It took a few of her feeble knocks to get his attention, but finally he came out of one of the hallways and into view, wearing only a pair of loose-fitting sweatpants slung low on his hips.
“Buffy!” he greeted her in surprise, motioning her to enter as he crossed the room. “What’s going on? Is something wrong?”
Buffy let herself in, but didn’t go to the couch, choosing to remain standing near the doors. “I need to ask you something.”
“Sure, anything,” Angel agreed, watching her with concern and maybe a small spark of hope.
“Did you… I mean, have you known any other Slayers… other than me? Like… fought any or crossed paths with them or anything?” she wondered, proud of how calm she sounded.
Angel furrowed his brows. “Not that I know of. I mean… I was in Beijing when Spike killed that one, but if I saw her, I didn’t know it. Why? What’s this about?”
“You know I told you Spike was feeling bad – his strength was gone and stuff?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, now mine is too… I… all my Slayer-ness has tottered off to Tipperary. I-I was just wondering if you’d ever heard anything about that happening to other Slayers,” she explained, just as she’d rehearsed on the walk from the high school.
Angel shook his head, daring a step closer to Buffy, seeming pleased when she didn’t back away. “No, I’ve never heard of anything like that. It’s probably that dog – he’s really unhygienic,” the vampire suggested. “You have him in the house all the time, in your room… in your bed?” He paused, looking genuinely pained. “Do you have him in your bed?”
Buffy rolled her eyes. “No, Spike doesn’t sleep in my bed – he has his own bed in my room.”
“Do you have any idea how disturbing that sentence is?” Angel wondered. “The name ‘Spike’ and ‘your bed’ really shouldn’t be in the same conversation – ever.”
“Angel… This is serious. Can you think of anything that would cause this?” she asked, pointedly ignoring his comment.
He shook his head. “Could it just be a, you know, bug? Do you know how many people influenza has killed? Way more than vampires! Maybe you should go to the doctor.”
Buffy huffed out a breath and rolled her eyes heavenward. “Am I really that huge of a drama queen? Seriously? I’ve had the flu before, just last year. Yes, it made me tired and there was a general ‘yuck’ factor – it even landed me in the hospital with dehydration – but it wasn’t like this! I know the damn difference.”
Angel held his hands up in surrender. “Sorry, I just… I don’t know of anything, Buffy. I’m sure it’ll be fine, though.”
Buffy snorted derisively. Why was everyone trying to placate her? Why did everyone think it would be ‘fine’? It was not fine! ‘Fine’ had hopped the last train to Clarksville, and was not meeting her at the station. She tapped down her annoyance and frustration and turned to go – this was accomplishing absolutely nothing. “Okay, well, see you later.”
“W-wait… I’ve got something for you,” he called, moving over to pick up a package from the coffee table. “For your birthday,” Angel clarified, holding it out for her. “I know it’s early, but...”
Buffy turned back and looked at it warily, remembering some of Angelus’ more gruesome ‘gifts’. “You didn’t have to,” she demurred, not reaching for it.
“Go ahead and open it,” he urged, stepping closer, still offering it to her.
Buffy thought about declining, but she did still want Angel to detail the rest of his travels – she needed to know the truth. With her nerve steeled, she took the package and unwrapped the cloth to reveal a leather-bound book. ‘Sonnets from the Portuguese’ by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Her brows furrowed. “I don’t speak Portuguese,” she pointed out, looking up at Angel.
“It’s in English,” he assured her as Buffy began flipping through the slim tome.
“Oh, good. That’ll make it slightly easier to understand,” she agreed. “Thank you. It’s… lovely.” She could use it to remind herself how much her love life sucked for those times she was feeling particularly masochistic. That constituted ‘lovely’, right?
“You really like it?” he asked hopefully, an almost boyish gleam shining in his dark eyes.
“Sure. Books are always at the top of my wish list, especially ones in English. It’s my favorite language.” ‘We were never friends.’
“Then why'd you seem more excited last year when you got a severed arm in a box from Spike?” he wondered, his shoulders drooping slightly.
Buffy rolled her eyes. “Is everything a competition between you two?” she questioned. “Should I expect a copy of ‘War and Peace’ to arrive in the mail from him now?” ‘As if Spike would ever give me a book for my birthday!’
“Would you like that better?” Angel asked, concerned.
She snorted and turned to go. “Thank you for the thoughtful gift, Angel. I’ll see you later.”
“Wait!” he said again, moving quickly and slipping between her and the door, blocking her path. “Maybe we could… um, you know, figure it out? Your problem… not the sonnets.”
Buffy took an automatic step back from his looming presence and looked up to meet his eyes. A flash of fear ran through her. He was so much stronger than she was now; if he didn’t step aside and let her pass, she couldn’t make him. She shook herself, inwardly rolling her eyes at the idea of it. This was Angel – he wasn’t going to hurt her – he was offering to help. And she could really use some help. Her shoulders slumped. “How?”
“I don’t know… why don’t you tell me everything that’s going on and maybe something will come to me. O-or I could ask around, you know… in the alleys or at Willy’s?”
“Maybe asking demons about things that make Slayers weak isn’t the best idea – it might give them ideas,” she pointed out.
“Right,” he agreed sheepishly, ducking his head and giving her a self-deprecating smile. “But maybe I can think of something… if I had all the facts.”
Buffy sighed. What could it hurt?
Angel waved a hand at the couch in invitation. She turned, preceding him back inside and plopping down on one end of the ‘L’ shaped sofa. It honestly felt good to get off her feet. Her legs felt heavy, almost leaden. All this walking, a thing she was normally an awarding-winning pro at, was starting to get old all of a sudden.
“Can I get you something to eat or drink?” Angel asked, looking at her hopefully.
Buffy’s stomach didn’t quite rumble, but it was a close thing. Her jelly sandwich, sans peanut butter, was long gone, but she wasn’t quite hungry enough to brave whatever Angel thought of as a snack.
“No, I’m good,” she replied, shielding her tummy with the book and willing it to stillness.
“Oh, okay. So, tell me everything,” he suggested, taking a seat next to her.
Too close. He was too close. And he smelled really good. And she needed a hug. And she knew his arms were strong and his shoulders were broad, perfect for hugging. She could lay her head against the smooth, cool hardness of his bare chest and just let him hold her for a little while. She needed someone to listen and say none of this was her fault. She needed someone to declare, ‘Ah-ha’ or ‘Eureka!’ or whatever they say when they figure out the answer, so she could fix it. She’d even take one of Giles’ ‘Oh, dear lords’ at this point, but he wouldn’t say that, because he wasn’t even looking for answers.
Except she didn’t even know Angel’s – or Liam’s – last name. She didn’t know his favorite food or favorite color or what kind of music he liked – other than tragic opera. And, clearly, he didn’t know her – the book she was using as a shield over her growling stomach was proof of that. They’d never been friends… they never would be. And they couldn’t be more. Not now. Not ever again. She knew both too much about him and not enough for them to be more. They were, well, co-workers, she supposed.
Buffy cleared her throat and looked at the fireplace, which had burned down to just glowing embers while Angel had been sleeping. “Okay, so, I’m not sure what else to tell you—”
“Are you sure you don’t want something to drink?” Angel interrupted, standing up.
“Yes, with the sureness,” Buffy replied with a bit of exasperation, and Angel sat back down, a tiny bit closer. Her brows furrowed. She would’ve slid away to keep a more comfortable distance, but Buffy was already against the armrest. She decided to just keep going, see if they could figure this out. “I just feel tired and weak,” she continued trying to explain. “I couldn’t lift Spike into the Cherokee today – later, I couldn’t even—”
“Should you be lifting him at all?” the vampire interrupted. “I mean… that could be how you caught what he has in the first place. Maybe he should be quarantined.”
“Spike is part of my family! I’m not sending him off to Siberia!” Buffy shot back, her ire suddenly up. What was with all the interruptions, anyway? She didn’t interrupt him when she was interviewing him, did she? Okay, well, maybe she did… a little. She sighed.
Angel held his hands up in surrender. “No one said, ‘Siberia,’” he pointed out. “Just… you know… not all over you.”
Buffy pointedly eyed the small swatch of couch fabric between them. She opened her mouth with a hot retort when Angel spoke again, “I’m sorry! Forget the whole idea… just… tell me more,” he encouraged, his brown eyes soft with concern.
Buffy’s anger fizzled. She was too tired and desperate for answers to argue, so she kept going, “It might not be anything infectious, at all. It could be a spell or a curse or a hex. Giles doesn’t think my Calling is suddenly a wrong number, that the Powers have figured out there are two Slayers now, but I’m not sure—”
“How would that affect Spike?” the brunette wondered.
Buffy shrugged. “I don’t know… maybe they figure if I’m not the Slayer, I don’t need a demon-killing dog? Who knows how they think? They’re pretty big with the randomness. I’m grasping, total straws, I know, I’m just so confused,” she admitted, dropping her head and rubbing her eyes tiredly.
Angel reached out and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder then began rubbing her neck with strong, sure fingers. She used to like how that felt, how he could soothe her with his touch. Now, she shuddered, remembering his horrifying story of how he’d broken Dru, made her insane. Those hands had done that, those arms, those broad shoulders. And those hands would’ve done the same to her if she’d been a little weaker… weaker, like she was now.
Her stomach began to roil, but not from hunger. She started to pull away, when he suddenly dug powerful fingers into her tight muscles. It felt like a Vulcan nerve pinch, sending pain shooting down her arm and making her head swim.
“Ow!” she gasped, flinching and flinging an elbow up to push his arm away.
“I’m sorry… I just—”
“Have you not been listening?” she demanded, shooting up to her feet, relieved to have his hands off her. “Not at Slayer strength here.”
Angel stood, too, reaching out to take her arm, but she took a quick step back out of reach. Her heel caught on carpet in front of the fireplace and she stumbled backwards, all her reflexes slowed, her coordination decidedly uncoordinated. She nearly fell, but the vampire was there in the next moment, keeping her head from cracking against the stone mantel, steadying her.
“Buffy!” he exclaimed in concern, getting her back on her feet. “Are you okay?”
He was too close. Much, much too close. His hand was in the small of her back. Too intimate. Too disturbing. Buffy stiffened beneath this touch and cleared her throat. “I better be going,” she announced flatly, pulling away from the vampire, heading for the door.
“I thought we could talk more,” Angel said hurriedly, rushing to stay next to her.
“I… I think I better just go. I’m tired,” the Slayer excused as she kept walking toward the doors, not looking at him.
“D-do you want me to walk you home?” Angel offered hopefully, stepping up closer again.
Something inside the Slayer exploded and she whirled on him. “What did you think was gonna happen here, Angel?”
“I – ummm…” he stammered, taken aback by her vehemence.
“Did you do this to me? To Spike? Is this you making me helpless so I’d turn to you, fall into your arms, so you could be the hero?” she demanded hotly.
“What? No! I’d never hurt you!” he defended.
“But you’d hurt Spike – maybe it just spread,” she accused with narrowed eyes. “Is that why you want me to send him away?”
“Buffy! You’re being paranoid. I would never—”
“Oh, now I’m paranoid, too?” she huffed. “If you did something to my dog, I will kill you,” she threatened, her face flushed with righteous anger.
“I didn’t do anything to your damn dog!” Angel growled back, flinging his arms out in exasperation. “I’m trying to help you! I would never hurt you. I love you.”
Buffy stared at him, panting for air, her heart racing, the book of sonnets still clutched in one hand. How could he say that he loved her? He didn’t even know her. And she didn’t know him. She still didn’t know if he’d purposely used her to free Angelus. Was Angel just another man in her life who’d claimed love and then walked away – in a manner of speaking – leaving her filled with shame and guilt? Leaving her heartbroken? Leaving her life in ruins?
Did he think she’d let any of that happen again?
“I don’t think you know the meaning of that word,” Buffy said finally, her voice barely a whisper.
“Buffy…” he cajoled, taking another step closer. “You used to love me.”
A knife twisted in her chest and tears welled unbidden in her eyes. She blinked frantically to keep them from falling. “I didn’t know what love was, either,” she admitted with a small shrug. “Maybe I never will.”
She turned then, just in time to keep him from seeing a tear roll down her cheek, and headed out into the night. To her immense relief, he didn’t follow.
Out on the street, Buffy swiped the tears from her face and took a deep, calming breath. She squared her shoulders and tapped into her Slayer-stubbornness to push all those jumbled emotions down. She didn’t have time for a pity party – the mission came first. She turned and started walking again, knowing what her next destination had to be.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Buffy banged her fists against the heavy wood, shrieking her frustration to the world. She felt like a damsel for the first time in years, like Fay Wray pounding feebly against King Kong.
The Slayer turned, leaned back against Giles’ front door, and slid to the ground, exhausted and utterly defeated. She hugged her knees to her chest and fought hard against the tears that were gathering behind her eyes. She’d tried kicking his door down to get to those books about the Guardian of the Twilight, tried ramming it with her shoulder, tried running as fast as she could and hurling herself at it. Nothing she’d done had budged it even a little. Now her feet hurt, and her shoulder, her hip, her elbow, and the side of her head. Bruises bloomed on her hands, punctuated by bleeding scrapes and swelling knuckles – from fighting a door! A door! But of all her injuries, perhaps the things hurt most of all were her pride and confidence, which were feeling as downtrodden as her heart.
She was the Slayer! It had been her identity for nearly three years, so long that her life before meeting Merrick seemed like a far-away dream. And now she couldn’t kick down a stupid door. She couldn’t load her sick dog into the Jeep. She couldn’t even throw a ball. She had to find out what was happening to her and Spike; she had to fix it, since, clearly, no one else would.
Buffy pushed herself back up to her feet, rubbing her battered and aching shoulder and gasping as a sharp pain stabbed her lower back, determined to get those books. She just didn’t know what else to do, where else to look for answers. She walked around to the side of the building, found an opening in the hedge, and slipped up next to one of the ground-floor windows. “When the door won’t splinter, shatter a window,” she muttered.
Turning her back on the building, she lined her elbow up with one of the panes and pulled it forward, preparing to drive it through the glass. A split-second before Buffy made good on her plan, she heard a shrill, desperate call for, “Help!” come from the back of the apartment building. Without thinking, she pushed through the short hedge, stumbling as her feet were snared by the thick branches. She caught herself before falling, got her feet disentangled from the bushes, and began running toward the sound.
The Slayer’s stake was in her hand by the time she found the source of the cry – a vampire with its fangs buried in the throat of a girl she thought she recognized from school. Buffy didn’t hesitate, despite her aches and pains, her muted reflexes and diminished speed, she closed on the pair, drawing the weapon back to strike. The vampire must’ve heard her coming, though, because he spun, dropping his meal. As he turned, he struck out with his arm and swatted the stake from the Slayer’s grip as if she were a child holding a lollypop.
Buffy gasped in shock, watching it tumble through the air in the dim glow of a distant streetlight, and land in a deep shadow on the thick lawn. Buffy’s attention was back on the vamp in a millisecond, her fist connecting with his jaw. She cried out as pain shot up her arm like a hot poker, numbing her hand and exploding like a fireball in her shoulder. The vampire chuckled and returned the favor. Buffy’s head whiplashed to the side, her vision blurred, but she could still see the ground rushing toward her at – hopefully not literal – breakneck speed.
New and exciting pain splintered through Buffy’s neck and shoulder as she landed in the grass, her breath stolen by the atomic bomb that had just detonated inside her. She moaned and writhed on the dew-damp turf, trying to clear her vision and get the pain down to something merely unbearable. She could hear the vamp laughing smugly, hear the girl he’d been feasting on moaning, still alive. Neither one of them would be alive much longer, though – not if she didn’t get her shit together right NOW.
Buffy rolled onto her stomach and began to crawl for the shadows where she thought her stake went. She could hear the vamp’s steps, heavy and unhurried, gaining on her.
“Not so fast, little girl,” he chuckled, reaching down and grabbing Buffy up by the scruff of the neck like an errant kitten.
The Slayer swung at him wildly, connecting with elbows and feet, but he just kept laughing, shaking her in his vise-like grip. She took in his features through the terror – curly red hair that fell to his shoulders, his golden eyes were surrounded by a sea of freckles, his snarling lips and sharp teeth were coated in blood. Not a fledge, too controlled and calculating, dangerous and strong.
“Kitty wants to play? Should’ve just said so. We can play, little girl,” he offered lewdly. “Can play for hours.”
The Slayer scrabbled at his arm, scratching his flesh, drawing blood, but it only made him tighten his hold. She tried to pry his fingers from around her neck, but she could barely lift even one, let alone loosen the ginger’s bruising grip. She was powerless.
Powerless.
The thought sent a torrent of freezing water cascading down her spine, forming a ball of icy terror in her gut.
Buffy’s pain was excruciating. Her fear was worse. In that moment, dangling from his crushing grip like fish on a hook, Buffy did something she hadn’t done in recent, or even distant, memory. She screamed for help. She screamed like a damsel. She screamed like a little girl, a normal, terrified, helpless child.
“Oh, yeah, I love it when they scream,” the vampire rasped with a lecherous chuckle as he turned and began walking with Buffy. He paused to grab the barely conscious girl he’d been dining on, and dragged her along in their wake as Buffy continued to shriek wildly, calling for help, writhing and struggling against him with every ounce of adrenaline and cold terror inside her. Pain splintered through her with every punch she landed. She was sure her arms were broken, her hands crushed, her shoulders dislocated. But the vampire just kept walking toward a dark, sheltered stand of trees, laughing at her feeble blows, enjoying her terror.
Suddenly, an ear-splitting siren rent the air, making Buffy wince and the vampire drop his two victims in order to cover his ears. The klaxon continued, getting even louder, closer, making the red-headed vampire snarl in pain and move away, his super-hearing working against him. The Slayer wasted no time. She stumbled unsteadily back to her feet and went to the other girl, shakily urging her to her feet, as well.
“C’mon! Let’s go!” someone called frantically, his voice barely audible over the screech of the horn.
Buffy looked up to see the short brunette boy from the library earlier, Jonathan. He was holding up a cross and an air-horn, aiming both of them toward the snarling vampire, who still had his arms up, ducking his head and covering his ears. Buffy and the other girl held to each other, each staggering but somehow keeping the other from falling, as they lurched toward the boy, taking refuge behind his cross and wailing alarm. Jonathan stayed between them and the vampire, backing up as Buffy and the original victim made their way toward the street and the slim hope of safety which the lights and passing cars there promised.
“We need to hurry,” Jonathan urged them. “I’m almost out of air.”
Buffy nodded and did her best to pick up the pace, heading for Revello and the true safety of home. She didn’t breathe easy again until she and the girl tumbled through her front door, falling to the floor, Jonathan following a moment behind.
“Are you okay?” Buffy asked the girl as they disentangled from each other.
The frightened, ashen teen nodded, pulling her hand away from her neck and goggling at the blood on it. The bite had started to coagulate, no longer bleeding freely. “I-I think so,” she said in a shaky voice. “That guy… there was something wrong with his face… and he bit me!”
Buffy just snorted and pushed up to a seated position, leaning her back against the newel post at the foot of the stairs. She looked up at Jonathan, who was still holding the cross and the silent air-horn. He had closed the door and was standing with his back to it.
“Thank you,” Buffy whispered, unable to get her voice any louder, her body noticeably trembling with exhaustion and the aftermath of the terror-induced adrenaline surge. Without warning, a sob shook Buffy’s shoulders and tears she was unable to stem slipped from her eyes. She’d just been saved by Jonathan – the geekiest geek in all of geekdom – with an air-horn and a cross. She was the Slayer! She was the saver, not the savee! The kicker of demon ass, the duster of vampire dreams.
Buffy buried her face in her hands and sobbed, sitting on the floor of her foyer, feeling lost and confused, and just as terrified as she’d been dangling from the vampire’s hand. She was still dangling, her feet unable to touch the ground, her strength drained, her struggle futile. What if she wasn’t the Slayer anymore? What if they really had figured it out – ONE girl in all the world… not two. What if that one girl was Faith and now she was just… just Buffy again?
“No, no, no…” she cried into her hands, shaking her head and rocking inconsolably on the floor. “Please, no.”
Jonathan sighed and rolled his eyes, clearly dismayed. “Lois Lane never acted like this when Superman saved her,” the small brunette complained disappointedly.
** X-X-X-X-X **
STORY BOARD
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link.
End notes:
Thank you so much for reading!! We will be spending more time in Sunnydale in the next couple of chapters as Buffy tries to figure out what’s wrong with her and doggie-Spike, but never fear, we will check in with our favorite vampire next chapter.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Chapter 4: Powerless. Helpless. Alone.
Chapter Text
Chapter Notes:
Today’s a holiday in the US, so that gave me a little extra time, so I thought I’d post a *bonus* chapter this week! You may or may not thank me for this when you’re done.
Timing. Just to help keep track of how much time is passing, this is still the same day Buffy and Joyce had taken Spike to the vet, same day Buffy asked Giles and Angel for help, same day she tried to break into Giles’ apt, got attacked by a vampire, and saved by Jonathan. It’s now just now much later that night. She’s had quite a full day, hasn’t she?!
Thanks: To all of you for reading! It means so much to me, like bacon for my muse! Sending all the sloppy, joyful doggie kisses to everyone who has left a note, a like or a kudo. I love hearing from everyone!
Thanks also my two wonderful Beta readers and friends: Holi117 and Paganbaby, and to TeamEricNSookie for pre-reading. All mistakes are mine because I keep fiddling with stuff. If you see any, PM me and I’ll fix it.
I also want to thank all the amazing people on the EF Ficstorming Facebook page who helped me find a decent view of Giles’ front door from the outside for the story board and help me figure out just how the heck you get to his door. It takes a village! You guys rock!
Chapter 4. Powerless. Helpless. Alone.
Mexico.
Nearly six hours after leaving his message for Buffy, Spike hadn’t heard anything back. He tried to tell himself that maybe they were still out. They could even be out of town on a holiday or something. Except he was sure school was in session, so that excuse didn’t really hold water. His nerves were getting frayed waiting, glancing down at the phone in the seat next to him every few minutes, checking for the little bars that indicated he had service or the words ‘You have one message’ on the small display.
Maybe he was all wrong about this. Buffy had told him to stay out of Sunnydale – to not come back – maybe she really meant it. Maybe her phone call and message was… what? He didn’t know. There were too many things he didn’t know – like how she’d gotten the sodding number in the first place.
“Bugger me,” he growled, running a hand back through his hair, making it stick up in new places and lay flat in others. He pulled off the highway, stopping just on the outskirts of the town of Hermosillo, and lit a cigarette to try and settle his nerves. It was one of the larger towns he’d been through, the capital of the state of Sonora, only about three hours from the Arizona border. It was also one of the rougher towns – or parts of it were – like any large city. Which, for a master vampire, was nothing more than an opportunity to fill his pockets with plenty of dosh courtesy of a local drug dealer or two. A little more risky than pickpocketing tourists – drug dealers had guns – but much more lucrative. More risk, but more reward.
With the fag dangling from his lips, he picked up the phone and checked the little bars. They indicated he had plenty of service. If that dozy bint would just call, it would come right through, but the phone remained stubbornly silent. He checked the little battery scale which said it still had a charge, though it was running low. He’d need to get a room somewhere and plug it in before long. He should’ve gotten that adapter thing so it could charge in the car – he’d get one next chance he got. He took a deep drag from the cigarette and looked out the window, having taken the sunshield down off the windscreen a few hours ago.
“Well, not calling the bitch back like a ponce,” Spike decided. He took another hit of nicotine, letting it filter from his nostrils like dragon’s breath. “Free sodding country, innit?” he continued. “Can come and go as I please – she doesn’t own the bleeding town, does she? Certainly not the boss o’ me. Got no boss anymore, do I? Do as I want, when I want, where I bloody want.”
He nodded to himself confidently, then looked down at the phone again. Why hadn’t she called him back!?
“Argh!” he growled in frustration, turning the phone off and shoving it back into the glovebox. “If I wanna holiday on the Hellmouth, then I’ll just go. Don’t need her sodding permission, do I? No, I bloody well don’t.”
Mind made up, Spike put the car back into drive and headed into town to fill his pockets with cocaine-laced pesos and probably greenbacks… a bottle or two of tequila wouldn’t go amiss either.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Sunnydale.
Joyce hurried down the darkened street, her shoes clacking loudly on the pavement. The wind had picked up, bushes and trees swayed in the dark, their branches reaching out, seeming to come alive, ready to snatch up unwary passersby. Dead, winter leaves from the few deciduous trees skittered past underfoot as if fleeing for their lives, fearful of those blustery, ominous shapes. Strange sounds filled the air, carried on the breeze, all seeming sinister at this late hour. She darted a glance over her shoulder into the cool night, and pulled her coat tighter across her chest, her mind filling with images of her daughter, the cuts and the bruises, the tears and shuddering sobs. If that could happen to Buffy, it could happen to anyone.
Joyce had come home from the gallery this evening to find three teenagers in her house. That wasn’t unusual. Only it wasn’t the three teens she’d normally expect. In her kitchen, a young girl she didn’t recognize at all was bleeding and light-headed, sipping on orange juice with trembling fingers. Their dog was keeping watch over the girl, as well as he could, sprawled next to his bowl and with a pile of uneaten food in it. In her living room, a young man – this one she thought she did recognize, perhaps from one of her too-regular visits to the high school – was lounging on the sofa watching an old Star Trek rerun. Upstairs, alone in the bathroom, bleeding and covered in swelling, purpling marks, her daughter… completely inconsolable.
It hadn’t taken long to ascertain the gist of what had happened. While Joyce helped Buffy into bed with a gentle hand and murmured words of love and support, she’d listened to the disjointed and panicked story of the night, straining to grasp every word through her daughter’s tears. With each passing moment, Joyce had felt herself grow more and more frightened, more and more confused, more and more hurt on her child’s behalf.
Once Buffy was safely tucked in and the tears had subsided into quiet sobs, Joyce had grabbed her things and taken Jonathan and the girl – Alison, she’d learned – home, leaving her distraught daughter alone. While she didn’t want to leave Buffy for longer than was necessary right now, she found herself turning left at the light, instead of right; towards the Watcher’s house, rather than her own. She wanted to have a word with him about whatever was going on with Buffy and Spike, because clearly something was going on!
Now, Joyce let out a small sigh of relief as she pushed the gate open that lead to the building’s courtyard and Mr. Giles’ apartment beyond. The wind settled within the protection of the walls and she made her way quickly down the steps of the courtyard and toward his door. As she stepped up to the front door, she could hear raised voices coming from within, both distinctly male. Though she couldn’t make out many words from inside, a few snippets floated out to her, ‘having doubts’, ‘too close’, ‘nothing to worry about.’
Joyce brushed her windblown hair from her face before knocking on the door. As soon as she did, the conversation from the other side came to an abrupt halt. She heard movement from inside, then someone she thought was Mr. Giles saying he’d be right there.
When the Watcher opened the door, he was still dressed in his work attire, though his tie was loosened, and his suit jacket had been shed. “Joyce. What a pleasant surprise,” Giles greeted her, though he didn’t sound too pleased, and did not step aside or invite her in.
“Mr. Giles,” she said formally, her eyes darting behind him to see who he’d been talking to, but seeing no one. “I need to speak to you about Buffy. May I come in?”
“Where are my manners? Certainly, please,” he invited, finally opening the door wider and allowing her inside. “What seems to be the trouble?” Giles asked, closing the door and following her into the apartment.
Joyce’s eyes flicked over the record collection and stereo in one corner, and her face flamed with the memory of the last time she’d been in this room – under the influence of ‘Band Candy’. She looked away from it, forcing her expression into neutrality, and turned to face the Watcher. “Buffy was attacked tonight.”
“Oh, my word! Is she alright?” he asked urgently, his expression holding real concern.
“She’s bruised and scraped up. I’m sure she’ll be okay, except… except that her strength seems to be gone. In fact, all of her Slayer abilities seem to have up and vanished,” Joyce informed him matter-of-factly, her shoulders pulling back as her chin lifted and her eyes met his. “Buffy tells me she’s already told you all about it. About Spike’s sudden problems, too. But according to her, you just brushed it off.”
Joyce took a deep breath, not wavering in her glare as it turned stern and accusing. “She could have died tonight, Mr. Giles. She was trying to save a girl from a vampire… if it wasn’t for another student who happened to come along right at that moment, they’d both …” The worried mother had to pause a moment and collect herself before finishing, “…both be dead.”
Joyce’s eyes were shimmering now, but remained granite hard. “I thought you were supposed to help her. As I understand it, it’s your job to watch over her as the Slayer, to keep her safe. I have to say, Mr. Giles, I’m far from impressed.”
Giles removed his glasses, pulled out a handkerchief, and began scrubbing them, moving away from his Slayer’s angry mother. “I do apologize,” he replied, not looking at Joyce. “I told her to take a few days off – her and Spike – that it was likely a virus or—”
“I’m not sure if you’ve ever had a virus,” Joyce interrupted him curtly. “But unless there’s some special ‘Slayer virus’ that doesn’t include vomiting, fever, or runny noses, then neither she, nor Spike, have a virus. Is there a ‘Slayer virus’ that we should know about?”
“Errr, well, not that I’m aware of, no,” he admitted reluctantly, putting his glasses back on. “I genuinely do think it’s something that will pass with just a few days of rest, though.”
“And you base this on…?” she wondered, arching a brow at him.
Giles cleared his throat, his eyes averted. “Uh, well, that is … just a supposition.”
“A supposition,” Joyce repeated incredulously. “Is that the same as a wing and a prayer?”
“I… I suppose so,” he admitted.
“Well, I for one, would like something a little more substantial than that,” Joyce insisted.
“Yes... yes, of course. I’ll begin researching tonight and gather the others tomorrow and we’ll all start looking into it,” Giles assured her. “I’m certain there is a simple explanation and resolution to be found. In the meantime, Buffy should forgo patrolling – as I suggested.”
“She wasn’t patrolling when she was attacked. She was… well, she was here, trying to get in to borrow the books you have on Spike’s origins.”
“Here?” Giles’ brows went up and he looked around for signs of a break-in, seeing nothing out of place. “I told her I would bring them in tomorrow,” he related, walking over and picking up the two books from his desk.
“I guess that wasn’t good enough for her,” Joyce pointed out. “Which, honestly, should’ve been obvious to you,” she chastised. “Just like telling her to stop patrolling wasn’t good enough. That doesn’t change who she is inside – someone who wants to help others, protect them from danger, keep them safe. It’s not going to stop the monsters from coming, either. People get attacked in this town all the time, day and night, many of them right there in the high school where she spends most of her time!
“I would think you, out of all of us, should understand what being the Slayer means. She’s not the same girl she was before all this. She knows what’s out there now, she can’t just… just look the other way and pretend evil doesn’t exist.”
Giles offered her the books and she took them. “I do apologize. Again, I felt like…”
“It would pass,” Joyce cut him off tersely. “A lot of good that will do if she’s dead.”
Giles’ perfectly clean glasses were removed again and scrubbing renewed. “Indeed,” he agreed sheepishly.
Joyce huffed out an impatient breath and turned for the door. “Maybe you should try to find Faith, because I’m not letting my daughter or our dog out after dark until we find out what’s going on.”
Giles nodded, returning his glasses to his face. Again. “I will attempt to locate her,” he agreed, following his guest to the door.
Joyce opened the door, but paused before stepping out, turning back to face him. “Have you heard the term, ‘Mama Bear’?” she asked.
“Yes, I believe I understand the concept.”
“Do you?” she wondered, giving him a saccharine smile. “Just so there’s no misunderstanding, it’s a sweet way to describe the fact that I’ll tear you open and eat your insides if anything happens to my little girl because you didn’t do your job.”
Giles’ eyes went comically wide. “I… will, uh, take that under advisement.”
“See that you do,” Joyce suggested before turning and stepping out of the apartment, Giles closing the door behind her.
Joyce paused on the step, turning her head and leaning back slightly so that she could listen more intently. It only took a couple of moments before she heard the second male voice speaking to Giles from inside. “No one can know that I’m here,” he said in what sounded like a British accent from very near the door. He must’ve just come from upstairs.
“No one does, I assure you,” Giles replied.
“Complete secrecy is imperative.”
“I understand,” Giles confirmed as both men moved further from the door, their voices becoming less distinct. Joyce furrowed her brows, trying to put meaning to what she heard, but finally gave up as the two men’s conversation trailed off into low mutters.
She turned to go, but suddenly remembered Buffy mentioning in her disjointed rambles that she’d left a book there on the stoop. Joyce was about to knock again and ask Giles if he’d seen it, when her eyes landed on the slim tome, off to one side, half-hidden in the shadows behind a flowerpot. She picked it up – Sonnets from the Portuguese. She put it with the books Giles had given her, and headed out of the courtyard and down the street toward her car, the dead leaves crunching beneath her feet.
Joyce kept a keen eye and ear out as she walked, but only the trees moved in the night. Inside the relative safety of the Jeep, she locked all the doors and finally let out a sigh, half relief and half exasperation. She’d once suggested that Buffy try to not be the Slayer. It seemed ludicrous to her now, though she still wished – probably more often than she ought – that Buffy had never been Chosen. Nights like this brought that futile wish back full force.
Being the Slayer had changed her daughter. It was more than a physical change. Joyce could see it in every aspect of Buffy – her mind, her heart, her instincts, her spirit. Whatever was happening to her child now seemed to only affect her physical prowess, which meant she was a Slayer in the body of a petite, young woman… a girl, really, not yet eighteen.
Joyce shook her head and closed her eyes, her heart aching with worry and icy fear. She felt helpless. Her ‘Mama Bear’ instinct to protect her only child was strong, but she just had no idea where to direct her ire, how to help, how to keep her girl safe. And it was terrifying.
With the steadfast determination of a Summers, Joyce took a deep breath, squared her shoulders and started the Jeep. She’d just have to think of some way to help her daughter – there had to be an answer out there, she just needed to find it.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Buffy jumped when the front door closed behind her mom, Jonathan, and Alison as they left the house. Hot pokers shot through her body, radiating out from her shoulders and stabbing into her lungs, making it painful to breathe. She tried to take shallow inhalations, but her tears wouldn’t allow it, her body demanded she take in deep shuddering gulps of air. Despite that, she felt like she was suffocating, drowning right there in her own bed, like there wasn’t enough oxygen. Everything hurt. There were bruises on top of scrapes on top of gouges on top of dislocations. She was sure things were broken inside her – more than just her heart.
The house was silent. The TV downstairs was off. There was no whirl of air conditioning or heat. Spike was downstairs, too far away to provide his loving comfort to her jumbled emotions, too far for her to even hear him breathing. The house creaked now and then, making its normal ‘house sounds’, but tonight they seemed louder than usual, somehow alien and restless.
The Slayer curled up beneath her comforter, her skin cold and clammy as uncontrollable shivers shook her ravaged body. She tried to take stock of the injuries, of the burning aches and jabbing pains, but there were just too many, and her mind was too muddled to sort them out anyway. She’d nearly died tonight. Again.
Somehow, nearly dying frightened her more than actually dying had. That wasn’t entirely true – it wasn’t the dying that had terrified her so, that had her body fighting off shock – it was the complete helplessness she’d felt as that vampire laughed and taunted her. There had been no thrall like with the Master – which had been bad enough. This time it had been a completely fair fight – and she’d lost. Utterly and completely. She’d been crushed, nearly strangled. She had been on the verge of being carried away to be…
Buffy shuddered and closed her eyes, her sobs starting up again in earnest. That vampire wouldn’t have just killed her. She didn’t want to think about what he would’ve done, but horrible visions flashed behind her lids despite her willing them away. She curled tighter into herself, wrapping her arms around her stomach, trying to hold herself together, trying not to think about what could’ve happened if Jonathan hadn’t saved her.
Her mind was still having trouble with that concept – Jonathan had saved her. That was just… wrong.
More shivers rolled through Buffy. She was freezing and sweating at the same time, unable to stop herself from shaking like a leaf in a hurricane. Or like a frightened little girl. She wasn’t the Slayer anymore. She was just Buffy. Just a scared child needing to be saved from the monsters. And all anyone could say was that it would be all right. Just give it time. Her Watcher, her mother, even Angel – they patted her on the head and said it would ‘be all right’. It was not alright! Nothing would ever be all right again! She buried her face against her pillow as more sobs shook her slender frame. Each one brought a new wave of pain, but she couldn’t stop them, she hadn’t the strength to stop anything anymore.
Something outside her window moaned eerily and she jerked her head up to look, sending more knives slicing through her battered body. A shadowy form shifted in the trees and she froze, her wide, unblinking eyes glimmering in the dim light that filtered in from the hallway.
Her breathing did stop then, though her heart was thundering like a stampede of wild horses in her chest, the sound of her blood rushing in her veins a deafening cacophony in her ears. Buffy’s eyes were like saucers, her throat constricted, her mouth dry as she watched, unable to move, literally frozen in terror in her bed.
Another shadow came to life on the wall opposite her bed and her head jerked again, her eyes locked on the spot, waiting for more movement, trying to see what it was. A demon? A ghost? Something that would drag her away like that vampire and…
The Slayer’s battered body began to quake violently as she clutched the comforter as if it were a shield that could save her. She knew she needed to get up and turn on the light, or get up and run, but she couldn’t make her limbs move. She needed to look around the rest of the room, find out how many there were, what they were, but she was terrified at what she might see. Her eyes remained glued on the wall as she waited… waited for the monster to move again.
Buffy tried to listen for the intruder – their footsteps or breathing – but she couldn’t hear anything other than the thudding of her own heart. She tried to find them with her Slayer senses, with the prickles that often accompanied a vampire or demon, but her whole body was tingling with unmitigated terror. She willed her eyes to look around, but they refused to move. There was nothing but fear. It gripped her like a vise, refusing to give her any control over her mind or body. Like an infection, it grew inside her, making her thoughts spiral deeper and deeper into the void, into the fright and panic.
Anyone or anything could walk right up to her and kill her right here, and there would be nothing she could do. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. She could only wait for the shadows to swallow her or for whatever was beyond the walls of her room, moaning and swaying, to attack her. To kill her. To leave her broken and bloody body for her mother to find.
Tears leaked from her eyes, blurring her vision as she watched and waited for death to come for her. She was going to die alone and afraid in her own bed. The monsters were coming, she could hear them outside. One banged against the house and she jumped again, her eyes relinquishing their vigil on the shadow and darting toward the sound. There was a loud crack in the yard, like the snapping of bones, which made her whimper involuntarily. Then another creaking moan, long and agonized, filtered in, and her eyes shifted again, staring out the window. A garbage can clanged from the street – toppled by more demons, no doubt. The vampire’s laughter from earlier rang in her ears and curdled her frozen blood. Was he there? Trying to get in? Trying to finish what he’d started?
‘Vampires can’t get in,’ she assured herself. ‘Other demons can, though,’ her fear offered helpfully. She finally managed to swallow, though her mouth was devoid of saliva. She blinked and a flood of tears coursed down her flushed cheeks.
The world came into focus for a moment, the watery blur clearing. More arms swayed in the moonlight just outside, reaching for her, scraping against the house. Each sound, each shift in the shadows, each stirring of leaves, drained more strength from her limbs, leaving her paralyzed her with terror.
Buffy took a breath, forced it into her lungs, but couldn’t breathe out. She closed her eyes, not wanting to see what was out there, taunting her, mocking her. The monsters knew now – knew she wasn’t the Slayer – and they were coming for her. They were all coming!
Slowly and painfully, she pulled the comforter up higher, fighting with her body’s own defense mechanisms in order to lift it over her head. There was more than ‘fight or flee’, there was also ‘freeze’. Don’t move. Don’t give away your position to the predators. Don’t breathe. Don’t make a sound. Don’t scream. Don’t speak. Don’t blink.
But she was still too loud. Her heart was too loud. Her shallow breaths were too loud. The tears tumbling from her eyes were too loud. Her shivers were too loud.
It was too late to hide. Too late to freeze. She could feel eyes locked on her, their presence crawling over her skin like roaches, just waiting for their chance to devour Buffy, the Vampire Slayer.
No, not the Vampire Slayer. Buffy, the girl who wouldn’t make it to adulthood.
Beneath the cover, with her eyes clamped tightly closed, she forced more air into her lungs, knowing she needed to breathe. She had to find her focus – like Giles had been teaching her. Focus. Focus on something other than the fear, other than the pain and death that waited beyond her window. Another shuddering breath in, another trembling exhalation. She couldn’t stop shaking, couldn’t get warm, couldn’t stop crying. She needed help. For the second time tonight she needed someone to save her from the monsters.
“Spike,” she rasped, trying to scream, but it was barely more than a stage whisper, not escaping the thick comforter. “Spike, help,” Buffy cried again, her voice cracking with the strain, her mouth dry as a desert, her throat swollen with bruises and clogged with panic. She took another breath, and forced it out. Another breath, gathering up every drop of courage she could find in her bruised and beaten body. One more deep inhale and Buffy propelled herself off the bed and onto the floor, away from the window, away from demonic eyes and grasping arms.
She landed on her shoulder, which exploded in white-hot fire. Buffy screeched, the sound ripped from her lungs as fire blossomed through her entire torso, shooting out like dragon’s breath through her body. She writhed on the carpet, tangled in the comforter, trapped, wrapped up like a burrito, as she fought again to find air and push down her panic. How could just breathing be so hard? She used to breathe all the time, but now… not so much. Like everything else, that ability seemed to have been stolen from her.
Trembling on the floor, entombed in her soft duvet, her sobs returned in earnest. “Help… please help me,” she gasped, fighting desperately to free herself. But no one heard her. No one came to help.
With no small amount of effort, she finally crawled from the cocoon of cotton, trying to keep her head down below the top of the mattress, out of sight of the predators that were licking their lips, waiting to pounce on the former Slayer, to even the score for all the demons she’d dispatched. The wind howled outside, turning every sound into a demon, every scrape of tree limb against the house into an attack, every swaying branch into talon-tipped claws reaching for her.
Powerless.
Buffy hid on the floor beside her bed as more frantic, painful sobs shuddered through her body, feeling like the entire world had turned its back on her. She’d given everything to the world, and now all it gave back were hollow assurances that everything would ‘be all right’. Lip service. Rhetoric. Empty promises. Lies!
“Spike, please,” Buffy called again into the dark, but her dog, the healer of her heart, her stalwart companion and defender, was too far away down in the kitchen, too exhausted himself, to hear her or to come to her aid.
“Spike…” she whimpered desperately, but this time her bleary, jumbled, panic-stricken mind conjured a vision not of her best friend, but of her mortal enemy.
Her swollen, watery eyes suddenly darted up to the mirror above her dressing table. Postcards. Spike. Spike wouldn’t lie to her. He wouldn’t placate her or sugarcoat anything. He’d tell her the truth – she had to know the truth before she died. Why was this happening to her? What had she done to bring this down on herself? She had to know… why?
Steeling her nerve against the fear, Buffy pushed herself up using the bed, her body painfully protesting every move. She snatched the last postcard from her mirror and dropped back down onto the floor, out of sight of the monsters beyond the window. She yanked at the cord on her phone, tumbling it down from the bedside table with a too-loud jangling of the bell. She fumbled at the handset clumsily, finally managing to grip it in her trembling fingers. Another deep breath to steady herself. And one more. Buffy swiped the tears from her eyes brusquely and tilted the postcard so she could see the numbers in the dim glow from the hall. Frantically, she began to punch them in to her phone.
“Please answer, please answer,” she prayed, her voice breaking, a barely audible croak.
“If you need me t’ tell you…” Spike’s voice picked up finally, making Buffy’s heart splinter, her hope dying on the vine.
“Spike, please,” she cried into the phone as his greeting still played. Her voice cracked and hitched as she spoke, some words coming out brashly, others barely audible. “Pick up! Please! I need to know… I can’t… it’s not fair! I did everything I was supposed to! I was a good Slayer! I tried to be a good daughter! I swear I did! Why is this happening? Am I a bad person? Is it because of Angel? I… know I shouldn’t have… I set Angelus free. Is that why? I gave him…” A soul-deep sob tore from her throat. She’d given everything to Angel – to a vampire. Was that why they were taking it all back now? Because she’d sullied herself, willingly gave him not just her body but her love?
“Please tell me… tell me why? It’s all gone – I can’t… my strength… everything, gone! Not the Slayer anymore. So scared! Always thought… it’d be you… but they’re coming,” she sobbed incoherently, her words stuttering and slurred. “Can’t fight, can’t… they’ll kill me! Spike can’t help, can’t hear me! Oh, God! They’ll kill him too!” she gulped, the realization only then hitting her. They’d kill her dog too – all his strength was gone, just like hers! They would rip him to shreds, tear out his sweet, loving heart, make him cry and whimper and… “Oh, God! Oh, God! Spike … noooooooooo!!!” Her anguished shriek was raw and wild, filled with the torment of a thousand fallen angels as her own heart was sliced to ribbons in her chest.
“God! Help us! Please! They’re coming and I can’t stop them… they’re right outside and… God, Spike! What do I do?”
‘Beeep!’
Another sob tore through her, jolting her beaten and bruised body as she stared at the phone, its outline little more than a blur in her trembling hand, the line gone dead. Outside, the demons growled and moaned with the wind, battering the house, coming for her: the girl who was the Slayer no more. Coming for her friend, the Guardian of the Twilight.
Buffy began to crawl for the door. She had to get to Spike, had to keep him safe somehow! She couldn’t let the monsters take him, couldn’t let them hurt him! He hadn’t done anything wrong! This was her fault, not his! “Spike,” she tried to call again, but her lungs were tight, constricted with fear. “Hide!”
She knew he hadn’t heard her. She could barely hear her own croaking voice over the sound of monsters scratching at the walls, at the windows.
Buffy tried to go to him, to make him hear her, but she barely made it to the hallway before she collapsed in bitter, excruciating exhaustion, all the energy she’d dredged up completely spent. She tried with all her might to find more, to reach deep and pull out any tiny spark of strength, but there was nothing left, not a single flicker. With the phone, its cord stretched to the limit, and postcard still in her hands, Buffy curled into a ball, shivering violently and weeping dismal, terrified tears.
“All my fault,” she muttered, as she clutched the phone and postcard to her chest like lifelines, breathing in the lingering scent of tequila. The Slayer waited for the night to take her and prayed it would be happy with her blood, leaving her best friend be. It was the only hope she had left now.
Powerless. Helpless. Alone.
** X-X-X-X-X **
STORY BOARD
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link.
End notes:
Of course, now that Spike has gotten pissed off and turned the phone off, Buffy calls, frantic and in need of help and a strong friend who will tell her the truth, not dole out placations. Can anything ever go right for them?
Thank you so much for reading!! We are going to be focusing more on Buffy and Sunnydale for a little while longer, but hang in there! Spike the vampire has not been forgotten.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Chapter 5: Jiggery-pokery
Chapter Text
** X-X-X-X-X **
Chapter Notes:
Apologies: For the lack of Spike T. Vampire here. We will get back to check on him in the next chapter. And, yes, I promise he will eventually turn his stupid phone back on. Hang in there!
Thanks: To all of you for reading! It means so much to me, like bacon wrapped filet for my muse! Sending all the sloppy, joyful doggie kisses to everyone who has left a note, a like or a kudo. I love hearing from everyone! I apologize for falling behind in replying, but I’ll get caught up this weekend.
Thanks also my two wonderful Beta readers and friends: Holi117 and Paganbaby, and to TeamEricNSookie for pre-reading. All mistakes are mine because I keep fiddling with stuff. If you see any, PM me and I’ll fix it.
Chapter 5. Jiggery-pokery
Sunnydale.
The house was peaceful when Joyce got home from Giles’; silent and dark. She set the books down on the table in the foyer with a sigh, hoping they’d help find some answer to whatever was going on with her daughter and their dog. She made a quick check on Spike, who was still sprawled out in the kitchen, where he’d been when she’d left with Jonathan and Alison. His food was untouched, but he’d at least lapped up some water. She crouched down and stroked his head comfortingly, her worry only multiplying. He raised up to nuzzle her hand affectionately, before sighing drowsily and dropping his big head back down onto the cool floor and closing his eyes.
“We’ll figure this out, boy… for both of you,” she assured him, before standing back up and heading upstairs to check on her girl.
“Buffy!” Joyce exclaimed, hurrying up the final steps when she saw her daughter on the floor in the doorway of her room.
The girl moaned when Joyce touched her shoulder, trying to roll away from the pain.
“Buffy, honey, wake up. Are you all right? What happened?” Joyce asked worriedly, trying to rouse her without hurting her.
“Mom?” the Slayer croaked, trying to blink her swollen, crusted eyes open and raise her head.
“I’m right here, honey,” Joyce assured her as she tried to help her to a sitting position. “You’re freezing,” she observed, placing a hand on Buffy’s forehead and finding it damp and clammy. “What happened?”
Accepting her mom’s help to sit, Buffy gasped, grabbing for her injured shoulder. The phone she’d been clutching slipped from her hand and was yanked back into the room by its overstretched cord. The handset bounced over the floor then came to rest near the base, which jingled lightly in the quiet room, then went silent again. The girl’s heart jumped as she turned to see what the sound was, the shivers that had nearly subsided returning with another spike of adrenaline-fueled fear.
“Buffy –” Joyce began again.
Suddenly the last hours came back into focus for Buffy, the sleep and exhaustion receding slightly, clearing the fog from her mind. “Spike! Where’s Spike?” the Slayer demanded, her eyes wide, voice rough as sandpaper, the words searing her bruised throat. “Is he… is he okay? Did they get him?”
“Did who get him?”
“The monsters!” Buffy squeaked, trying to scream, her eyes darting up and down the hall, searching for her dog.
“What monsters?”
“The ones that were…” Buffy turned and looked around her bedroom and at the window. Outside, trees swayed and bent in the wind, the leaves creating dancing shadows in the moonlight, the bare branches waving like claws, reaching for the sky. They moaned when limbs bowed too far and scratched against the house and each other. With her door fully open allowing more light in, she could see all around her room – there was nothing there, nothing but her and her mom. No monsters. No demons. No death reaching for her.
“I… I thought… there were… monsters coming after… us,” she stammered, confused. Her mind whirled, her head ached – lots of things ached, actually. Had she dreamed all that? Imagined the monsters?
“Spike’s fine. He’s sleeping downstairs,” Joyce assured her.
Buffy closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the wall as she sent a silent prayer of thanks into the heavens. A fresh wave of tears burned her reddened eyes, this time in relief. Spike was alright. Her friend, her dog, hadn’t been hurt, hadn’t been attacked. He was okay.
“Buffy, what is going on?” her mom asked again, this time more sternly.
The tears leaked from beneath Buffy’s closed lids, joining the salty tracks of the million that had come before. Not all of it had been her imagination. The vampire attack. Jonathan. Her Slayer strength gone. Even if the monsters hadn’t come tonight, they would come. “I don’t think I’m the Slayer anymore,” she rasped in a hoarse whisper.
“Oh, honey,” Joyce sighed in sympathy. “We’re going to find out what’s going on and fix it.”
Buffy opened her eyes and looked at her mom, who was kneeling next to her. The light was on in the bathroom behind Joyce making her windblown hair look like a halo in the soft glow. “How?” Buffy asked desperately as despair trickled down her cheeks, her body trembling with relentless shivers.
Joyce’s heart splintered in her chest as tears threatened behind her own eyes. She wasn’t used to seeing her daughter like this – lost and afraid. Buffy hadn’t seemed this broken even after killing Angel, or at least she hadn’t let Joyce see it. Joyce blinked and swallowed, then cleared her throat. “Mr. Giles is going to look into it. We’ll figure it out, Buffy,” she swore, trying to sound confident. “But you need to get some rest. Let’s get you to bed.”
Buffy nodded dejectedly, not knowing what else to do or say. Her body was still quivering, making her heart skip and jump in her chest, as her mom helped her gingerly to her feet.
“What’s this?” Joyce asked, reaching for the postcard still clutched in Buffy’s hand.
The Slayer yanked it away, cradling it protectively to her chest. “Nothing.”
Joyce raised a brow but didn’t say anything as she got her daughter back into bed. She switched on the light and gathered up the covers from the floor, replacing the phone on the nightstand, then tucked Buffy in like she used to as a child.
“I promise you we’ll figure this out, Buffy,” Joyce said again, touching a kiss to her forehead. “Everything will be all right.”
Buffy sniffed and nodded. “Thanks, Mom,” she murmured, pulling the cover up beneath her chin. When Joyce reached to turn off the lamp, Buffy snapped, “Leave it on!” with a tinge of panic in her voice.
“Okay… get some sleep. It’ll be better in the morning,” Joyce advised as she headed for the door.
As soon as her mother started down the stairs, Buffy pulled the covers up over her head and curled into a ball beneath them. She tried to sort out what had been real and what had been her imagination. She breathed in the sharp tang of tequila that still suffused Spike’s postcard. She’d called him – that had to be true. What had she said? It was so jumbled in her mind now… but had she told the Slayer of Slayers that she was weak and helpless? Had she just rung the dinner bell for William the Bloody to come notch another victory in his belt?
“Oh, God… what have I done?”
** X-X-X-X-X **
Joyce trudged back downstairs, feeling defeated and exhausted. She kept telling Buffy everything would be all right, but she had no idea how that was going to happen. There had to be something she could do. Something besides making empty promises.
She picked up the books she’d brought from Giles’, looking first at the slim volume of poetry. She opened the cover and read the note from Angel, sighing and rolling her eyes. Joyce knew Buffy was working on that project involving him, and she knew that was important, but she really just wished he’d leave town and never come back.
Joyce slipped the book beneath a couple of old magazines that no one had tossed out yet, then took the other two larger tomes with her into the kitchen. She’d heard stories from Buffy, Willow, and Xander about ‘research parties’ before – was it still a ‘party’ if there was just one person doing the researching?
She shrugged as she set the books down on the breakfast bar. She could make it a party with a glass or two of wine, which she could really use right now. No. Coffee. Coffee would be better, she decided, stepping around to get some brewing.
The Mr. Coffee machine gurgled and dripped, filling the room with the familiar scent of sleep-replacing caffeinated nirvana. As she waited, Joyce’s attention was drawn by Buffy’s bookbag, which had been left on the counter. Her eyes narrowed, her tired mind whirring sluggishly to life, ideas forming slowly without the aid of the still-brewing coffee.
“Spike,” she said aloud, reaching for the bag. The big dog lifted his head and yawned, looking at her. “Not you, honey – go back to sleep,” she assured him, pulling Buffy’s journal out of the bag.
She bit her lip, flipping through the pages of notes from Buffy’s meetings with Angel, then past lots of blank pages, until she found what she was looking for at the very back. The number that Buffy had deciphered off that last postcard – Spike’s phone number. She stared at it for several long minutes, long enough for the coffee to finish brewing. Joyce tried to think of pros and cons to her idea. She filled a cup with coffee, adding in sugar and cream, then drank a sip, still considering.
The wheels in her mind clicked and clacked and rattled around, trying to decide. Finally, she set her mug down and picked up the phone. “What could it really hurt at this point?” she muttered to herself as she dialed the number.
** X-X-X-X-X **
The night was interminable for Buffy. Minutes felt like hours. She tossed and turned, fluffing her pillow then flattening it, but always, always, staying hidden beneath the shield of her blankets. Every muscle and joint ached, daggers stabbed into her back and shoulder, and her throat felt like she had a noose pulled tight around her neck. The shivers had settled slightly, but she still felt them trembling lightly through her chest, making her heart skip and jump periodically.
She tried to sleep, as her mom had suggested, but it was elusive. She tried counting sheep, then started listing off all the names on the tombstones in Restfield, then she just started imagining all the ways she could die, which really wasn’t helpful at all. The few times she managed to nod off, nightmares about a chuckling, ginger vampire on ice skates chasing her through endless fields of yellow and white flowers would jolt her awake.
Finally, she gave up on sleep and began going over what could be causing all this – which was where her mind always ended up anyway. Theories and ideas bounced around the Slayer’s overtaxed, exhausted brain. Her thoughts rolled around three different scenarios in a ceaseless circle of unanswerable questions.
If this was a spell, then maybe Willow could do a counter-spell and break it. Same with hexes and curses, assuming there were such things as counters to them. Buffy wasn’t entirely sure what the differences were between the three. Maybe Willow could even track it back to the source. Buffy had no idea what was possible. All this magic stuff was kinda new to all of them. Ms. Calendar and Amy had been the two people they knew who had been well versed in the whole magic thing. Of course, neither of them was exactly available to help.
If it was an infection that Spike had somehow gotten from a demon or vampire, then maybe it would pass in a few days, like Giles said. She’d feel a lot better about that theory if there was some mention of such things in some book somewhere. She still needed the books about the Guardian dogs from Giles – she’d just have to go get them after daybreak.
The last possibility frightened her more than any of the others she’d thought of, though. Had her Calling been a wrong number? Some clerical error at the home office? Was her ‘job’ unraveling like her father’s quarterly projections?
In her mind, she could hear the angels discussing it, sounding oddly like Giles, only stuffier, ‘Oh, you said Sumners, not Summers? I’m terribly sorry, old chap. Just give me a moment and we’ll have it straightened right round in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. There we are – Summers has been deactivated… don’t need Sumners after all – got this Lehane lass. All’s well now. Pip pip, Cheerio.’
What if that was it? What if she really wasn’t the Slayer anymore? In her cocoon of warm cotton and soft sheets, sobs shook Buffy’s shoulders as hot tears streaked her flushed cheeks. Who was she if not the Slayer? How could she just be Buffy again with all she knew, all she’d experienced? She’d died, for heaven’s sake! She’d killed the Master, brought forth Angelus, and sent Angel to hell. She’d survived Spike and Drusilla, the Order of Taraka, and an Incan mummy. She’d fought vampires and witches, demons of every type, and students possessed by hyenas.
And now, what? She should just… forget all that? Stop fighting? Stop… caring? Turn a blind eye to the horrors of the Hellmouth, to the death and destruction? Become one of the blind sheep that can’t see what’s right in front of them? Go back to being a vacuous cheerleader whose only worry was getting the best date to the prom and making sure her dress was the talk of the school?
“How? How can I?” she croaked out through her tears. She remembered her first day at Sunnydale High, meeting Giles, telling him she had ‘moved on’ from being the Slayer, that she was ‘retired’. “But I’m not that girl anymore… I’m the Slayer. I… I can’t be that girl anymore. I can’t!” she rasped into her pillow, her tears coming harder, the trembling in her chest ratcheting back up.
Very nearby, Spike whined, trying to nuzzle beneath the covers to find his hooman, trying to comfort her, which only made Buffy cry harder. Were they punishing him for just being unlucky enough to belong to her? Had the Powers taken his joy away because of her? Was this all her fault?
“Spikey,” Buffy burbled through her tears, lifting the covers, wrapping her arms around his thick neck, and pressing her damp cheeks to the top of his head. “Oh, Spike… I’m so sorry. I love you so much. I never want to hurt you… God, I’m sorry.”
He whined softly, gently licking at the skin of her arms and hands — whatever he could reach — doing anything he could to make her feel better.
Buffy scooted away from the edge and pulled the cover back for the first time in hours, urging him to get up on the bed with her. She lightly tugged on his collar, ignoring the pain that blistered through her torso with the movement. He looked at her quizzically, his head tilting to the side in question.
“It’s okay, just this once,” she allowed, patting the bed and pulling gently on his collar. “Come on… can you get up here?”
Spike managed to get one front foot up, then the other, and she buried her hands in the thick fur on his shoulders and heaved as he struggled forward kicking with his back feet, trying to find purchase. Finally, with what seemed a monumental and agonizing effort on both of their parts, his whole body flopped up onto the bed beside her.
Buffy covered them both up and snuggled up against his warm body and soft fur with a sigh. “We’ll figure this out,” she assured him. “We have to.”
With her friend curled up against her, the Slayer finally fell into a deep, exhausted sleep. No bad dreams woke her, no demons chased her, the monsters being kept at bay by the healer of her heart, the Guardian of the Twilight.
Which isn’t to say that Buffy didn’t dream …
** X-X-X-X-X **
Buffy stood in the center of a post-apocalyptic street and looked around a black-and-white world. It was like one of those old movies about World War II, done well before anyone had even heard of Technicolor. Even she was colorless, drab and grey. There were small fires burning in bombed-out buildings, the flames flickering like malevolent eyes in the glassless windows. Old, demolished, abandoned cars lined the road. Some on their sides, others sitting at odd angles with a tire or two up on piles of rubble, some had been burned out, some were still on fire. In the far distance, smoke billowed up lazily, black plumes against the bleak sky. A tumbleweed rolled by, bouncing away down the cracked pavement, and lifeless leaves gathered in the gutters as if cringing away from the devastation around them.
Not far in front of her was what remained of the Eiffel Tower, broken and bent. Its huge metal girders twisted like a child’s toy. Part of the base had been uprooted and it teetered precariously on what remained attached to the ground, the steel creaking and moaning as if in pain with each gust of blustery wind that rocked it.
To Buffy’s right was the Louvre. Parts of the iconic pyramid had collapsed. Much of the glass was cracked and broken, scattered in glittering splinters over the courtyard, along with countless pieces of priceless art. Paintings littered the ground, frames smashed into matchsticks, canvases shredded. Sculptures that had survived centuries were strewn like tinker toys, some still recognizable, others little more than rubble. The statue of Nike, Winged Victory of Samothrace, lay in a chaotic heap of marble, utterly defeated, her wings shattered. The Mona Lisa was no longer smiling. Tears leaked from her eyes, rolling down the fragile canvas like turpentine, disfiguring her face more and more with each drop.
As Buffy turned in a slow circle, she saw nothing but destruction in every direction. The Arc de Triomphe was toppled, crushing several small cars beneath its bulk. The Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris was ablaze with hungry, colorless flames rising into the dull, grey sky.
She walked over to a footbridge that crossed the river to find thousands of padlocks of every size and description hanging from the railings. They were all broken, dangling haphazardly, each one dripping black blood from the keyhole. Beneath them, piled on the bridge and overflowing into the river, were ghastly mounds of broken human hearts, all coated in the glistening blood of the ravaged locks.
Buffy watched the thick liquid flow over the mass of tattered flesh and stain the Seine as it trickled over the edge, wondering what could cause so much pain. As she stood there, another devastated heart fell from the bridge, splashing dismally into the river below. She lost sight of it as it sank into the gloomy depths, tears inexplicably pooling in her eyes, as if it were her own heartbreak she was witnessing.
“Whooof!”
Buffy whirled around to find Spike bounding gaily up to her. Her mood lightened immediately, a bright smile washing away the misery in her expression. She hurried off the bridge to meet him, leaving the writhing, blood-soaked hearts behind.
“Spikey!” she called, kneeling down to pull him into a tight hug. He wiggled and waggled and licked at her face like the high-energy puppy he was. Buffy laughed and lifted her chin to keep from getting a mouth full of Spike-tongue as she roughed-up his fur, head to tail, like she knew he loved.
Just as she was standing up, another form slipped from behind one of the burning cars, moving like a wraith in the black-and-white ether. Buffy’s heart skipped and jumped as her eyes focused on the newcomer – Drusilla. The Slayer pulled a stake from her waistband and stood up, squaring off with the vampire.
“Stop right there,” the girl warned, raising her stake in threat.
Drusilla stopped in the middle of the street, pressing her palms together in front of her, as if in prayer. Buffy recognized the gown she wore – red velvet and black lace – but it was washed out in shades of bleak grey, like the rest of this world.
“What do you want? Why are you here?” Buffy demanded, keeping her distance. Spike stayed right at her side, his fangs bared in a warning snarl, his hackles stiff with displeasure.
“I’m still the mummy, matters not where our deadly boy dances. Your vow calls to me like bursts of fire in my blood. Do you remember your oath, little hobgoblin?”
Buffy’s brow furrowed, the night in the hotel after they’d rescued Dru from The Guardian of the Twilight’s rightful owner flashing fresh in her mind. “Of course I remember – I promised to keep Spike safe. He’s…” She was going to say ‘fine’, but that wasn’t true. She looked down at the big dog at her side and her throat tightened with guilt. She wasn’t keeping him safe. Wasn’t keeping her vow. The blood oath she’d given to Dru, the one Buffy had sworn on her own soul, was being broken.
Drusilla tilted her head, watching the blonde closely. “Our darling, deadly boy craves the bright candies he can’t catch and languishes beneath the moon, tethered by ghostly chains he can’t break.”
Still looking down, Buffy ran her hand along Spike’s big head and down into the thick mane around his neck. Tears welled in her eyes, knowing how weak he’d become, how he couldn’t jump or run or play, couldn’t shake vampires into bloody bits of confetti… couldn’t do anything that he loved to do. “Yeah,” she agreed, blinking back the heartache that was stinging her eyes.
The Slayer looked back up at Dru, hope blossoming in her chest. “Do you know what’s causing it? How do I fix it?”
“Jiggery-pokery cloaks the truth. What seems up is down, turvy is topsy, apples and pears, steps and stairs, sheep to wolves, foes to friends, masks must fall before the music ends.”
Buffy sighed and rolled her eyes. “Seriously? Could you be a little more cryptic? Spike might like that bullshit, but, in case you hadn’t noticed, he’s not here.” Buffy looked around, suddenly more alert, not sure what she wanted the answer to be as she asked, “He’s not here, is he?”
Drusilla smiled sweetly and began walking around, running her fingers through the flames that danced in the window of a gutted Citroën.
“Dru,” Buffy continued when she didn’t answer. “Is Spike alright? I got this p—” The Slayer stopped abruptly, not sure if Drusilla knew Spike was sending her postcards. “I got this feeling that something might be wrong with him.”
“One good turn deserves another. Can turn effulgent hearts black, but it’s turned back to the light ‘fore the ride is over.”
“I have no idea what that means,” Buffy complained. “It was a simple question. Is Spike all right?”
“Only simple questions are stamped on bitty cards. Blue and gold about the edges, like my William's eyes. Answers on the back. One-two-three-four-five-six! Get a point if you match. Sweeties for the winner.”
Buffy furrowed her brow, thinking a moment, then sighed and rolled her eyes. The insane vampire was talking about the Trivial Pursuit cards Buffy had brought on the road trip. Could she get any less helpful right now? The answer, of course, was ‘yes’.
“Future’s all at sixes and sevens. Golden goblin’s world crumbles beneath the trials of the fleece wolf if the damsel lets our deadly boy tumble.”
“Dru,” Buffy groaned in frustration, stepping closer to her, Spike right at her side. “Can you just try to focus here? I understand the individual words, but you need to put them in an order that makes some kind of sense on this planet.”
Drusilla stopped walking and turned slowly to face Buffy. “Where do your galoshes plop?” she asked, waving a hand to encompass the destroyed city.
“I’ll have you know right now: I don’t wear galoshes. My boots are fashionable yet affordable… unless there’s a parental guilt-trip involved, then they’re fashionable and unaffordable.”
Dru arched an elegant brow at her.
Buffy sighed and surveyed her dreary surroundings again, then settled her gaze back on the vampire. “Paris.”
Dru shook her head, her steely eyes going wide as she prowled closer to the Slayer. “La Ville Lumière… Your oath breaks, so topples your soul… your light... broken, faded, drowned.”
Buffy furrowed her brow, looking around in dismay. “This is my soul? It’s all yucky. Why is it all yucky? And why is it French?”
Dru sighed. “Told ya, little goblin. Many paths. This is but one your galoshes may tread. All teeters in the balance. Actions, not words, guide your light.”
Buffy’s brain was beginning to hurt, but she forced herself to try and puzzle it out. Actions not words – oath breaks, so topples your soul. “I think I get it. I break my oath – don’t keep Spike safe – and my soul turns into yuckiness. As long as I keep my word – keep Spike safe – I’ll get a bright, shiny Paris?”
“La Ville Lumière,” Dru corrected.
“Which is ‘Paris’ in French, right?” Buffy scoffed. “That makes a strange kind of sense. It would break my world if something happened to Spike,” Buffy admitted, once again looking down at her faithful friend and running a hand over his big head. “Which is probably not something I want to get used to – making sense of anything you say,” she confessed, looking back at Dru.
Drusilla shrugged. “Might find lots of juicy tidbits hidden in the hedge if ya did.”
“Yeah, well, anything you think is a ‘juicy tidbit’ is probably not my idea of fun or yummy,” Buffy asserted, wrinkling her nose. She looked back down at her dog, her hand still petting him affectionately. “I won’t ever let you down,” she whispered to him. “You can always count on me.”
Spike leaned against her leg reassuringly, his tail wagging fast enough to fan some of the flames in the car at their back as she petted him.
Drusilla turned away from the pair, smiling deviously and murmuring too quietly for Buffy to hear, “Golden goblin plays the game, still doesn’t know the rules.”
Buffy’s brow furrowed again as she kept going over things in her mind, then her gaze hardened, turning apprehensive. She looked back up at the vampire and demanded, “If this is my soul, then how are you here?”
Drusilla turned back to face the Slayer and lifted her right hand, showing Buffy her palm. Suddenly, a diagonal slash of bright red blood appeared on it – the only color in the whole world. The vampire closed the short distance between them and snatched Buffy’s hand, the stake suddenly gone from it. A matching line of ruby droplets bloomed on Buffy’s flesh. Before the Slayer could jerk her hand away, Dru clamped their wounds together, just as they’d done when Buffy had sworn her oath to protect Spike all those months ago.
Buffy gasped and staggered as visions of sparkling stars, gruesome deaths, dazzling fairies, ripped flesh, glittering rainbows, pooling blood, fluttering hummingbirds, and grisly carnage flashed in her mind in rapid succession. Familiar faces were interspersed within the spectacle blazing through Buffy’s mind – Angelus, Darla, Spike, the Master, and there were others she didn’t know, but somehow knew they were ‘family’ to Drusilla. Along with the pictures, which ricocheted from wondrously beautiful to gut-wrenchingly grotesque, came emotions. She was filled with everything from pure childlike glee to black, burning hatred, to icy terror, to aching desire, to sorrow and heartache so deep she couldn’t imagine how anyone could survive it. And then, atop it all, there was the pain. Beautiful, blissful, breathtaking, blood-curdling, barbed agony filled the Slayer, flaring out from her belly like glass splinters in her veins, shredding and slashing, threatening to consume her.
“WHOOOF!” Spike objected, jumping up and bringing his paws down on their joined hands, separating the two women. The Slayer stumbled back against one of the rusty, crashed cars, trying to steady herself and catch her breath.
Spike followed her, worry clouding his soft brown eyes as he put himself between the skinny rabbit and his hooman.
“What… the… hell?” Buffy gasped, bent over at the waist, her left hand propped against the big dog for support. She turned her right hand over, the blood, the slash, the color, was gone.
Dru swayed gently in the street, her eyes closed, her expression serene, and a beatific smile gracing her features. She had her hands pressed over her heart and seemed to be floating just slightly off the fractured pavement. “Love blossoms like periwinkles… soft and pure,” she murmured dreamily.
“Drusilla! What the fuck?!” Buffy demanded, pushing herself off another old Citroën and stalking over to the exasperating woman.
Drusilla blinked her eyes open, their normal bright blue the color of London fog, still smiling placidly. “Sisters, we are, golden goblin – blood shared, bonded. Capricorn on the cusp of Aquarius. Two mummies for our deadly boy, day and night, stars and sun.”
“What are you talking about?!” the blonde demanded, even as realization dawned. “I never… that’s not…” she gasped. “I’m not okay with bonding! I’m the absolute opposite of okay! There is no okay in this! You never said anything about any bonding!” Buffy protested.
Dru’s smile grew devilishly satisfied. “Didn’t ask.”
Buffy gawped at her, then huffed out a frustrated breath and whirled away from the vampiress, her arms thrown out in exasperation. “If I had asked, you would’ve said something about fucking goats eating shiny periwinkles in the age of Aquarius!” she protested, turning back to face the brunette, her hands planted on her hips.
Dru shrugged, still smiling like the cat that ate all the canaries and then had the finches for dessert.
“Undo it!” the Slayer demanded, stalking back toward the vampire.
“Ties that bind life and death with ruby drops shan’t unravel ‘til blood turns to ash and we are no more.”
Buffy rolled her eyes. “Argh! Why did I know you were gonna say that? Well, not that exactly, but... that! This is so not good.” Buffy sighed, rubbing her eyes tiredly, trying to remember what they’d been talking about before that particular bomb had dropped. Galoshes. Boots. Soul. Oh, right… apples and pears. “Do you know what’s happening to us? Who’s doing it? What have you seen?”
“Paths diverge; the pixies are all a twitter,” Dru purred mysteriously as she knelt down next to the dog. Spike growled warningly, but the vampire paid that no mind as she scratched his ears just the way he loved and he subsided, letting his eyes drift closed in pleasure.
“You’re ruining my dog,” Buffy objected with an impatient sigh.
The seer rubbed her cheek against the Guardian’s soft fur, her eyes falling closed to match the dog’s. She began running her hands along his flanks, enjoying the feel of his long hair slipping over her palms, petting him languidly.
“Dru, do you mind?” the Slayer huffed.
The brunette giggled, but didn’t stop petting Spike as she murmured, “Mummy’s sweet, deadly boys – princes both, lost and found, drawn to the sunbeams, eager moths, mixed and matched. The stars whisper … psp, psp, psp … but they’re blinded by the glare. Prince shields the Queen of Cups, damsel claims the prince. Your shiny city will fall if the reaper’s scythe finds its mark.”
Buffy sighed impatiently. “Dru, can you just tell me one thing without the fucking word games? And get your grubby hands off Spike!”
“Jealousy doesn’t suit… turns the golden goblin green.” Dru smiled sweetly and stood up, facing the Slayer. Spike opened his eyes and nudged her hand, bumming more ear scratches, which the vampire absently obliged. “What does the little hobgoblin want to know?”
“Who’s doing this to us? Is it the Powers? Or is there someone I can hit to fix it?” Buffy asked, scowling at the demented woman and her ruined dog in equal measure.
“Think they’re gods, they do, but only chameleons hiding in the rafters. Come from another land; skitter about in plain sight like scorpions,” Dru revealed as she reached out and danced her long nails lightly over Buffy’s shoulders and down her arms. “Watch and scheme – hide behind faces of innocence – biding time, but not much longer now before they strike. New moon waxes into silver crescents.”
“I was hoping for a name or an address or something?” Buffy suggested, crossing her arms in annoyance, the stake back in her hand. “Maybe a mugshot? I’d settle for a police artist’s sketch…”
Drusilla shrugged, unrepentant, and twirled away from Buffy and Spike, dancing in time with the crying hearts on the bridge. “The pixies hover above your shoulder… your sunbeams teeter in the balance, shiny hobgoblin. Will you keep your vow? Or will the color fade from the world?”
** X-X-X-X-X **
Buffy tried to open her eyes, but they were glued closed by her crusted tears. She rubbed her lashes, finally clearing them, and blinked her eyes open. The morning sun shone through the comforter, creating a soft glow in her little cocoon. Next to her, Spike stirred, stretching his legs out with a satisfied moan.
Buffy was just as exhausted as when she’d finally gotten to sleep the night before, like she hadn’t slept at all. She felt like she was trapped in a waking nightmare – one of those that you can’t get out of, no matter how far or fast you run, and no matter who you ask for help, no one can or will help you. Of course, part of that nightmare was her calling Spike for help. Could she have made a worse decision if she’d tried?
She closed her eyes again and groaned, her stomach knotting with renewed anxiety and sickening in regret. She could only remember snippets of what she’d said, but even without all the words she knew how she’d felt, which was terrified. She also knew, without any shadow of a doubt, how her voice would’ve sounded to the Slayer of Slayers: like a victim. And, if she didn’t get her strength back before he showed up, that was exactly what she’d be – his third Slayer. His victim.
She’d be nothing more than another footnote in the Council’s archives, listed in the annals of history as William the Bloody’s third Slayer.
“No, not just in one book,” she rasped, her voice barely audible even to herself. “You’ll be in the records for sleeping with Angel and setting Angelus free, too. ‘Buffy, the Stupid Vampire Slayer’ is what they’ll call you. Stupid enough to let Angel trick you into doing what no other Slayer had – giving yourself to him. Stupid enough to trust not just one, but two vampires. No wait, not ‘stupid’, what did Giles call you?” Buffy swallowed, tears welling in her eyes. “Reckless… disappointing.”
Buffy hugged Spike and buried her face in his thick, coppery mane as the tears flowed again. She was gonna die and that would be her legacy – Buffy the Reckless, Buffy the Disappointing. Buffy the horrible Slayer and even worse daughter. A cautionary tale for all future generations.
Spike whined and tried to turn over to face her, to comfort her, as her salty tears dampened his coat. Her heart aching, Buffy ran her hand up and down her friend’s side as Dru had done in the dream, scratching and ruffling his thick fur. The dream. She let herself get lost in it for a moment, seeing it again, thinking about Drusilla – the pious seer turned insane vampire.
Buffy had to believe there were real clues there buried under Drusilla’s ramblings. Clues that could save her life, save Spike’s life. Clues that could keep them alive, if she could just figure them out. Clues that could give her a chance to be more than that horrible, cautionary tale, more than reckless and disappointing. She could redeem herself. Make Giles proud of her… make him care about her again.
She had to try. She couldn’t just lay here and hide, no matter how much she might want to. Buffy was still the Slayer; she had to fight. She had to do something. “Do something,” she admonished herself aloud. “Do something!”
Buffy took a deep breath to settle her nerves and disburse the shame that writhed in her belly. Sniffing and wiping her eyes, she tried to remember everything the vampire had said in the dream. Which was, of course, impossible. “Why can’t I get dream messages from Joe Friday… the facts and nothing but the facts?” she grumbled, her voice hoarse and rough as it passed through her swollen throat.
One thing she absolutely remembered was Dru saying they were bonded with their blood, and that made a frisson of dread and revulsion skitter down her spine. What did that exactly mean? She had no real idea; probably nothing good; probably something else for the annals. But she’d have to put that on the list of stuff to figure out later – if there was a later – because the other thing she remembered was that the chameleons were going to strike soon. Buffy needed to be ready. If she could find them, then she could figure out what they were doing to her and her dog. That would let her get back to full strength before her mortal enemy, and sometimes friend, came for her and took away all chance of redemption.
Okay. Plan. Buffy had a plan. Not much of a plan, but it was a start: do something.
With a grunt of pain, she uncovered her head and turned over, looking for her journal to write down as much as she could of the dream, but the book wasn’t there. She sighed, remembering leaving it in the kitchen the previous day after the flower incident. The Slayer grimaced as she threw the covers back, her shoulder protesting the movement with a vengeance. The postcard with Spike’s phone number on it was buried in the tangle of sheet and comforter as she tossed it aside, unseen by the distraught girl.
Trying to keep her momentum going now that she’d started, Buffy swung her feet to the floor with another groan. Her body was stiff and sore. Bruises that should’ve healed by now remained colorful reminders of the vampire attack the previous night. God, had that just been last night? It seemed so long ago. She opened and closed her hands, wincing as her swollen knuckles refused to bend or straighten fully. She gingerly tested out her shoulder and thought it was a little better than it had been the previous night. Of course, moving it and falling on it were two very different tests.
Buffy took a deep breath and pushed up to her feet. With the bent posture and tremulous gait of a grandma – you know the one who’d gotten run over by a reindeer? – she made her way into the bathroom, where nothing got easier. In the span of two days, sitting down and standing back up had become Olympic events. In the mirror, she could see the deep purple outline of each of the vampire’s fingers where they’d wrapped around from back to front on her throat. She shuddered thinking of him, about his lewd, spine-chilling laugh. When she had her strength back, she was hunting him down and turning him into dust bunnies in the most painful way possible. And she had to believe she’d get her strength back, that she’d get another chance.
Buffy looked at her beaten face in the mirror, at her swollen, red eyes, at the abrasions and cuts, dried blood and smudges of dirt still staining her skin. She didn’t think she could possibly cry any more, but the tears stung her bloodshot eyes yet again. That wasn’t the face of a Slayer. It was the face of a victim… a damsel.
Buffy clenched her jaw – which sent knives stabbing down through her neck – and swallowed back those tears. “Fine, then,” she ground out. “Then I’ll be the badass-iest damsel in all of damsel-dom,” she declared with a firm nod of her head. Stars blazed across her vision with the movement and she grabbed hold of the counter to steady herself. “Right after I down a few hundred Ibuprofen and have a hot soak in Epsom salts,” she added with a sigh.
** X-X-X-X-X **
“Mom!” Buffy croaked anxiously as she and Spike came into the kitchen a little while later.
Joyce jerked her head up off the book that she’d been using for a pillow, her eyes darting around, trying to remember where she was.
“Are you okay?” the girl demanded, shuffling to her mother as quickly as her stiff joints would allow.
Even moving slowly, Spike beat Buffy to the woman at the breakfast bar, who was rubbing her eyes tiredly. He began sniffing and nudging her worriedly, concern evident in his manner. Joyce dropped a hand to his head and petted him as she assured them both, “I’m fine… just must’ve partied too hard.”
“Partied? What?” Buffy asked in her rough voice, reaching for the open book.
Joyce intercepted her, pulling the girl into a tight hug. “How are you feeling?”
Buffy returned the embrace, letting the strong, caring arms of her mother suffuse her with a sense of comfort and serenity, if only for a few moments. “I’m okay, Mom… better,” she replied, pressing her face against the older woman’s neck. “Thank you for being there… for everything. You brought Spike up, didn’t you?”
Joyce squeezed her daughter harder, then released her, pulling back so she could look at her. “I thought he might be able to help with things that I couldn’t,” she admitted with a sad smile.
Buffy blinked back dampness from her eyes and nodded. “Thank you,” she rasped again. “He did.”
Joyce pressed her fingers against Buffy’s forehead and cheeks. “No fever… you aren’t shivering like last night.”
Buffy shook her head. “I’m okay… well, at least not as un-okay as I was,” she assured her. Buffy cleared her throat, which felt like sandpaper chafing down her esophagus, and took a step back. “So… party?” she asked again, looking at the counter and the open books.
“Research party,” her mother explained, picking up a legal pad from the counter and showing it to Buffy. “I found a few things that could be doing this to Spike,” she explained.
Buffy took the pad from her and looked it over, her eyes growing wide. “These are all poisons… wolfsbane, horse-chestnut, hemlock, nightshade.”
“Yes,” her mother confirmed. “Apparently, over the centuries, vampires and werewolves have tried to poison the Guardians, to try and reduce their numbers or wipe them out. But, because of their supernatural constitutions, it usually resulted in little more than ‘lethargy’ and ‘general malaise’,” Joyce reported.
“Like Spike has…” Buffy muttered, looking down at the dog. “Someone’s… poisoning us?” she asked, her wide eyes meeting Joyce’s.
The older woman frowned, but shrugged and stood up, picking up her empty coffee cup, and headed for the sink. At the last moment, she detoured to let Spike out to do his business in the backyard first. “I don’t know – it’s the only thing I found in those books Mr. Giles had. That doesn’t mean that’s what it is. I thought I’d take Spike back to the vet, though, and have them test for some of those things specifically.”
Buffy nodded. Even if they found out what it was, that didn’t tell them who it was doing it. If she believed Dru – and she really didn’t have anything better to go on, which was just sad – it was someone hiding in plain sight. A chameleon. A shapeshifter maybe. Or something that could veil themselves with magic to seem friendly, but were really foes. She needed to get some idea of what she was up against. How many types of demons could do that? How did you kill them?
“That’s a good idea,” the girl agreed finally, setting Joyce’s pad down and reaching for her bookbag that was close by on the counter. “I have to make some notes… I had a… a dream that might have some clues. I don’t want to forget any of them, then I’m going back to Giles’ place for my own research party.”
“You aren’t going to break in, are you?” Joyce chastised, rinsing her mug out in the sink.
Buffy rolled her eyes. “Giles was less than helpful yesterday,” she excused, a flush of shame heating her neck and face. Reckless. Disappointing.
“I spoke with him last night and he promised to get everyone together for research. At least talk to him, okay? I think you’ll find him more, um, receptive today.”
Buffy sighed, but nodded as she dug her pen out of the bag. Writing instrument in hand, she opened her journal, turning to the back, leaving room for more notes about Angel, whenever she got back to him. ‘Assuming he’s not the one behind all this, the wolf in a wool cloak,’ her mind added. ‘In which case, it won’t matter because I’ll dust him… good and proper this time, as Spike would say.’
“Okay,” the girl agreed reluctantly, not looking up, her voice cracking painfully. “I’ll talk to Giles first before I break into his apartment to read his books like a criminally-inclined geek.”
“Good girl,” Joyce teased. “I’ll make you some ginger tea with honey and lemon for your throat. Then get a quick shower and take Spike back to the doctor for those tests.”
“Is there caffeine in that? Cos I feel like I’m dangerously low in that particular nutrient.”
Joyce snorted. “I’ll make some fresh coffee, too.”
“I’m nominating you for the ‘Best Mom of the Century’ award,” Buffy swore as her eyes lit on the journal page that had the bleach-blond vampire’s phone number scribbled on it. Spike might understand more of what Dru had said… maybe he could interpret insano-vampire speak for her. She shuddered as the memory of calling him the previous night washed over her once more, turning her stomach and tightening her chest in a painful vise of fear. And she was seriously considering calling him again? And she thought Dru was the insano one?
Buffy looked up at her mom, who was heating up water for the tea while the coffee started brewing. “No one’s… called this morning… o-or last night, have they?”
Joyce turned around and looked at her daughter. “No. Why? Are you expecting a call?”
Buffy swallowed and looked back down at her journal, shaking her head. “No, not really… just curiousness.”
The Slayer refocused. Spike was in Brazil with Dru. It would take days, maybe even weeks, for him to get here to kill her. He might not even come. He might think she’d just lost her mind and not believe she was really a helpless Slayer just waiting for William the Bloody to make her his third notch. Maybe he’d even think it was a trap of some kind.
It was possible. It was also possible that she’d sprout wings and fly.
Priorities. She needed priorities. And the first one was figuring out who was doing this to her and her dog. Nothing in Dru’s little dream ramble was that specific. Calling Spike again wouldn’t help unravel it, she decided. Anyway, all she’d ever gotten was his voicemail, which was less than helpful since he’d never called back, even when she’d asked him to. Maybe he wasn’t listening to them. Maybe he’d lost the phone. Maybe he’d forgotten to pay the bill. Maybe cell phones didn’t work in Brazil.
‘God, please let one of those be true!’
Buffy flipped to a blank page near the back of the book. She had to wedge the pen between her swollen fingers to hold it, but finally got it secured. With stubborn Summers grit, she began to write down everything she remembered from the dream. As she worked, her mom set the mug of tea down for her and the Slayer stopped to take a grateful sip. The warm liquid was a balm to her ravaged throat, and she couldn’t help but hum her appreciation, her throat already feeling better.
“We’ll get this figured out, Buffy. The books say there was no lasting damage from the poisons… if that’s what this is.” Joyce’s stomach had been in knots all night. The morning light hadn’t lessened them any as she looked at her daughter’s beaten face, ravaged hands, and the handprint in purple around her neck. If someone had poisoned her girl… Well, they best hope Buffy got to them first, because Joyce was sure the death she would mete out wouldn’t be half as benevolent as what Buffy would bestow.
Buffy nodded, meeting her mother’s determined eyes with her own. “Yes, we will,” she agreed.
** X-X-X-X-X **
STORY BOARD
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link.
End notes:
Bridge in Paris with the ‘Love Locks’: Pont des Arts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pont_des_Arts
Jiggery-pokery meaning: noun INFORMAL • BRITISH • deceitful or dishonest behavior.
Okay, to be honest, I don't know why my muse picked Paris to represent Buffy's soul. I think because I loved the visual of all those landmarks that everyone knows being destroyed like that -- it made it easy to visualize. But Dru made it work with her insisting it wasn't actually 'Paris' but the 'City of Light', and we all know Buffy glows, right? That's my story and I'm sticking to it. In my far off vision for this series I see Spuffy strolling through Paris at night, holding hands, stealing kisses, across that bridge of love locks, putting one on there of their own. {{happy sigh ... one day}}
Will Dru’s confusing warning help Buffy at all? We’ll find out in the next chapter. Could you follow any of it? I hope at least some of it was clear. If you don’t remember the blood oath Buffy made with Dru, it was two stories ago: ‘Spike’s a Good Boi’, Chapter 16.
Thank you so much for reading!! We are going to be focusing more on Buffy and Sunnydale for a tiny bit longer, but hang in there, we will check on Spike in the next chapter. I know it feels like a lot of time is passing because of so many chapters, but really it hasn't been that long in 'real time'.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Chapter 6: Waxing into Croissants
Chapter Text
Chapter Notes:
We get back to vampire-Spike finally in this chapter! Keep in mind that anywhere that is not Sunnydale at this point is vampire-Spike. Also, in case it's not clear, the time lines between vampire-Spike and Buffy are now in sync, so morning for Spike is the same morning for Buffy and they'll continue in sync from here on out.
Thanks: To all of you for reading! It means so much to me, like frosted donuts with sprinkles for my muse! Sending all the sloppy, joyful doggie kisses to everyone who has left a note, a like or a kudo. I love hearing from everyone! I apologize for falling behind in replying, but I promise to get caught up soon.
Thanks also my two wonderful Beta readers and friends: Holi117 and Paganbaby, and to TeamEricNSookie for pre-reading. All mistakes are mine because I keep fiddling with stuff. If you see any, PM me and I’ll fix it.
Chapter 6. Waxing into Croissants
Arizona.
Spike had spent longer in Hermosillo than he’d intended, but the pickings were so bloody easy, he couldn’t bring himself to go. It felt like walking away from the craps table when you were on a hot streak. The criminal element, mostly members of the Sonora Cartel, had become overconfident, only fearing rival cartels and the occasional federale. One lone, drunken tourist staggering about on the dark, deserted streets wasn’t a threat – or so they thought.
By morning, there were more than a few Sonoran drug traffickers questioning their life choices, a fair bit of cocaine washing into the sewers, and a lot less dosh in the cartel’s coffers. Sitting in the DeSoto, Spike shoved all the cash into his duffel bag, removing most of his clothes to get it to fit. Once that was done, he draped his duster over his head, and prepared to make the mad, mid-morning dash into the Nogales, Arizona motel room he’d rented for the day. It’d take another half a day or longer to be in Sunnydale, and after his active night, he decided a warm shower and a good day’s rest in a nice soft bed were in order before crashing the Slayer’s party.
He paused then, his eyes settling on the glovebox, his mind on the mobile phone that was tucked up in there. He hadn’t turned it on for hours; hadn’t dared. Thugs with guns didn’t scare him, but that phone, and what it might have to say, did. What if Buffy had called? What if she hadn’t? Both prospects were unreasonably gut-wrenching. If he just left it switched off, he’d never have to know. His mind and heart wrangled with the dilemma for several long moments. Maybe her voice was on that phone, honestly concerned about him. Maybe she would welcome him back to Sunnydale, despite his promise to stay away. But maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe she’d fallen back under Angel’s broody spell and forgotten her declaration that they were ‘friends’. He wasn’t sure he could bear losing someone else to the gormless tit.
With everything set – room key in hand, bag on his shoulder, duster over his head – Spike gritted his teeth and reached for the door handle, determined to leave the phone where it was. At the last moment, and with a growl of frustration, he reached back and grabbed the mobile out of the glovebox. He shoved it roughly into his waistband before he flung the door open and jumped out, not giving himself time to change his mind about it. His skin began to smolder immediately under the bright southwest sun, and by the time he made it to the shelter of the covered walkway, smoke was billowing in his wake.
“Bloody hell!” he cursed, dropping his duster and stomping on a spot that had nearly caught on fire. “Need that big sodding umbrella o’ the Slayer’s… should’a stolen it instead of that Trivial Pursuit rubbish,” he grumbled as he opened the door and pushed inside. Deep down, he didn’t mean it, of course. The little cards with their questions and answers were still wrapped up in his bag, and he still looked at them whenever he was bored, chuckling each time as he recalled the little blonde’s indignation at his superiority at the game and her adorable… annoying pout.
Spike dropped his bag on the floor then retrieved his duster from the walkway, put the ‘do not disturb’ placard on the door, and let it fall closed with a ‘click’ of the lock. It sounded just the same as the door in Puerto Vallarta. Just the same as the door that closed him away from Dru. It sounded like forever. And when you were a vampire, ‘forever’ could be an awfully long time.
He leaned his forehead against the door, pressing one palm to it, and closed his eyes, his heart aching for his dark princess. Tears threatened, but he swallowed them back. She’d never love him. Didn’t need him. Didn’t give two shits about him or his feelings. Didn’t listen to him when he tried to keep her safe – said he was soft.
“Soft my aching arsehole,” he snarled, his demon rising as he drew his fist back and punched the steel door, leaving a dent in the hard metal. Buffy had called to check on him – said she hoped he was all right. He couldn’t recall Dru ever asking if he was all right, always away with the fucking pixies, the center of her own fantasy world. “Away with fucking Angelus, more like,” he muttered, sniffing as his demon receded.
Spike squared his shoulders and took a deep, cleansing breath. Well, she wasn’t the center of his world anymore, that was for sure. Off the sodding map, she was. Could frolic there all she liked with her bloody fairies and dollies and rainbows. Wasn’t any of his concern.
“My sodding turn,” he said aloud. It had become his mantra the last day or so. He nodded to himself and began stripping out of his overshirt and then t-shirt, both of which reeked of burning vampire. He was also pretty sure even he could get high on the cocaine residue that had permeated the fabric during his nighttime dances with the cartel’s peons. Spike tossed the shirts into a corner and had begun undoing his belt when he remembered the phone stuffed in the waistband of his jeans.
The vampire dug the charger out of his bag and plugged it into the wall, then into the little port on the mobile, leaving it sitting on the nightstand as he finished undressing and headed into the bathroom for that long-overdue shower.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Sunnydale.
Buffy gave Spike a hug before she got out of the Cherokee in front of the high school. He seemed to be feeling a little better. He’d eaten some eggs for breakfast and managed to get himself into the SUV with only a little help from Joyce and Buffy. Feeling confident that the people at the V-E-T’s office could get him in and out of the Jeep, Joyce was dropping her daughter off at school to speak to Mr. Giles about access to research materials. She was then taking the dog for more tests to try and narrow down what might be causing his weakness and ‘general malaise’, as the books had put it.
“Do you want me to pick you up when we’re done?” Joyce asked as Buffy climbed out of the vehicle, the two books on Guardian dogs in hand.
“No, just call the library and let me know if they find anything. I’m not sure how long this’ll take or if Giles even called in the troops. If I’m not at the library, call Giles’ house, I might be there, since most of the books we have left are there,” Buffy replied closing the door and looking back in through the open window.
“I don’t want you walking home after dark,” Joyce warned.
“The idea doesn’t fill me with oodles of joy either,” Buffy agreed. “I’ll get a ride from someone – Giles or…” Buffy stopped, remembering that the other car-having people she was friends with, Cordy and Oz, were less friendly lately. “…or someone.”
“I’d feel better if you were home before dark,” Joyce continued.
Buffy nodded. “Noted. I’ll call if I’m gonna be late, and a big ‘no’ on the perambulation.”
“Be careful, honey,” the elder Summers remonstrated.
Buffy stiffened her back and saluted smartly, managing to keep the grimace of pain off her face from the sharp movement. “Aye, aye, captain.”
Joyce rolled her eyes and put the Jeep back in gear. “I’ll call you.”
“Talk to you later,” the Slayer agreed and turned to head up the empty walk and into the school. Classes had started hours ago, but she wasn’t going to class. She was going to the library to see if her Watcher had decided to help her or not.
** X-X-X-X-X **
The bell rang and students poured out into the hallways between classes. Buffy waited in the alcove of a disused classroom doorway for Willow and Xander to come to their lockers, hoping to recruit them for the ‘convince Giles to take me seriously’ mission. Students passed, retrieved books, went on, the bell rang for the next class, but her friends never showed.
Buffy sighed as the last student dashed through the otherwise empty hallway, late for class. She’d just have to convince Giles herself, she decided, heading for the library. She had new clues – chameleon demons who thought they were gods from other dimensions that could hide in plain sight. True, those clues were from an insane vampire who also thought Buffy was a goblin, said that her soul was located in Paris, saw pixies, and talked in riddles. Buffy decided Giles didn’t need to know that part. Plus, if her mom got some news from the vet, then that might hold more hints, maybe even concrete evidence, as to what was being done to her and Spike.
Outside the double doors, Buffy took a deep breath and steeled her nerve. If Giles wouldn’t help her research, then he needed to hand over the keys to his apartment and give her access to all the books he had there. She knew he was working on replacing the main research library, that the Council was supposed to be sending more books, but until that happened, she needed whatever he had. This was not a flu. It was not something that would just ‘go away’. Something was after her in the most underhanded, diabolical way – making her and her dog weak and vulnerable so they could just come in and mow her down like dandelions on a golf course.
Well, that wasn’t happening. She may be weak. She may be hurt. She may be afraid. But she was still the Slayer, and she wasn’t going to let some cowardly lion kill her or her dog. So, Giles needed to get his ass on board with the mission or get out of her way. She had to get through this. She couldn’t end up as the most reckless, disappointing Slayer of all time.
With another firm nod of her head, which hurt less than it had earlier, she pushed the door to the library open and strode in. Four sets of curious eyes looked up at her. Buffy blinked in surprise. Her friends were here. Researching? Researching her problem or was there something else going on?
In the next moment exclamations of: “God, Buffy!” and, “Oh, dear Lord,” and one laconic, “Wow,” met her ears.
Xander and Willow jumped up from their seats at the research table and hurried toward her. Giles took a few halting steps in her direction from where he stood near his office. The last person in the room, one she hadn’t expected, Oz, stayed seated at the table, though his eyes met hers with a mix of concern and surprise.
“What happened?” Willow asked, reaching her first.
“Vampire,” Buffy replied simply.
“How many?”
Buffy sighed. “One.”
“One?” Willow squeaked. “Giles called a research party and said you weren’t, you know, your normal Slayer-y self, but… one vampire did all that?” she asked, waving a shaky hand at Buffy’s face and neck, then down her body, ending with her ravaged knuckles.
Buffy bit her lip and fought hard to hold back the frustrated tears that misted her vision. A combination of shame and relief flooded through her – Giles was helping. Maybe he didn’t think she was worthless, after all. He believed her. He hadn’t tossed her away or given up on her completely. Not like her father. He still cared about her, was still on her side. She still had a chance to show him she could be better. “Yeah,” she rasped, blinking frantically.
“Oh, Buffy,” Willow sighed, holding her arms out and leaning in to hug her friend.
The Slayer held her hands up to stop her. “Raincheck on the hugs,” Buffy requested, taking a step back, which made that ache in her back twinge again. She was feeling a bit better after the Ibuprofen, the soak in Epsom salts, and the honey and ginger tea – which her mother had made a thermos of and sent with her. Her voice wasn’t quite as rough or as painful, her muscles and joints had loosened up, and the coffee was buzzing through her nerve endings, keeping her alert-ish. She knew she still looked like death that had been warmed over, re-frozen, and then run over by a Mack truck.
Buffy got her emotions under control, sniffing back the tears that wanted to fall, and focused on different developments that she’d apparently missed. She met Willow’s eyes, her brows going up in happy astonishment, and mouthed, ‘Oz?’ to her friend.
A huge smile spread over Willow’s face. The witch’s eyes twinkled and shone with joy as she nodded eagerly. ‘Talk later,’ she mouthed back.
“Buff! Are you alright?” Xander asked, interrupting their silent communication, his concerned brown eyes roaming over the blonde, taking in the bruises and abrasions and her stiff posture.
Buffy squeezed Willow’s arm lightly in silent congratulations, then began walking further into the room. “I’ll be better if we can figure out who’s doing this to me and Spike,” she announced, looking at Giles who was looking particularly ashen.
“Buffy, my dear…” he breathed, coming up to her. He reached a hand toward her as if to touch her swollen face, but stopped and dropped his arm when she flinched back. “Are you certain you should be out of bed?”
“I need to find out who’s doing this to me and Spike and make with the Slayage,” she asserted. “It’s not a flu. Something’s causing this. Mom thinks we might be getting poisoned. She read these books...” Buffy held up the Guardian books in demonstration, “...last night and found out that baddies have tried to poison them before, and the symptoms are the same!”
“Oh?” Giles squeaked, the last vestiges of color draining from his face.
“Yes! And I had a dream last night with some clues… maybe somewhere to start looking.”
“O-oh, y-yes? A-A Slayer dream?” the Watcher stuttered, removing his glasses and polishing them intently.
“Um, sort of,” Buffy hedged. “That’s not really important. The important thing is we need to be looking for shapeshifters, demons who can put on masks – wolves in sheep’s clothing – or maybe demons that can veil themselves completely.”
Giles began choking violently, his face turning the color of bruised plums.
“Giles!” Willow cried, pounding him on the back. “Are you okay? Do you need some water?”
The man nodded, still coughing, and the redhead hurried to the table and got a bottle of water for him. The Watcher took it gratefully and sipped between gasps, finally calming. He cleared his throat a few times and finally slid his glasses back onto his nose. “Shapeshifters, you say?”
“Yeah, something like that,” Buffy agreed as they all made their way to the research table. “Are there demons who can blend in like that? Chameleon demons? Who look like cute little sheep, but are, you know, underhanded, murdering bastards underneath?”
Giles began to cough again and took another drink of water. “W-well, yes… certainly,” the Watcher confirmed after a moment. “Quite a lot of them, I would imagine. And you received this bit of information in a dream?”
Buffy nodded, pulling her journal out of the bookbag. “I wrote down as much as I could remember,” she told them, turning to the appropriate page. She found the relevant lines and began to read, “’Pigs in a poke cloak the truth. Up is down, topsy turvy, apples and pears, steps and stairs, sheep to wolves, foes to friends, masks must fall before the music ends.’”
Giles’ brows furrowed. “Pigs in a poke? Apples and pears? Who delivered that passage, Dr. Seuss?”
Buffy just shrugged. “I think that’s what she said. Hang on, there’s more,” she revealed, her eyes wandering down the page. “Here. ‘Think they’re gods, but only chameleons hiding in the rafters. Come from another land; scuttle around in plain sight like scorpions. Watch and scheme hiding behind innocent faces. Not much longer before they strike. New moon waxes into croissants.’”
Giles downed another long swallow of the water and turned away, ostensibly looking at a book on the bookcase behind him.
“Croissants?” Xander asked. “Why not donuts? Or crullers? Eclairs?”
“I believe it’s meant to be ‘crescent,’” Giles pointed out, finally turning back around. “The new moon would wax into a crescent.”
“Oh, right,” Buffy muttered, digging out a pen to fix it. Her fingers were a bit less swollen, allowing her to actually grip it properly as she set the journal down and made the correction.
“And just who was it that came to you in your dream with this information?” Giles wondered, appearing both curious, perplexed, and more than a little flustered.
“Oh, you know… umm… a woman… said we were bonded… sisters,” Buffy hedged, not lying.
“A past Slayer? Fascinating…” he muttered, his brows drawn together in thought.
“So,” Buffy continued, neither refuting nor confirming his assumption. “I was thinking, if they’re coming soon, the more I know about how to kill stuff like this, the better. Maybe there’s some way that doesn’t actually require Slayer strength. Like last year with the rocket launcher? What do you think, Giles?”
The Watcher started, dragged from his thoughts. “What? O-oh, yes, yes, of course. I believe I have some books here that may be of some help,” he agreed, rummaging through a box that was on the floor nearby. “I brought all I had from home and the Council has delivered more,” he explained, pulling out some thick, old tomes from a shipping crate and handing them to Willow and Xander.
“Buffy, while they begin, perhaps you could tell me more about this dream,” Giles suggested, leading Buffy toward the counter as the two Scoobies took the books and sat back down at the table.
“I know you think I’m crazy, that I’m faking or…” she said, bringing her journal and following him.
“I assure you that I do not think any such thing,” Giles interrupted her, turning back around.
“So, you believe me… that something’s doing this to me and Spike?” Buffy asked, hope unfurling in her chest like a fragrant rose.
Giles gave her a timorous smile. “I do believe you, yes. Your mother made it quite clear to me that it wasn’t simply a virus when she visited last evening. S-So, what else was in your dream?”
Buffy looked back down at her journal, considering, unsure what more to reveal to him. She felt guilty for, once again, keeping secrets from him, but he’d just gotten back on the Buffy-train. She didn’t want to derail it again by telling about the blood oath and apparent connection she now had with a psychotic vampire.
“It was all kinda cryptic, but, if I interpreted it right, if I survive this but don’t save Spike… things will get pretty bleak,” the Slayer revealed. Tears once again stung her eyes as she looked up at Giles. Spike’s goofy face, tongue lolling to one side, his mouth hanging open in a pleased doggie-grin filled her thoughts. She was certain that Dru was right, if she let anything happen to him, her soul would be a burned-out shell, a study in dreary greys. “Please help me. I can’t let anything happen to him,” she begged, her voice cracking with emotion.
Giles turned away abruptly, hiding the guilt and shame that washed over his expression and the tears that shimmered in his own eyes. “Yes, yes, of course, my dear,” he assured her, bending down behind the counter to retrieve another book. “We’ll all do whatever we can to make sure nothing happens to either of you.”
“Thank you,” Buffy croaked, edging around the counter and wrapping her arms around his waist when he stood back up. She buried her battered face against his stiff tweed, tears of gratitude and relief trickling from her bloodshot eyes. “Thank you for helping me.”
** X-X-X-X-X **
Arizona.
After soaking under the hot spray of the shower for a good long time, Spike sauntered back into the bedroom, still running a towel over his dripping hair. His stomach and chest were nearly healed from the holy water dunking, but his nose was still tender, and he was pretty sure he still had the dark remnants of two black eyes.
He dropped the towel on the floor and flopped down on the bed with a sleepy yawn. Without looking, he reached for the remote for the telly on the nightstand, but his fingers closed over the charging phone instead. He scowled at it as his traitorous hand brought the mobile into view, the little lightning bolt flashing on the otherwise blank screen as the battery charged up.
“Sod that,” he muttered, setting it down on the bed and reaching again for the remote. He clicked the TV on and began surfing through the channels, looking for something to fall asleep to. Late-morning talk shows abounded, which he skipped. He also passed by reruns of ‘Gunsmoke’, ‘Lost in Space’, and ‘I Dream of Jeanie’, wondering what time ‘Passions’ would be on. He hadn’t seen it in an age… not since he and Joyce had watched all the episodes she’d recorded. He wondered idly how many she might have on her VCR, hoped she’d saved them so he could…
“Don’t even know if she’ll even let ya in the bloody house,” he growled to himself, still flipping the channels. The thought that Angel might have convinced Buffy to do a disinvite spell on him flashed in his mind and made his stomach churn. Sodding Angel. Can’t stand for Spike to have anything, the wanker.
He eyed the phone, black and sinister-looking on the white sheet next to him, then looked back at the TV, still scrolling idly through all the available channels. He stopped to watch a bit of ‘I Love Lucy’ as Ricky asked his wife, “Lucy, you remember that old saying, 'birds of a feather smell the same'?”
“You mean 'a rose by any other name flocks together'?” she wondered.
Spike chuckled, thinking of Buffy and her cute… bloody annoying mixed metaphors, as Ricky considered a moment and then agreed with the redhead.
The vampire’s eyes wandered back to the phone, his chest constricting with hopeful dread. “Argh!” he growled at himself. “Just turn the sodding thing on, you blighter!” he chastised himself, dropping the remote and reaching for the mobile.
Before he could change his mind, he pressed the power button, holding his breath through its too-familiar startup routine. The little jingle finished. An hour passed without Spike taking a breath – or perhaps it was a second – before the voicemail notification buzzed.
Spike’s insides were a three-ring circus of fear, hope, and anxiety. His emotions bounced around on trampolines, swung wildly on trapezes, and rode prancing elephants, whose heavy feet rumbled painfully inside his normally-still chest.
Someone had called. It had to be Buffy – she was the only one he knew who had the number.
He held the phone, staring at it for a few tremulous moments before finally drawing in a breath. He decided the air didn’t have enough nicotine in it and grabbed his cigarettes and lighter from the nightstand, lighting one with a calming sigh.
She’d called. All he had to do was punch in his code and he could hear what she said. Another inhalation of thick smoke. A steeling of his nerve. He opened the phone and pressed the key to dial into the messages. Another long draw from the fag, the end burning brightly in the corner of his eye as he entered his PIN.
“You have two new messages. Message one:” the listless voice announced. Spike swallowed, staring at the phone, waiting for acceptance or rejection, to be declared a friend or a foe, to be welcomed or dismissed. What he heard, however, was none of the above.
“…to know… I can’t… it’s not fair!” Buffy’s rough voice came from the small speaker, sounding crazed and panicked. Syllables and often whole words where unintelligible, little more than a squeak or a rasp. “I did… I was supposed to! …good Slayer! I tried... good daughter! I swear I did! Why…? …bad person? …of Angel? …shouldn’t have …set …free. Is that why? I gave him…”
Spike was staring at the phone, nearly crushing it in his hands, trying to make it tell him what was going on, what had the Slayer so overwrought. Had something happened to Joyce? To Cujo? To one of her mates?
‘To Angel?’ he added reluctantly, though he thought he’d know through the bloodline if something truly dire had happened to the old geezer.
A soul-deep sob filled the room, making Spike’s stomach clench painfully. A burning need to be there with the Slayer swept through him. His arms ached to wrap around her, to not let anything hurt her ever again, though he didn’t examine that instinct too closely, his mind occupied with trying to make out what she was saying.
“Please tell me…tell me why? …all gone – I can’t …my strength …everything, gone! Not …Slayer anymore. …scared! …thought …it’d be you …but they’re …coming.”
Another heartbreaking sob shuddered from the phone, making his hand tremble beneath the weight of it.
“…fight, can’t …they’ll kill me! Spike …help …hear me! Oh, God! They’ll kill… too!”
The next wail of raw agony from the Slayer made Spike’s heart lodge in his throat and all the elephants in his circus of emotions trumpet their own thunderous howl of pain along with hers.
“Oh, God! Oh, God! Spike… noooooooooo!!! God! Help us! Please! …can’t stop them …outside and… God, Spike! What…?”
The silence that followed was deafening, an oppressive weight pressing down on him. He stared at the phone in a state of confused terror. Was the Slayer dead? Had he just heard her last words? Had she called him for help and his stubborn pride had gotten her killed? If he’d only left the sodding phone on! If only he’d headed for Sunnydale when he’d first walked out on Dru instead of wasting time driving in sodding circles! He could’ve been there. Could’ve saved her. What the fuck was wrong with him?
His head shook back and forth of its own accord, shock settling over him, his blue eyes misting with dread. She couldn’t be dead. “No, no, no, no…” he babbled. It couldn’t be – not Buffy! He couldn’t be too late.
But of course he could. Monsters like him were never meant to touch the sunshine. Hadn’t Dru said as much? Belonged in the dark, with her. Always in the dark. Wasn’t fit for someone like Buffy… too good, she was. Too much light for a monster like him to dare touch.
“Message two:” the dispassionate voice announced, jerking Spike back from the death spiral his mind had begun swirling down.
“Spike? Hi, um… I’m not sure if I should be calling you, but I can’t think of anyone else to ask. It’s Buffy… and Spike – you know, our Spike, the dog? Oh, sorry – this is Joyce… Joyce Summers, from Sunnydale? You remember, right?”
A choked half-sob, half-laugh burst from his clogged throat, his eyes closing, bracing himself, afraid he’d likely never laugh again after this.
“It’s Buffy,” she repeated, and Spike grit his teeth nearly to the point of cracking them as he waited for what he knew was coming. Her daughter was dead. The Slayer – his friend – was dead. Gone from the world. Her light forever snuffed. Whoever killed the Slayer – his sodding friend – he’d hunt them down and rip them into little bits of blood-soaked agony, one fucking scream at a time.
“She’s… something happened. Both Buffy and Spike – not you, the dog – have lost their strength. She’s… she’s afraid she’s not the Slayer anymore, but I don’t believe it. Something’s going on and… well, I thought… I mean, I know you’ve… ummm… known other Slayers and I thought maybe you might know of something that could cause this.”
Spike blinked. His thoughts reeling, stunned. The cigarette he’d been holding burned down and charred his fingers. He looked at it blankly, the pain not registering. Blinked again. Flicked it onto the tile floor. He forced his mind to focus, to hear the words, to understand. “She’s not dead?” he asked the message, confused. “Tell me the Slayer’s not fucking dead!” he demanded then, shaking the phone as if he could force the answer from it.
“So, if you could call me back. Buffy doesn’t know I called you. I’m not sure… well, you know how she can be. But if you have any ideas, please call me back… soon. Thanks, Spike. … … I hope you’re doing okay. The last card we got was… well, we both hope you’re okay.”
“To play these messages again, press 4. To save these messages in your archives, press 7. To hang up, press pound. For more options…” the phone prompted.
“The Slayer’s not dead!” Spike exclaimed, jumping up from the bed as he saved the messages. He was a blur of motion gathering up his belongings, shoving it all back in his bag, pulling on his clothes, stuffing his feet back into his boots. “Not dead… not dead…” he repeated like a chant. “Not too late. Bloody hell! Don’t let me be too late!”
** X-X-X-X-X **
Sunnydale.
“Buffy, it’s Mom,” Joyce said when her daughter picked up the phone in the school library later that afternoon. She was calling from the vet’s office, the assistant there being kind enough to let her use the phone.
“Mom! What did you find out?” the girl asked anxiously.
“The vet tested for poisons and found high levels of alkaloids in Spike’s blood. She said she didn’t test for it before because it’s not affecting his kidney or liver function, like she’d expect. But… he’s definitely been poisoned. She’s not sure with what yet, but…”
“God… it’s true,” Buffy rasped, closing her eyes and shaking her head. It was so… so mundane, so banal, so Shakespearean, so 18th century! Poison! Someone was actually poisoning her dog, and her, she had to assume.
“She gave him an IV to try and flush his system and a couple of other injections to counteract it. They need to keep him a while to finish the IV. Buffy, we need to get you to the hospital,” Joyce declared urgently. “I’m coming to pick you up right now.”
Buffy looked up at the clock. One o’clock. “I’ll meet you out front in fifteen minutes.”
** X-X-X-X-X **
Arizona.
“Pick up, pick up… for fuck’s sake, pick up,” Spike muttered as the phone rang for the fourth time. Before the fifth, someone picked up.
“Hi!”
“Buff—” he began, but was cut off by the answering machine continuing its greeting, “You’ve reached the Summers’ residence…”
“Bloody hell,” he swore, his entire body quivering with adrenaline which had no ready outlet – nothing to hit, nothing to chase, nothing to break or bludgeon, nothing to do but drive.
“We’re not available right now,” Buffy’s cheery voice continued. “Please leave a message after the beep and we’ll get back as soon as we can.”
Beeep!
“Joyce! Buffy! You lot at home? Shouldn’t ya be at home, for fuc—” Spike stopped and cleared his throat, trying to get his frantic emotions and colorful language under control. “Mean… thought you’d be home, with the Slayer feeling poorly and all.”
He lowered the phone from his mouth, his attention pulled away by the slow-moving traffic ahead of him. “Get outta the fucking way, bloody morons!” he screamed at the other cars as he merged onto the freeway, his left hand on the wheel, holding it in a death grip, the phone still in his right. “Where in the bloody fuck did you learn to drive? Sodding Florida!?”
Once he was clear, he brought the phone back up to his ear. “On the way. Be there ‘fore sundown, I’d reckon… if these buggers will get the fuck outta my way,” he added pointedly, directing the last at the other cars. “Just stay in the bloody house behind a threshold, yeah? Don’t do anything daft like get yourself killed ‘fore I get there. Do ya hear me, Slayer!? Bloody hell – where are you? Should be home! Not traipsing about like a Happy Meal outta the box,” he chastised.
He paused again in his message to swerve around another car, darting from one lane to the next and back again at breakneck speed. He always won the battle even if there wasn’t technically enough room for him by the simple expedient of being the one with the bigger, heavier, and more dented car.
Spike finally brought the phone back up to his ear. “I’ll be there soon. Bloody hell, Slayer – called dibs, didn’t I? That sodding dog of yours needs to keep his promise! Don’t go gettin’ yourself killed ‘fore I get there and muck everything up,” he admonished.
Spike flipped the phone closed and tossed it down on the seat next to him as his eyes blurred with emotion. “Just… just be okay. Please just be okay,” he pled to the empty car as he gripped the wheel with both hands and pressed his foot to the floor. He couldn’t be too late. He just couldn’t!
** X-X-X-X-X **
Sunnydale.
“So, what’s wrong with Spike isn’t the same as what’s wrong with you?” Willow asked much later after Buffy’s return from the hospital. They were alone in the girls’ room taking a break from the researching.
“No, the doctors couldn’t find any poisons like that in my system. Couldn’t find anything really out of the ordinary at all,” Buffy confirmed, not sure whether to be relieved or disappointed.
“Which is probably a clue,” Willow pointed out. “With the Slayer-ness… your blood probably shouldn’t be ordinary, right?”
Buffy shrugged, then winced as the pain in her shoulder flared to brilliant life. Rubbing at the burning joint, she answered, “I guess. I don’t know. But it looks like the only way we’re gonna figure out what’s wrong, is to find out who’s doing it and beat it out of them… very painfully.”
“We found lots of possibilities,” Willow offered brightly.
“Maybe too many,” Buffy complained with a heavy sigh, dropping her hand as the pain subsided back to merely agonizing.
All of Giles’ books contained way too many types of shapeshift-y demons that might be their bad guys; much more than Buffy had hoped. Nothing was ever simple. After Buffy had gotten back from the hospital and filled everyone in on the results, Giles had gone out saying he had some ‘quite urgent’ errands to run. He was supposed to pick up pizzas on the way back despite Xander’s assertion that he was nourishment procurement officer, not Giles. School had been out for a while and everyone was starting to get hungry as dusk settled heavily on the town.
Even with everyone helping, the chances of them finding a real solution to this was looking kinda like Twiggy’s anorexic sister. In other words, incredibly slim. After starting off with what she thought would be game-changing clues, Buffy’s trepidation had been growing all day, her hopes waning. She was starting to feel as bleak and leaden as her dream-soul had been. Not to mention the caffeine was wearing off and her energy was starting to flag. She gritted her teeth metaphorically (because actually doing it hurt) and changed the subject. She needed something to focus on besides impending doom.
“Enough about me and dreariness. I want to hear some juicy, scandalous details, so, spill!” the Slayer demanded, forcing a smile to her lips and eyeing her friend cheekily. “What’s up with you and Oz?”
Willow giggled and turned to face the blonde, looking like the old, happy redhead Buffy knew and loved. It made a genuine smile grace curve Buffy’s bruised and swollen face to see her best friend looking so cheerful.
“He told me he missed me, like, every second!” Willow gushed as they leaned against the counter which held two sinks beneath a wall of mirrors. “Which is exactly how I felt! He said it felt like he’d lost an arm… o-or worse, a torso!” she continued animatedly.
“Awww, that’s so sweet,” Buffy agreed, smiling in spite of everything that was happening to her, happy for her friend. “Also, kinda gory if taken literally,” she joked with a small laugh.
“Right? Sweet and gory! It’s, like, exactly perfect for the Hellmouth, dontcha think? Then he said he was willing to give it a shot – give us another shot – and I was, of course, all over the shooting! And we hugged, and it felt so good. Like… like all the knives that had been twisting in my chest just suddenly turned to rose petals. Oh, God, Buffy… I love him… I really… I think I love him. I’m not gonna screw this up… I never knew anything could hurt so much as when he hated me,” Willow admitted.
“Oh, Wills. I’m so happy for you guys,” Buffy sighed, opening her arms for that raincheck. The two girls fell into a supportive embrace, friends for life.
Buffy was happy for Willow and Oz, and maybe a little envious. This was how things should be in relationships. If you love someone, even if you mess up, you work it out, there are second chances. Buffy never seemed to get that luxury. A mistake with Angel, one ‘reckless’ decision, got people killed. Hell, just trusting her old flame, Ford, had nearly cost those stupid kids in the ‘Sunset Club’ their lives. For the Slayer, there was no going back, no making up, no innocent blunders, no second chances. Even just crushing on the wrong guy – Spike, for example – would likely get people killed – starting with her. It wasn’t fair. Nothing seemed to be fair anymore.
Buffy swallowed, pushing back her morose musings and refocusing, shaking off her pity-party. She was supposed to be basking in her friend’s happiness, escaping the misery for a few minutes, not digging herself in deeper. If she couldn’t be happy – either in love, or in life – then above all else, she wanted the people she cared about most to have all that she couldn’t. That was what being a Slayer was supposed to be about, right? Making sure everyone lived happily ever after in some shape or form? She could live vicariously through Willow, share in her excitement and joy, even if the occasional pang of jealousy in her heart temporarily caught her off guard.
“Look at me with all the gushing and not even asking how you’re holding up,” Willow said, when they both pulled away. “How are you holding up?” she asked earnestly, her expression concerned.
Buffy smiled wanly, turning away from her friend to look in the mirror. Still bruised and battered, still scraped up and beaten down. “Scared,” she admitted. “Really scared.”
“Well, I know it seems like there are a lot of these shapeshifter demons, but…”
“Not just that,” Buffy interrupted her. “I… I called Spike last night.”
“Spike?”
“Vampire Spike… I… I was freaking out and… it seemed like a good idea at the time,” Buffy admitted, turning to look at Willow again. “But now – I’m not so sure. What if… what if the Slayer of Slayers shows up and I’m like this?” she asked, spreading her arms out to indicate her less than strong, healthy self.
“How… Spike has a phone?” Willow stuttered in confusion, unable to jump past the idea of a vampire with a phone. “Angel doesn’t have a phone, does he?”
“Angel? No. Not that I know of, anyway. Of course, I don’t seem to know much of anything about Angel,” Buffy complained bitterly. “Off topic.” She shook her head and waved a hand, dismissing that line of thought. “But, yeah, Spike does. He… I… um. Don’t tell Giles, okay? But Spike’s been sending me postcards from the road and… well, he sent me his phone number on one of them.”
“Postcards? How many? What do they say?” Willow wondered, her mind skipping and jumping around from one revelation to the next, trying to process these surprising admissions.
Buffy couldn’t help but smile at her friend’s innocent enthusiasm – completely missing the part about the Slayer of Slayers coming to town to kill the weakened Slayer. “A few. Different stuff… mostly he’s being a smartass, making jokes, or being piggy… but some were sweet.”
“You’ve been keeping secrets, missy!” Willow accused, trying to be stern, even as a smile broke through.
“Sorry… I just… wasn’t sure how anyone would feel about it and…”
“I thought we agreed – non-judge-y friends forever,” the other girl reminded Buffy, resolve-face coming to the fore.
Buffy nodded. “I’m sorry… I’ll show them to you next time you’re at the house. But don’t tell Giles or Xander… no goodness could ever come from that.”
“Deal,” Willow agreed. “So, why did you call him?” she asked, getting back closer to the point.
Buffy sighed, shaking her head, and dropped her gaze to her swollen hands, which were clasped in front of her. “I don’t know… I… he…” She looked back up and met her friend’s eyes. “Everyone was with the mollifying, telling me it would be okay. But it wasn’t okay. I knew he, Spike, wouldn’t do that. He’d tell me the truth, even if it was harsh.” Tears began to leak from the Slayer’s eyes, her voice growing thicker, hoarser with each admission. “He’d… I thought he’d understand, maybe even know why this was happening… he’d tell me if I was a bad person. If I was a bad Slayer. Spike… he never lied to me or… or acted like I… like I couldn’t handle reality. He never treated me like I was a six-year-old who needed a sitter and a lollipop.”
“Oh, Buffy,” Willow sighed, her heart aching for her friend. She pulled the blonde back into another hug. “Sometimes all people can say is that it’ll be all right because they just don’t know what else to say.”
“I know,” Buffy admitted, her face buried against her friend’s shoulder. “But I needed the truth. I thought… I thought I was gonna die right then, and I just needed someone to tell me the truth before…”
“Oh, God, you must’ve been so scared. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there…”
Buffy sniffed and shook her head against Willow’s soft sweater. “Not your fault. But now, what do I do if he shows up to kill me? I don’t want to die… I… I want to vote and… and enter into unwise legal contracts and… and take out loans and struggle to pay them back.” ‘And not die as a reckless disappointment,’ she added silently, her tears coming harder.
Willow snorted against Buffy’s shoulder and pulled back to look into her friend’s eyes. She reached out and gently wiped the tears from the Slayer’s cheeks. “You’ll get to do all that,” the witch assured her. “Spike owes you for helping to save Dru, remember?”
“No, I think that made us even… cos he helped me with Angelus and saved Giles,” Buffy reminded her.
“Yeah, but, you let him and Dru go for that. I think you’re still one up on the favor meter with him. If he shows up and you’re still un-Slayer-y, just call that in,” Willow suggested. “Do the whole truce thing… like he always does when he’s losing.”
Buffy chuckled through her tears and turned to one of the sinks to splash some cool water on her tear-streaked face. Willow handed her some paper towels and Buffy took them. “Can I tell you something else?” the blonde asked her friend as she patted her face gingerly to dry it.
“Anything.”
“I think… I think another reason I called him was… I just… I wanted to hear his voice once more before I… I died.” Buffy turned to look at Willow then, her eyes imploring. “Is that really stupid? Does that make me a bad person? …A bad Slayer?”
Tears welled in Willow’s eyes and Buffy was back in a tight hug the next moment. “No. You could never be a bad person, Buffy. And you’re the best Slayer I’ve ever known,” she swore, as if she’d known a hundred rather than three. “You save the world… a lot!”
“But, it’s Spike. When I was most afraid, when I thought I was gonna die, I called Spike.”
“I thought we already went over this,” Willow admonished, pushing Buffy back to arm’s length to look into her eyes. “Spike with the world-save-age, and puppy-bestowing, and Xander bitch-slapping – which at the time I was against, but he totally deserved it in retrospect. And, okay, the mass-murderer part isn’t ideal, but he went on the wagon on your road trip, maybe he could, you know, make it permanent. Plus, your mom actually likes him. My mom didn’t even know I was dating anyone, or that we broke up, or that we’re back together.”
“Not dating Spike,” Buffy declared. “I just…” she sighed.
“Like him… in more than a ‘friends’ sense,” Willow filled in.
“Which I can’t… for so many reasons, I can’t,” Buffy groaned, shaking her head, tears welling in her eyes all over again. She thought of her mistakes with Angel. She thought of Jenny Calendar and Kendra. She couldn’t make the same mistakes again… the same reckless, disappointing mistakes.
Willow frowned, but didn’t have any good answer for her friend. “I’m sorry, Buffy.”
“Me too,” Buffy admitted, wiping her eyes and shaking her head despondently. “Do you think it gets better… you know, with the adulthood thing?” Buffy wondered with a weary sigh.
“It could hardly be any worse,” Willow pointed out her as they both started for the door.
Buffy snorted as pulled the heavy door open with a grunt of effort. “That’s a jinx if I ever heard one.”
** X-X-X-X-X **
STORY BOARD
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link.
End notes:
Thank you so much for reading!! Spike is on the way for real now!! Let’s hope he doesn’t crash or anything in his haste.
Chapter 7: Face the Piper
Chapter Text
Chapter Notes:
Plotty things start moving faster in this chapter and will keep up a good pace for a while, so buckle up.
Some dialogue borrowed from ‘Helpless’, Written by David Fury
Thanks: To all of you for reading! It means so much to me, like Kit-Kat bars for my muse! Sending all the sloppy, joyful doggie kisses to everyone who has left a note, a like or a kudo. I love hearing from everyone! I apologize for falling behind in replying to your comments, but I promise to get caught up soon.
Thanks also my two wonderful Beta readers and friends: Holi117 and Paganbaby, and to TeamEricNSookie for pre-reading. All mistakes are mine because I keep fiddling with stuff. If you see any, PM me and I’ll fix it.
Chapter 7: Face the Piper
Sunnydale.
Buffy and Willow were still talking amiably as they made their way back from the restroom to the library to resume their research. As the girls got closer to the library doors, they heard raised voices coming from inside, then there was a terrible screeching and tearing of metal. They shared a brief, startled look and both took off running the last few yards to the doors. To Buffy’s chagrin, she lagged behind the witch, each jarring step sending daggers shooting into her lower back and out from her injured shoulder, making her gasp and her steps falter.
“OZ!” the Slayer heard Willow shriek as she limped the last few feet and pushed in behind the redhead.
Buffy took in the scene before her with growing dread. The metal they’d heard being twisted was the door to the book cage, which had been ripped from its hinges and tossed to the side like it was made of papier-mâché. Oz and Xander, it seemed, had taken refuge in there, but had been dragged out by a thick-shouldered vampire who held one boy in each hand. The two boys both dangled by their necks, their feet off the ground. Despite their efforts to fight the vamp, each kicking and clawing at him frantically, the demon seemed to hold them effortlessly, barely even noticing their struggles.
“Shall I start with steak or lobster?” the vampire mused calmly, looking from Xander to Oz as he turned his whole body toward Willow, his attention drawn by her cry.
The vamp wasn’t one Buffy had ever seen before, but judging by how easily he held her friends, he was strong. That meant old. And though he wasn’t the ugliest vampire she’d ever seen – the Master continued to hold that prestigious crown – there was something very disturbing about him. Something in the calm, creepy way he spoke, which was such a stark counterpoint to the wild look in his eyes, sent a blaze of revulsion through the Slayer.
“Let them go!” the witch demanded, her eyes searching for a weapon. She faltered when she realized all their weapons were in the cage, behind the vampire.
“Oooo, strawberries and champagne for dessert,” the vampire continued, grinning, his long fangs glinting dangerously as he looked from Willow to Buffy. “This will be quite the celebration, won’t it, Blair?”
“Looks that way, Kralik… certainly seems quite the feast,” the vampire named Blair replied in a British accent.
Buffy’s wide eyes were drawn to movement from behind the captor of her friends to the other, smaller vampire who she hadn’t seen at first. Icy terror skittered down her spine. She suddenly couldn’t breathe. Her heart skipped and skittered in her chest as adrenaline flooded her system. She’d been defeated by one vampire just last night. How could she take on two? How could she save her friends? She was sure Jonathan and his airhorn wouldn’t be waltzing in to save the day this time.
The Slayer found herself frozen, as she’d been in her bed the night before. Weak. Helpless. The epitome of the damsel in distress.
“I think I’ll start with… lobster,” the grinning demon, Kralik, decided. “You can start with steak,” he allowed, shoving Xander at Blair.
“Buffy! Do something!” Willow shrieked as the helpless boys’ necks were bared and fangs descended toward their jugulars.
Buffy’s trembling fingers reached instinctively for the stake in her waistband. She felt like the world around her was moving in slow-motion, but she was in stop-motion, just that much slower than everything else. All that panic from the previous night, which she thought she’d gotten past, crashed back down on her. Buffy’s throat closed up, her lungs ached for oxygen, and her heart pounded painfully against her breastbone. The monsters were not just coming, they were here! There was nowhere to hide, no blanket to cower beneath, no one to call, no time for redemption.
Reckless. Disappointing.
“Buffy!” Willow shrieked again as Oz writhed, kicking and hitting at his captor, desperate to get free as death reached for him.
The stake fell from Buffy’s shaky fingers, clattering to the floor, sounding like a death knell in her ears. She couldn’t get her body to move like it should. Couldn’t get it to react, could barely breathe. The Slayer felt like she was moving through syrup – drowning in it, really. Her limbs were weighted down – each movement heavy and laborious – as she bent to try and retrieve the weapon. She gasped and nearly crumpled when her back protested the movement with a vengeance, shooting fiery daggers down her leg.
With a force of pure willpower, fighting through the pain and paralyzing terror, Buffy’s fingers had nearly closed over the smooth wood when Willow screamed, “Oz! Noooooooo!!”
Suddenly the stake, along with every book on the shelves around them, was hurled at the vampires by an unseen force. It all crashed into them with the power of a furious, frightened witch whose emotions had taken control of her latent magic. Old, heavy tomes slammed against captives and demons alike with solid thuds, knocking them all back. The sound and concussion of it was deafening, echoing through the large space and crashing back on them all a second time.
Buffy watched in horror as her stake was lost in the tumult of magic, sailing uselessly across the floor, buried beneath mounds of musty pages. Blair’s grip on Xander faltered and the boy began fighting harder to get free, his feet finally back on solid ground, or at least parchment and vellum. The larger demon holding Oz, however, barely seemed to notice the tsunami of leather-bound knowledge that had walloped him, though his demonic gaze focused on the red witch, who was panting with the effort of her unplanned attack.
“Little strawberry has some bite,” the vamp holding Oz observed. “I like it,” he taunted nastily, tossing Oz back to his cohort. “Hold this for me. I think I’ll start with dessert.”
Blair, already struggling with Xander, couldn’t manage to catch Oz, and they all crashed down in a tangled mass of arms and legs and ripping pages of Latin and Sumerian.
Kralik stepped out of the mountains of books, kicking them aside like soccer balls, and began stalking toward Willow, who was now bent over at the waist, trying to get her strength and breath back.
“NO!” Buffy and Oz yelled at once as Willow began to retreat on trembling legs, only to back into the counter as the demon reached for her.
Something inside Buffy suddenly clicked, her resolve coalescing into hardened determination, pushing the pain, terror, and doubt down. Conscious thought seemed to evaporate, leaving just her instincts. She was the Slayer. She saved people. She didn’t let the vampires win. She fought against all odds, and that was exactly what she had to do now. She had to do more than fight – she had to win. She had to save her friends.
The Slayer lowered her head and charged at the big vampire, ramming into him with her shoulder. Agony reverberated through her as she struck him and she cried out in pain as she bounced off, falling onto her ass.
“No cutting in line,” Kralik taunted, giving the small blonde a kick like he’d done the books and sending her sliding across the floor to crash into the opposite wall. “You’ll get your turn,” he assured the Slayer as he lifted Willow up, holding her to his chest like a ragdoll.
The witch screamed and punched and kicked at him as he calmly sniffed her neck, not seeming to notice she was even moving. “Mmmm… you are a ripe one,” he purred against her flushed skin. “I may keep you. Do you have a mother?”
In the next moment, Oz slammed into Kralik’s back, jostling him and making him take a step forward, but doing little more. Over by the book cage, Xander was hitting Blair over the head with a particularly thick spell book while the vampire swiped his claws at Xander between blows. Willow was screaming and thrashing, trying to get free of Kralik’s impossibly strong grip. Oz had grabbed one of her arms and was trying to pull his girlfriend out of the demon’s grasp. There were growls and roars and shrieks of terror and fury as pandemonium reined in the normally quiet space.
Buffy saw her stake sticking out from beneath a Latin dictionary and lunged for it, her fingers wrapping around it, gripping it tightly, naturally, as if were part of her. She pushed back to her feet with a grimace and a cry of pain, but pressed on, limping back toward the vampire that had Willow as quickly as she could. With Oz and Willow distracting him, she hobbled right up behind Kralik without notice, stake drawn back, ready to strike.
And then Blair yelled out a warning.
Kralik spun around and smacked the Slayer with his elbow, the blow landing on her already injured shoulder. The stake tumbled from her tingling fingers as pain radiated out, blazing like fire in her bones. Buffy cried out, the blow spinning her away, leaving her sprawled on the floor in front of the library’s double doors.
“I TOLD YOU TO WAIT YOUR TURN!” Kralik bellowed at her furiously. He wheeled around to face the Slayer, using his momentum to yank Willow’s arm from Oz’s grip. As he whirled, the vampire released his hold and sent the witch flying through the air like an athlete throwing a hammer in the Summer Olympics, with Willow playing the role of the projectile. The redhead screamed as she hurtled at maximum velocity toward the upper level of the library. Her scream came to a sudden and violent end when she crashed into one of the tall bookcases. She hit with enough force to crack the wood, and likely several ribs, and bring another small mountain of heavy volumes cascading down. Her small, limp body tumbled to the floor with the books, completely inert, broken.
“WILLOW!” Oz shrieked again, scrambling away from Kralik toward the stairs and his girlfriend.
Xander had managed to put some distance between himself and the battered Blair, and he hurried that way too, stumbling and falling over the piles of texts littering the floor. Buffy pushed herself back to her feet, facing the angry vampire, half bent over, panting and cradling her right arm against her chest.
“I guess … I just … couldn’t … wait,” Buffy gasped, trying to straighten up to face him. She suddenly felt a burble of hysterical laugher form in her chest as a certain blond vampire’s words, which had been uttered not far from this spot, echoed in her mind, ‘What can I say? I couldn't wait.’
The memory, or perhaps the inappropriate laughter it had evoked, seemed to snap Buffy back to herself a little more, completely back into ‘Slayer mode’. She kept her eyes trained on the vampires, but could hear both Oz and Xander calling Willow’s name, interspersed with chants of, “Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.”
“Oz! Xander! Get out of here – take Willow and go!” the Slayer called to them, her rough voice cracking with the effort, keeping her eyes glued on the two approaching vampires.
“But, Buffy!” Xander objected, even as Oz began lifting Willow into his arms.
“GO!” she ordered, taking slow, shaky steps away from the vampires and toward the double doors.
She heard Oz urge Xander to help him, and, with one frightened look back at Buffy, Xander did. When the three disappeared behind the stacks, heading for the hidden door at the back, Buffy felt a small wave of relief wash over her. They were getting away – getting to safety.
When the two vampires turned back, considering pursuit of her friends, Buffy wiped a thick drop of blood from her lip with a finger and flicked it at Kralik. “You don’t want them… you want me,” she taunted as the droplets splattered over the ugly face of the big demon. “Champagne, remember? Yum, yum. So, come and get me…” she challenged, backing through the double doors, which swung closed, a flimsy barrier between her and the demons. The Slayer paused there, waiting, watching through the window, willing them to leave her friends alone and come after her. After what seemed an eternity, Kralik growled something at Blair and the two of them charged forward, right towards her.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Joyce paced through the house, watching the street outside through the picture window each time she passed through the living room. Buffy had called a little earlier and said that she’d be late at the library and would get a ride home from Mr. Giles. It sounded like the Watcher was finally taking this seriously, though when her daughter called, they still didn’t have any concrete leads about who or what was doing this to Buffy and Spike.
But that wasn’t who Joyce was looking for, who she was anxiously awaiting. When she’d gotten back after picking the dog up from the vet after his IV, there had been a message waiting on the machine. The frantic voice of the vampire had both alarmed and relieved her. Spike was coming. He was on the way. He would be here by nightfall.
He was late.
‘Don’t do anything daft,’ he’d admonished, along with a few other colorful phrases. Joyce was sure Buffy wouldn’t do anything ‘daft’. She was safe at the high school with Mr. Giles and her friends. Buffy wouldn’t go out into the night, Joyce was certain of that. The elder Summers hadn’t told Buffy about calling Spike, or about Spike coming. Buffy might insist Joyce call him back and tell him not to come. She figured it would be easier to get her daughter to accept whatever help Spike could offer with him sitting in the living room than trying to talk her into it before he got here. Joyce had learned that forgiveness for meddling in Slayer affairs was easier to get than permission; generally, it just took a shopping trip to Macy’s.
After that message from Spike, Joyce had rushed around getting things ready. The dog had new bowls for water and food, and a new bag and brand of kibble to go with them, just in case any of that was contaminated with the poison. The vampire had fresh containers of pig’s blood in the refrigerator. There was cocoa waiting to be made on the counter – with a full bag of little marshmallows alongside. She’d even picked up some hot chili peppers, like he’d mentioned on one of the postcards. For her and Buffy – and she supposed Spike, if he were inclined – there was a pot of spaghetti sauce with meatballs simmering on the stove and a box of penne pasta ready to be boiled.
Everything was ready – there just wasn’t anyone there yet to enjoy it.
So, Joyce paced from the kitchen (stirring the sauce each time), to the dining room, through the foyer, to the living room (checking the driveway as well as the answering machine, in case the phone had somehow rung and she didn’t hear it), through the sitting room and back into the kitchen. The dog had even walked with her a few times around, clearly feeling a bit better after the treatment at the vet’s. But he’d given up after a while and taken up his station beneath the stove, just in case anything dropped that needed to be gobbled up.
She considered the whiskey decanter on each pass, but kept going, waiting, worrying. Maybe he wasn’t coming after all. Maybe they’d never find any answers for her daughter. Maybe Buffy couldn’t be the Slayer any longer. While Joyce would’ve welcomed that news last year, she knew too much now about the world that lived in the shadows, and she knew too much about her daughter to embrace that idea now.
Buffy had changed; she was the Slayer; it was part of her. She needed her strength to fulfill her Calling… she needed her abilities back or she’d die, one way or another. Either by the hand of a demon or by simple despair, her daughter would die.
** X-X-X-X-X **
As the vampires started for her, Buffy turned and ran. She ran as fast as she could. There was a knife in her lower back that stabbed into her with every step. There as a fire in her shoulder that burst into icy flames with every swing of her arm. There was cotton in her throat, making it hard to breathe, and slivers of glass in every joint which ground into her with every painful step.
One of the vampires caught up to her, grabbing her by the collar. She screeched and spun, ducking out of her red jacket, leaving him holding the empty scrap of fabric. She turned a corner, then another, their footsteps right behind her. They were taunting her, she knew – they could catch her if they had really been trying.
She needed a plan, but she hadn’t thought past getting them away from her friends. Axe! She could use an axe! Buffy stole a look behind her to judge the distance. She could just make it, she thought, coming around another corner and stopping in front of the case that held the fire axe. She punched the glass to break it, but her fist bounced off, the impact vibrating through her whole body and drawing a yelp of agony from her.
They were closing on her! She grabbed the fire extinguisher from the wall, intent on using it as a club, but it was too heavy. It fell to the floor with a clang of metal, jarring her shoulder further.
“I thought you wanted your turn, Champagne,” Kralik taunted as he and Blair rounded the corner at a leisurely pace. “Come and get it.”
Panting, exhausted, aching, and out of time, Buffy fumbled the pin from the fire extinguisher, aimed the nozzle at the two vampires, and pulled the trigger. Foam coated the two demons as they threw their hands up and turned their backs to keep it from getting the chemicals in their faces. Buffy kept spraying madly, making them retreat around the corner. Just as she took off running again, she heard one of them screaming as if in pain and demanding, “Pills! Pills!” She didn’t stop to try and figure that out, just happy that she’d apparently hurt one of them – she thought it sounded like Kralik – and had hopefully slowed them down. The Slayer came to a fire exit and slammed against the heavy bar with her hip, bruising her battered body more, but in the next moment, she was outside.
She limped for the parking lot as quickly as her feet would move, half-dragging one leg, trying to cradle her right arm, her only thought was maybe Oz, Xander, and Willow would be there in Oz’s van. She heard the vampires open the door behind her as she rounded the side of the building and the parking lot came into view.
The very empty parking lot.
Tears of frustration blurred Buffy’s vision as she frantically tried to come up with another plan that didn’t include dying. She kept going, willing her body forward, trying to listen past her thudding heart for footsteps behind her. The street! Maybe she could get someone there to help her… give her a ride, rescue her from this nightmare. She headed that way, knowing Kralik and Blair were not far behind.
Suddenly, she heard tires squealing and she saw a car speed into the school’s lot. She turned, relief flooding her as she watched it head straight for the two vampires. Kralik and Blair dove out of the way, bits of white foam flying from their clothes as they rolled over the pavement. The car skidded and turned around sharply, this time heading for Buffy. It came to a stop next to her and the passenger door was flung open.
“Get in!” Giles ordered. He didn’t have to say it twice. Buffy was in and they were pulling away with as much gusto as the old Citroën could manage.
“Thank, God… Giles… thank you… oh, God…” she gasped, bent over at the waist as they jounced out of the parking lot and turned down the street.
“Are you alright? Are you hurt? Where are the others?” Giles demanded, looking in his rearview for pursuers before realizing he wouldn’t see them there. He turned his head and looked back, but no one seemed to be following them.
“They ran… Willow was hurt. We need to go back and make sure they got out!” Buffy croaked, finally sitting up and looking behind them herself, still holding her right arm immobile against her body.
“Can you hold a weapon?” he asked, gesturing with his head toward the back seat. Giles’ face was a mask of concern and determination as he turned and began around the block circling the school.
“I… I think so,” Buffy replied, looking in the back and seeing a few different choices – battle axes and a mace and a crossbow. She leaned back and reached wearily for the crossbow, her left hand shaking as it closed over the smooth wood. Sitting forward in her seat with the weapon, the Slayer strained to nock a bolt into it using her injured arm, grunting with effort to get the string pulled back. With one determined, painful yank, she finally got it cocked.
Buffy had just started to lift it, to aim it out the open passenger’s side window to be ready in case the vampires came into view, when the weapon fired. The bolt was embedded several inches into the dash of Giles’ car.
“Oops?” she squeaked, shrinking with shame.
“Perhaps the cross would be less… perilous?” he suggested, taking the crossbow from her and settling it next to himself on the seat.
“Right,” Buffy muttered, leaning over the seat again and picking up a plain, wooden cross that was about the size of her hand. She held it tightly, looking out the window, straining to see any sign of her friends or the vampires.
“I don’t see anyone,” the Watcher said after they’d made a complete circuit of the block. “Did Oz have his van? Perhaps they’ve gone to hospital.”
Buffy’s eyes were glued on the dark parking lots and green spaces around the school, but she didn’t see anything moving at all. “Maybe…” she agreed finally, worry clear in her voice.
“Are you badly injured?” Giles asked as he turned away from the school and headed for the hospital.
“No… I don’t think so,” she assured him, but she began to tremble now that the adrenaline spike was fading and the reality of the past few minutes began to overwhelm her. “I can’t keep doing this, Giles. I can’t! I can’t be this… this useless! This helpless! We have to fix it… fix me!”
Giles nodded, his mouth set in a grim line as he drove through the dark streets. “Y-yes,” he agreed uneasily, keeping his eyes steadfastly glued to the road.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Spike took a drag on his cigarette as he made the last turn onto Revello, tires squealing in protest as he rounded the corner. This was it. He was here. A bit later than he’d hoped, but he’d flown like a bat outta Hades the whole way from Arizona. Only way he could’ve made it sooner was if he could actually fly. Now he had to face the piper, he supposed. He shook his head. “You pay the sodding piper… face the music,” he reminded himself, speeding up again as he barreled down the narrow, tree-lined street to 1630. “Thinking ‘bout the Slayer too much, you are.”
But he couldn’t help it. Buffy had been the only thing on his mind the whole way from Arizona. He’d played her message over and over, trying to understand the missing or choked-off words, trying to find any clues in there as to what had happened to her. Clearly, from Joyce’s message, Buffy and Cujo had lost their strength, and Joyce was hoping he’d know why and how to fix it.
He didn’t know; had never heard of it before. But he didn’t want to let Joyce down. Didn’t want to let Buffy down. So, he listened to the Slayer’s ranting, heart-wrenching, frantic message until the battery on the phone died. He tried to pick it apart, find clues in there, anything in her words or even her tone that would tell him what this was, but all it had done was make him more anxious, upset, and desperate.
Spike couldn’t give her what she needed, what she wanted. He was failing, again – just like he’d failed to be what Dru needed, what she wanted. Never enough. Never smart enough or clever enough or fast enough… never enough.
He was the Slayer of Slayers. The idea of Buffy’s light being snuffed from the world should fill him with glee, he should be here to kill her, should snap her neck like a cheap chopstick – but it wasn’t what he wanted.
He wanted the Slayer strong. He wanted her cheeky. He wanted her sanctimonious. He wanted her resourceful. He wanted her alive.
He wanted her in his arms. He wanted to be enough.
Maybe Dru was right – he’d gone soft.
“Soft in the head if ya think she’ll ever let you touch her,” he growled to himself, inhaling another hit of nicotine to try and calm his rattled nerves. He suddenly saw Buffy’s house fly past and he slammed on the brakes, skidding to a stop in front of 1632… one house too far.
Didn’t matter – close enough. He cut the motor and threw the door open before the car had settled on its shocks. One last orange flare from the end of his fag burned bright as he scrambled out. He dropped it to the pavement as he raced back to 1630, back to the Slayer who told him to never come back, back to face the piper.
** X-X-X-X-X **
“Oz! Xander!” Buffy cried as she staggered through the ER doors and into the brightly lit hospital.
The two bruised and battered boys turned to face her, relief evident in both of their expressions.
“Buffy! Thank God!” Xander exclaimed as he met her halfway, pulling her into a tight hug. “You got away! Are you okay?”
“Ribs! Air!” Buffy complained, trying to free herself from his embrace. “Where’s Willow? Is she okay?” she asked when she could breathe again, looking from Xander to Oz as Giles came up behind her.
“They’re still looking her over,” Oz offered. “She woke up on the way here, though… which, as signs go, is a good one.”
Buffy nodded, breathing a sigh of relief. “Can we see her?”
“Not yet,” Xander explained. “She’s getting x-rayed. They said they’d come get us when they were done. They think maybe she has some cracked ribs.”
The Slayer nodded again then hobbled over and sat down heavily in one of the orange, plastic chairs. She propped her elbows on her thighs and dropped her face into her hands as tears welled in her eyes. She was swamped with emotions, everything from thankfulness that her friends got out, to worry about Willow, to frustration about her inability to protect them or herself, to fear that they’d never find the culprit, that there was no antidote, that she’d be just this helpless forever. On the bright side, forever wouldn’t be too long – certainly no longer than it would take Spike to drive up from Brazil. Though, the way things were going, she doubted she’d last that long.
Giles sat down next to her. “Do you need to see a doctor, my dear?” he asked, laying a gentle hand on her back.
Buffy stifled a gasp as pain shot through her shoulder. She shook her head, her face still buried in her hands. “What I need,” she gulped through her tears. “Is to be me again.” She turned her bruised, battered, tear-streaked face to him, her eyes imploring, heartbroken, afraid. “I can’t be this way, Giles. We have to fix this – I just… I can’t… please, please help me,” she begged, leaning into him as sobs shook her small frame.
“I-I believe… What I mean to say is…” he stammered, wrapping an arm around her thin shoulders as she cried against his chest. “Let’s find a room where we can talk,” the Watcher suggested, standing and tugging her up with him. “Over here, perhaps...” he said, guiding her to an empty triage room.
“Why? What’s going on? Did you find out something? Is that the errand you ran?” she babbled, sniffing her tears back, her heart soaring with hope.
“Um, well, you could say that, yes,” he agreed, opening the door to the room and allowing her to proceed him before pulling the door closed.
“What is it? Tell me!” Buffy demanded, whirling on him. Her face bloomed with eagerness, her shimmering eyes bright and excited for the first time in what seemed forever to Giles.
The Watcher stepped over to the exam table and set a leather briefcase up on it that Buffy hadn’t noticed him carrying until then. Her brows furrowed as he reached in and pulled out a smaller case and opened it to reveal a syringe and a vial of golden-brown liquid.
“W-what?” she stammered, unable to comprehend.
“It… It's, uh… an organic compound – which is why it did not show on the tests that were run on you. It contains muscle r-relaxants and adrenal suppressers,” he stammered, his voice clogged with emotion. “T-the effect is temporary. You'll be yourself a-again in a few days,” he revealed ashamedly. “Spike as well,” he added, reaching in and bringing out a Ziploc bag of the same treats he’d given her on several occasions for the dog.
“I d-don’t understand… Y-You?” she stammered, looking up from the items on the table to meet his eyes, hers now filled with confusion and pain. “It was… all you? It wasn’t Angel. It wasn’t the Powers. There are no… no chameleon demons, no shapeshifters?”
“No… no, I’m afraid not,” he confirmed.
“Just you?” Buffy muttered, her eyes drifting around the room, unable to focus on anything, as she became lost in the jumble of thoughts running through her mind. “How... when?”
Giles swallowed though his mouth was dry. “During your focus lessons. The blue stone has... preternatural properties which...”
Giles went on, pulling the large blue crystal out of his briefcase as well and placing it on the exam table, but Buffy had stopped listening, her mind thinking back to her dream. “Wolf in sheep’s clothing… in plain sight… think they’re gods… from another land… watch and scheme…” The Slayer stopped and looked back up at him. “She… she was right about it all… I just… I couldn’t see it. Even the cars in the street… they were all… your car. She knew… Fuck! …She fucking knew!”
Buffy remembered Spike telling her on the road trip that Dru’s visions and messages often made sense after you knew the answer, after whatever she’d warned about happened. Which was extremely helpful in a way that was not.
“It's a test, Buffy,” Giles explained when Buffy grew silent again. He turned and stepped away from her, unable to stand the pain in her eyes. “I-It’s called the Tento di Cruciamentum… a-a rite of passage. It's given to the Slayer once she... uh, well, if she reaches her eighteenth birthday. The Slayer is disabled and then entrapped with a vampire foe whom she must defeat in order to pass the test. The vampire you were to face has killed his captors, turned one of them and... escaped – as I believe you know. He was one of the vampires in the parking lot this evening; the other, I believe was a Council operative named Blair who had been assigned to guard him. The escaped vampire’s name is Zackary Kralik. As a mortal, he murdered and tortured more than a dozen women before he was committed to an asylum for the criminally insane. When a vamp...”
Buffy blinked, his speech finally registering through the thick fog of confusion that swirled around her mind. She picked up the blue stone and hurled it at the back of Giles’ head, but it landed well short, falling at his feet with a thud, but it cut off his horrible words. He turned at the sound just as she picked up the case with the syringe in it and flung it at the man. It smacked into his chest feebly, though she at least got a flinch from him. The case came open when it hit, the syringe and vial falling to the floor and rolling in opposite directions.
“I am incredibly sorry—” Giles began, his heart in his hands.
“You bastard!!!” the broken girl screamed at him, her heartbreak turning into fury. “All this time! You saw what it was doing to me. What it was doing to Spike! You poisoned my dog! You poisoned me! All this time, and you didn't say a word! How could you!? I begged you to help me! I trusted you! I… I… I thought… you l-lo—you cared about me,” she wailed, her words nearly swallowed by her gulping sobs.
“I do! I care more than I can say! I wanted to tell—”
“LIAR!” she shrieked at him, tears streaming down her face, her broken heart on the verge of pounding out of her chest and shattering on the cold, sterile floor. “You don’t know what love is! How could you do this? How… why… I… am I that horrible? Such a terrible disappointment that you wanted to kill me?”
“Buffy, my dear – no, no, please. It’s not that at all. Quite the contrary. You must understand,” he begged, taking a step nearer the distraught girl. “It was not my decision. In matters of tradition and protocol, I must answer to the Council. My role in this w-was very specific. I was to administer the serum to you and incapacitate Spike – you couldn’t have assistance from him or the test would be invalid. I was then to direct you to the old boardinghouse on Prescott Lane for the trail itself. That’s where they were holding Kralik.”
Buffy found herself shaking her head, her battered hands covering her ears, her eyes blurred with the anguish of another betrayal. Another man who she’d trusted, who she’d loved, had lied to her, had let her down, had turned into a monster before her eyes. Was she such a terrible person that no one at all could love her? That she ruined everything she touched? That even someone whose literal job was to keep her safe would turn on her? “I can't... I can't hear this—” she muttered.
“Buffy, please,” Giles plead, his own eyes glimmering with unshed tears. “I cannot tell you how truly sorry I am.” The Watcher took another step closer and reached out to touch her, but Buffy flinched back from him, her grief once again blossoming into anger.
“If you touch me, I will kill you,” she ground out in a gravelly voice. Her eyes narrowed in challenge as her swollen hands curled into fists at her sides.
Giles stepped back, holding his arms out, palms up in submission. “You must listen to me,” he said imploringly. “Because I've told you this, the test is invalidated. You will be safe now, I promise you. Now, whatever I have to do to deal with Kralik... and to win back your trust...”
“MY TRUST?” she screeched, her throat burning with the effort. “My trust?! You stuck a needle in me! You poisoned me! You poisoned Spike! I could’ve died… my friends – your friends, people who trusted you – could have died tonight! Because I couldn’t protect them! MY TRUST?! I don’t have any trust. My trust was in that syringe!” she declared, stepping over to where it lay on the floor. She lifted her foot brought her boot down on it, smashing it and grinding it into dust. She turned a flinty glare back on him, hiding the wince of pain from her display. “And it’s just as shattered. So you don’t have to worry about winning it back.”
“Buffy, I’m begging you…” he began.
“Yeah, well, I’ve been begging you – see how well that worked out,” she shot back as she pushed past him, sending more shards of burning ice blistering through her shoulder.
“Buffy, please, I implore you…” Giles continued as she yanked the door open.
“Go to hell,” Buffy snarled over her shoulder as she emerged into the bright ER waiting area.
Oz and Xander were right there outside the door, looking at the two of them with horrified expressions.
“Buffy… Giles… what’s…?” Xander started, but stopped when Buffy leveled her tearful, angry gaze on him.
“Is Willow okay?” she asked in a hoarse whisper, wiping at her eyes.
“They’re… yeah, she’s okay. Cracked ribs, maybe a concussion. They’re keeping her overnight just for observation,” Xander replied, his eyes darting between her and Giles.
Buffy nodded, once again cradling her right arm against her body. “I need a ride home… Oz, could I—?”
“Yeah, sure,” he agreed, his normally implacable expression confused and worried.
“Would now-ish work for you?” she asked when he didn’t move.
Oz looked at Xander with an arched brow. Xander took the meaning and said, “I’ll stay with Willow until you get back.”
“Now-ish is definitely workable,” the redhead confirmed, turning his attention back to Buffy and pulling his keys from his pocket.
“Thank you,” Buffy murmured as she followed him toward the parking lot.
Xander hesitated before returning to Willow’s side, looking from Giles to Buffy and back again. “What the hell did you do?” he asked the Watcher.
Giles shook his head, blinking back tears. “Made a very grave error.”
** X-X-X-X-X **
STORY BOARDS
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link.
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link.
End notes:
Thank you so much for reading!! Everyone’s in Sunnydale now, so you’ll see more references to fluffy or furry Spike or less-furry Spike ... It’s gonna be fun keeping out two Spike’s properly identified, but hopefully it works!
My theory on Kralik and Blair: In canon, they happened to run into Buffy on the way to the library. Blair didn’t know where Buffy lived, but knew her Watcher would be at the library. When Kralik got Buffy’s jacket/scent, then he was able to track it and identify her house (it’s a theory!). This time, since they didn’t run into Buffy in the street, they made it all the way to the library. Oh, and got her jacket/scent again... uh-oh.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Chapter 8: Friends and Foes
Chapter Text
Chapter Notes:
Everyone’s in Sunnydale now, so I won’t be prefacing different sections with where they are.
No doggies were harmed in the making of this story, though it might seem otherwise sometimes.
Thanks: To all of you for reading! It means so much to me, like Jelly Bellies for my muse! Sending all the sloppy, joyful doggie kisses to everyone who has left a note, a like or a kudo. I love hearing from everyone! I apologize for falling behind in replying to your comments, but I promise to get caught up soon.
Thanks also my two wonderful Beta readers and friends: Holi117 and Paganbaby, and to TeamEricNSookie for pre-reading. All mistakes are mine because I keep fiddling with stuff. If you see any, PM me and I’ll fix it.
Chapter 8: Friends and Foes
From the living room, Joyce saw him through the window just before his heavy boots hit the stairs. A familiar figure bathed in the porchlight, his duster flaring out behind him as he bounded forward. Spike was here. He’d made it. He hadn’t changed his mind. Joyce’s heart hammered in her chest, full of hope that the vampire would have the answers for them, for her girl. Hope that everything would be all right now.
Spike’s fist hovered over the door, prepared to knock, though stopped short of striking the wood. He had no answers for them – nothing to offer either of the Summers women who had called him. Nothing but disappointment. And yet… he was here. His hand two inches from rapping on their door. Two inches from Buffy. He swallowed and had just steeled his nerve when the door was flung open.
Light flooded out from inside, blinding him for a moment. He thought he felt his heart thrum in his chest for the barest of moments, one thought foremost in his mind. ‘Buffy!’
“Spike! You made it!” Joyce exclaimed, relief evident in her tone. “I was afraid you’d changed your mind.”
Before Spike knew what was happening, she’d wrapped him in a hug. Spike stiffened for a moment, the memory of the cursed chocolate experience from his last visit rushing through his mind, but then realized that wasn’t it at all. She was genuinely glad he’d come, happy to see him. A flood of affection suffused him, fluttering like a soft breeze on a summer’s day, warming his heart, freeing it from the frozen desert it had been trapped in for so long. He relaxed and wrapped his arms around her, returning the embrace with the same fondness it was given. In friendship. He had friends, it seemed, after all.
“Sorry I’m late, pet,” he rumbled. “Sodding wankers on the roads driving like lost snails, dunno where they are or where they’re goin’, but they’re bloody well determined to go there slowly.”
Joyce chuckled and nodded, pulling back and swiping at her damp eyes. “Thank you for coming. I didn’t know who else to call… I…”
“No worries,” he assured her as she backed up to allow him to come in. Spike held his breath and took a step over the threshold. She hadn’t actually invited him in, but no barrier stopped him – his invitation had not been revoked. Another radiant glow flooded his chest and he ducked his head, giving the woman a shy smile as he came all the way in.
“WHOOOFF!” Spike exclaimed, trotting in from the kitchen, tail wagging eagerly. “Woof! Woof!” he added happily before slamming into his namesake’s legs with a shoulder block and knocking the vampire back a step.
“Oi! Thought we were mates,” the vampire objected good-naturedly, catching his balance before crouching down to rough-up the big dog’s coat, scratching briskly up and down his neck and flanks. “What’s this I hear ‘bout you trying to welch on our deal, not protecting the Slayer?” he asked, catching the dog’s jowls between his hands and holding his face still. The vampire looked into the Guardian’s soft brown eyes, leaning in nose to nose and bringing his demon up in direct challenge.
Friends or not, based on what Buffy had learned of the dog’s heritage and breeding, Spike thought that should’ve triggered an immediate response from a Guardian of the Twilight. “Let’s see yours now, Cujo,” he encouraged. When no blue-white fire flashed in the dog’s brown eyes and only the barest rumble sounded from his chest, the vampire added a growl, then shook him, attempting to provoke an appropriate response to the threat. Instead, the dog whined and licked Spike’s face with a hot, sloppy kiss.
“Bloody hell,” Spike complained, flinching back. The vampire released his hold of the animal as he wiped the slobber off his face with the back of his hand. “Not that kinda friends, mate,” he admonished the dog, standing back up and letting his demon fade.
“He’s actually feeling better, if you can believe it,” Joyce revealed as the Guardian sat down, then slid down onto his belly, his eyes still attentive and curious, watching the vampire. “I had him tested for poisons today and they found signs of alkaloids in his blood, though they couldn’t tell the exact poison used. They treated him – IV flush and some meds – and I changed his food and bowls and everything.” She sighed heavily, wringing her hands. “I’m not sure what else to do.”
“What kinda bloody coward would poison the mutt?”
Joyce shrugged. “That’s kinda what I hoped you might know… or help us figure out.”
“Poisoning the Slayer then, too?” Spike asked worriedly.
“It doesn’t seem so. I took her to the hospital today and they couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary,” Joyce relayed, still wringing her hands nervously. Catching a whiff of the sauce simmering on the stove, she asked, “Um, d-do you… I mean, are you hungry? I’ve got blood for you – like before – and hot cocoa… and the pasta can be done in just a minute if you want any of that.”
Even though Spike knew it was pig’s blood – barely fit for human consumption, let alone a vampire’s – his stomach growled its eagerness. He hadn’t fed on the cartel’s drug dealers the previous night. Well, not after the first one, at any rate, which left his mouth and tongue numb and the rest of him jittery. He’d planned to have a quick nip before he got to the Slayer’s house, but… well, that didn’t exactly work out.
Spike’s expression suddenly turned dour as a horrible thought skittered through his mind. A knot of worry twisted his empty belly as he asked, “Keep blood on hand, do ya? Reckon the great forehead stops in on the regular?”
“The great fore—?” Joyce began, shaking her head in confusion. “Oh! You mean Angel? No. He’s not… he doesn’t stop in. I got it fresh, for you… when I got your message.”
A supremely pleased smile spread over Spike’s face, his blue eyes glittering with affection for the woman, as well as relief. Angel didn’t stop by, eh?
“That’s right thoughtful, pet. A cuppa wouldn’t go amiss. Am a bit peckish,” he admitted.
Joyce smiled, happy to be able to do something. She closed the front door now that the dog and vampire had moved out of the entryway, and turned for the kitchen.
Spike began to follow her. He had a thousand more questions he wanted to ask – how did they get his phone number, when did all this start, did they have any leads at all, but the one that came out as he looked up the stairs was, “Slayer all tucked up in bed, then?”
“No, no… she’s with Mr. Giles and her friends at the high school,” Joyce explained, glancing back to look at him as she made her way through the dining room. “They’ve been trying to find out what’s—”
“What?!” Spike interrupted, panic starting to wash back through him. “Got my message, yeah? Didn’t ya hear the part about not doing anything daft?” He couldn’t get this close to the Slayer and still lose her!
“No, she’s fine – I spoke to her a little while ago. They’re at the school, perfectly safe…”
“The same school I crashed into with a whole bloody gang o’ minions… that school?” he demanded, raising his brows, his hands going to his hips.
“Oh. Well, when you put it that way,” Joyce acquiesced, stopping and turning to look at him, her own trepidation growing. “I’ll… I’ll just call and check on her, see when she’ll be home,” she suggested, heading for the phone.
** X-X-X-X-X **
“Do you want to talk about it?” Oz asked as Buffy climbed into the passenger seat of his van in the hospital parking lot.
She shook her head, in a daze. This… it had to be a dream, right? A nightmare. An alternate universe. A hell dimension. Giles must’ve drunken some evil Kool-Aid or been taken over by a demon or had a spell cast on him. How could he have done this otherwise? How… how could he hate her so much?
Oz started the engine and pulled out of the parking lot, heading for Buffy’s house. The only sounds were the tires as they ‘shushed’ along the pavement and the low rumble of the motor. Neither one spoke for a long time as they made their way towards Revello Drive.
“Am I a horrible person?” Buffy’s hoarse whisper broke the silence as she turned and looked at the guy that Willow loved. Willow – her best friend, who was now in the hospital because of what Giles had done.
“I'd call that a radical interpretation of the text,” he replied, glancing over at her.
“Then why… why does everyone…” Buffy’s gravelly voice trailed off, her head shaking slowly to and fro.
“Okay, I pretty much missed out on some stuff, because this is all making a kind of sense that's... not,” Oz admitted. “But I’m not seeing the ‘everyone’ here. Clearly, something’s up with Giles, but add this and stir: Willow couldn’t love you more if you were her actual sister. Do you think Willow’s a bad person?”
“No, but…”
“So, if a good person like Willow can love you, then how could you be bad?” Oz wondered.
Buffy covered her face with her hands again as fresh wave of tears shuddered through her. “I don’t know,” she sobbed, her head still shaking as if she could make it all go away with the simple act of denial.
“Good people can make bad choices – not because they don’t love you, but pretty much because: human,” Oz pointed out. “Sometimes, if we care about them enough, we find ways to forgive them – give them another chance.”
“Like you did Willow,” Buffy croaked.
“As an example,” Oz confirmed stoically.
“This is more than a… a kiss in the closet,” she pointed out.
“Betrayal is betrayal.” Oz shrugged. “Still doesn’t make you a bad person. And it’s not ‘everyone’. Check out the lack of malice,” he entreated her, waving a hand around the van.
Buffy snorted, but could not stop her head from continuing its back and forth track, wishing the awful truth would just go away.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Spike paced back and forth from the foyer to the living room, his boots loud in the quiet house. All thought of eating or drinking anything had been immediately usurped with worry about the Slayer. The phone Joyce held to her ear rang and rang. No one was picking up at the library. “Maybe they’re on the way home,” Joyce suggested, chewing her lip as she put the receiver back in the cradle.
“I best go see,” Spike offered, whirling toward the door as the panic he was barely keeping in check began to boil over.
Before he got back to the foyer, the dog jumped up and gave a loud bark at the door, his eyes fixed on it intently.
“Buffy?” Joyce called worriedly, heading for the door, making the vampire step aside to let her pass. Even though Spike wanted nothing more than to pull the Slayer into his arms and check that she was uninjured, he had no idea how Buffy would feel about that. He had no idea how she’d even feel about him being back in town, back in her house, for that matter. Best to bide his time, feel things out, see where he stood with the chit.
Just as Joyce pulled the door open, both Spikes realized something was very wrong and many things began happening almost simultaneously. As soon as the door was open enough for him to get out, the dog rushed past Joyce. The Guardian headed directly for the prone figure draped in Buffy’s red jacket that was lying on the porch, his warning bark resuming. Joyce stepped out behind him, her eyes lighting on what appeared to be her daughter curled up on the porch, just in front of the swing. Thinking that the dog was upset because Buffy had been injured, she hurried forward, trying to reach her girl. Inside, the vampire yelled a warning, “No!” just a moment too late, as he flew forward to pull the elder Summers back into the house.
Before the blond vampire could get onto the porch, there was a thud of impact, the dog let out a yelp of pain, and went flying through the air, out into the yard. He landed with a ground-rattling thump and rolled to a stop against one of the trees. Joyce shrieked in surprise and fear. She jerked back from a grotesque-looking brunette vampire who had emerged from beneath Buffy’s coat. The demon lunged for her, huge hands reaching for her legs, preparing to pull them out from under her. Before the strange vampire’s fingers could close on any part of her body, Spike yanked her back, tossing her unceremoniously into the house, behind the protection of the threshold.
With the dog woozy and incapacitated in the yard, the vampire rushed out onto the porch as Joyce landed on her back on the hardwood and skidded several feet down the hallway. “STAY INSIDE!” Spike ordered her as his boot cracked against the jaw of the vampire wearing the Slayer’s coat just as he tried to rise.
“Where’s the Slayer!?” Spike growled, his golden eyes burning with rage as he reached down to yank the vampire up by his shirt-collar. Couldn’t be too late. He ripped Buffy’s coat off the other vamp’s shoulders and waved it in front of him like a matador’s cape. “Where the fuck’d you get this?” Spike demanded. Couldn’t be too late.
“Bubbly little blonde gave it to me,” the brunette replied with a vulgar grin, which opened the nasty gash from Spike’s boot wider. He ran his tongue over his fangs and lips, licking the dribbling blood from them. “Tasted like champagne. Liked to play.”
Spike exploded with fury. He drew an arm back and slammed his fist into the brunette’s jaw, whiplashing his head to the side. “Where is she?!” he screamed as he shook the other vamp violently.
“What? Did you want a piece o’ that? Not much left, but I’ll share what there is,” the brunette goaded, sneering lewdly.
“If you hurt her...!!” Spike threatened, yanking his arm back again and smashing it into the smug vampire’s mouth, loosening a fang in the process.
“Oh, do it again,” the brunette taunted, pressing his tongue against a new, bleeding wound and lifting his square jaw in invitation. “It tickles.”
When Spike drew his left arm back to hit him again, the brunette spun, ripping his shirt and pulling out of Spike’s grip. He bounded off the porch and out of reach, turning as he landed, ready and waiting for Spike’s pursuit. The brunette was not disappointed. With no real plan other than ‘kill’, Spike leapt after him with a roar of frustration, rage, and icy fear. Had he been too late, after all? Had this cretin killed his Slayer? His bloody Slayer!
The brunette ducked under the blond while Spike was in the air, lifting at the last moment, and sending Spike tumbling ass over teakettle into the street. Spike’s head cracked on the pavement like a ripe melon, and colorful stars danced behind his eyelids as he came to rest against a parked car. Before the blond could recover, the dog got back to his feet and was staggering toward the intruder, fangs bared in challenge.
The brunette laughed manically as the dog approached, turning to face him. “Aren’t you cute? I used to eat dogs like you for breakfast when I was a boy,” he mocked, taking two limping strides and kicking the Guardian in the ribs, again sending him hurtling through the air, this time to smash against the porch steps.
“Spike! No!” Joyce cried, standing in the open doorway, frantic with fear as the dog grunted with pain and rolled limply down the stairs, becoming little more than a mound of unmoving fur at the bottom.
Vampire-Spike had gotten back to his feet and was stalking toward the still-chuckling, clearly-insane brunette. “Why don’cha pick on someone your own size, you bloody tosser?”
The cretin turned around to face the blond, the smile never leaving his face. “I like ‘em small and tight… you know what I mean?” he needled, making a show of adjusting his crotch. “They just scream so much louder when I rip them open.”
Blind fury detonated inside Spike again as the thought of this… this monster touching Buffy flashed like nitro in his mind, igniting a blinding fire in his blood. He roared and charged the other vampire like a linebacker zeroing in on a quarterback. Spike crashed into the brunette, wiping the smirk off his ugly face with a brutal tackle. The furious blond rode the interloper to the ground, driving the breath out of him with a grunt of pain, and smashing the back of his skull against the hard concrete of the walkway.
Despite the blow to the head, the brunette was able to use Spike’s momentum against him. Bucking his hips up with a violent jerk as he hit, the bigger vamp flipped his attacker over his head and off. A matching grunt of pain ripped from the blond’s throat when he landed, but neither vampire stayed down long. In the next moment, they were back on their feet, crouched, ready to spring, circling each other, looking for an opening.
Neither seemed inclined to wait long, however. In just a few moments, they both barreled forward, fists flying and fangs flashing. The impact shook the ground, something akin to two freight trains hitting head on. Spike was staggered back by a heavy blow to his nose, but he kicked out as he stepped back, his boot connecting with the other vampire’s danglies. But pain wasn’t registering for either of the enraged demons. They met and parted again and again. Rushing forward and retreating, kicking, punching, spinning, ducking, evading. Blood was drawn. Bones cracked. Bruises bloomed. Fangs flashed. Grunts of pain and growls of fury filled the air as they struck and parried, too equally matched for either to gain a clear advantage.
In the middle of the melee, Spike saw out of the corner of his eye something that made his blood turn to ice: Joyce. Out of the house. Vulnerable. “Joyce! No!”
The small distraction was all his opponent needed. In the next moment, Spike found himself being lifted off the ground and driven into one of the huge trees in the yard. He felt ribs crack as his body was crushed between the immovable wood and the raging vampire. Spike’s head was the next thing to crash against the trunk, the blow sending the world spinning sideways on its axis. The blond blinked and reached out for something to steady himself on, some way to stop the sickening motion. He found nothing but open air as he slid down, landing in the grass with a dismal groan.
“Love to stay and chat, but I’ve got a mother to reunite with her little girl,” the brunette said casually as he turned his back on Spike and headed for the house. He was limping, bleeding from several gashes and gouges, and overall worse for wear, but still upright, still undusty, still dangerous. The crazy vampire grinned as Joyce looked up from her mission, trying to drag the unconscious dog up the stairs and back inside. The vamp chuckled wickedly. Fear. Could never get enough of the sweet scent of a mother’s fear. It was better than any drug he’d ever snorted, swallowed, or shot into his veins. A mother’s fear was a high that made him yearn for flesh, for blood; it made him impossibly hard and blissfully violent. And it was filling his undead lungs now in hot, wicked surges.
Spike shook his head, desperate to clear the overwhelming waves of spiraling fireworks from his vision. “NO! FUCK!” he roared again, staggering back to his feet. The world tilted and spun, and he wavered dangerously, trying to move forward. He clenched his jaw, catching his balance as he pushed through the pain, and began moving as fast as his wobbly legs could take him toward the house – toward the Slayer’s mum.
The cocky brunette had underestimated Spike’s ability to endure pain, or perhaps his speed, because even with the ground spinning beneath him, the blond caught up to him. Spike slammed into the intruder with his shoulder, sending fresh shockwaves of agony through his own cracked ribs. The impact knocked the other vamp down and off the path, away from the Slayer’s mum, who had still been struggling valiantly, but fruitlessly, to get the dog to safety. Spike nearly fell also, but managed to keep his feet by sheer force of will, though more spots of blinding color splintered across his vision with the effort.
“INSIDE!” Spike ordered, blinking to clear the pain and regain focus as he moved away from the downed vampire with the same speed he’d used to overtake him. Joyce’s head jerked up at the commotion and Spike’s order, but she still had a hold of two of the dog’s legs as she fought to get the Guardian up the steps. Spike didn’t wait for her to comply. With a bounding step, he leapt over the prone mound of fur and grabbed the woman as he flew by. Joyce’s grip on the dog was jarred free as the vampire pulled her with him into the house. Spike tried to cushion her fall as they both crashed onto the foyer floor, arms and legs tangled. He grunted as she landed atop him, sending a whole set of Ginsu knives – order now and get another set absolutely free! Just pay additional shipping and handling! – slicing through his ribcage and into his lungs.
“What the fuck were you thinking!?” Spike growled, panting for air and trying to get up. At last, he made it back to his feet, all the while clutching his side, trying to keep those knives from slicing any deeper. He thought it had only taken a moment or two, but when he finally made it back outside, both the brunette and the dog were gone. He jogged down the walkway, wincing and holding his ribs the whole way. He looked up and down the street, but saw nothing.
The blond took a deep inhalation through his bloodied nose. The motion brought in a third set of knives to stab into his flesh, twisting his ribs torturously. Ignoring the pain, he slowly turned his face this way, then that, then stopped, looking to the left. He knew they went that way… he could track them. Spike took a step, determined to do just that, but stopped, looking back at the house and the disheveled woman silhouetted in the doorway. The crazy bastard didn’t want the fucking dog… he wanted the Slayer’s mum. If Spike went after the dog, he’d leave the house, and Joyce, unguarded. While that box o’ rocks couldn’t get in, there were plenty of ways to get frightened humans to come out, and Joyce was most assuredly frightened.
But did that vamp have Buffy? Or only her jacket? Was he just talking big? Vampires did love to talk big – if all vamps that claimed to have been at the crucifixion had really been there, it would’ve been bigger than Woodstock.
Spike tried to get his frenzied emotions under control so he could think. He hadn’t smelled any Slayer blood on the arsehole… maybe he’d been bluffing.
“Bloody fucking hell!” he snarled, pacing in a circle at the end of the walk, cradling his ribs, not sure what to do.
“Spike? What’s happening? Where’s… where’s Spike?” Joyce cried in a tremulous voice as she once again started down the porch steps.
“Would you get inside the sodding house, for fuck’s sake!?” Spike screamed, taking off running toward her again. Every step was a jolt of agony through Spike’s torso, but he didn’t slow, afraid the other vamp could’ve circled back and was lying in wait for this chance to grab the Slayer’s mum.
Joyce stopped and looked around jerkily, her eyes wide with terror.
“In the house!” the vampire repeated as he reached her, spinning her around by her shoulders and marching her back up the stairs.
“B-But Spike! He took Spike!” she protested.
“Yeah, and lettin’ him take you won’t get the bloody mutt back!” the vampire pointed out, getting her inside and slamming the door closed behind them. He began pacing again, running one hand through his curls as his other patted his pockets, looking for his fags. He stopped suddenly and looked up at Joyce. “Call the Slayer’s mates – see if they’ve seen her – the Watcher too!”
“But … Spike…” she stammered, not fully comprehending.
“Forget the mongrel for a sodding minute – we need to find your daughter,” he insisted.
“Buffy… he… he had her coat.”
“Give the girl a Kewpie doll. Now… ring them up – see if they know where she is, where they saw her last,” he ordered, turning her toward the phone by the couch.
“Right… okay,” Joyce stammered, reaching for the phone, but stopping. “The… the numbers are in the kitchen,” she told Spike.
“Kitchen it is, then,” he agreed, walking the stunned woman that way, every step jarring his ribs, sliding bone against bone in curiously painful ways.
As Joyce tried to settle her mind and begin calling Buffy’s friends, Spike, once again, began to pace – ribs be damned. This time he ran a circuit from the kitchen through the dining room, into the foyer, then back down the hall, through the sitting room and into the kitchen again. He smelled the pot of sauce on the stove, which had begun to burn, and turned it off as Joyce called Willow, but only got her answering machine.
He stopped and considered the fridge for a moment. Now that his adrenaline was waning, his energy was going with it. Spike needed blood to heal, to recharge his depleted reserves of energy. When was the last time he’d really fed well? He tried to remember… not last night, not the night before… there were several hazy nights that he couldn’t remember… He shook his head, giving up. The lack of sleep didn’t help his recollection any, either. When had he slept last? A few hours in the car at that truck stop… was that a day ago now? Or two?
Spike was reaching for the refrigerator door and Joyce had just started dialing Giles’ number when Spike heard someone trying to get in the front door.
“Stay here!” Spike ordered the woman in a low, but stern voice. “I bloody well mean it,” he growled as he hurried through the sitting room and up the hallway toward the foyer.
As he strode down the hall, a bruised, battered, nearly-broken Slayer trudged in. Spike froze, mid-stride. His heart exploded with relief and agony, anger and joy. He wasn’t too late! She was here! She was alive. But she was hurt, beaten, limping. Her heart thundered like a drum in his ears, the unmistakable power of her tingling down his spine, the scent of her tears heavy in the air.
“Buffy!” he exclaimed, his boots moving again, propelling him toward her of their own accord.
Buffy’s head shot up at the sound of his voice, the feel of his aura practically vibrating inside the house like a hum of electricity. Her heart skipped a micro-beat, joy enveloping every ounce of pain and betrayal she’d endured these past days. A wave of relief washed through her, feeling like heaven after the hell she’d been living in. Spike had come; her friend was here!
In the next instant, her bloodshot eyes found him, and bulged with comprehension, a frisson of fear skittering up and down her spine, reality crashing down on her like a lead balloon.
William the Bloody was here. The Slayer of Slayers was in her house. And she was weak and wounded. Her fears were made flesh and bone and coming towards her! No, no, no! Instinctively, she scrabbled at her waistband for her stake, only then remembering she’d lost it at the library.
“MOM! SPIKE! WHERE ARE YOU!?” she tried to scream, though it came out as a croak through her rough throat, her hand digging frantically into her pocket. She couldn’t let it all end like this… Not now…
Spike stopped short when she spoke, holding out his hands, palms up, in what he hoped was a non-threatening manner. “Slayer—” he began, but she cut him off.
“Where are they?” Buffy demanded, her voice rough, her eyes crazed as she took in the blood coating the vampire’s face Who’s blood? Her dog’s? Her mom’s? She produced the cross Giles had given her, ignoring the sharp biting betrayal that zinged through her as it touched her fingers, and held it up shakily, thrusting it toward him. “My mom! Spike! What did you do to them?! Tell me!”
“Nothing, for fuck’s sake! I—”
“How did you get here so fast? Are you with them? The Council? Kralik? TELL ME!” the Slayer demanded, as she bent down with a grunt and grimace of pain and retrieved a stake from the basket by the door, never taking her eyes off the master vampire.
“What the hell’re you on about, Slayer?! Not with anyone, you daft bint!” he snarled, moving forward again with fast, indignant strides, the pain in his ribs overshadowed by his growing anger and frustration. He’d driven like a fucking madman, had been frantic with worry, and this was the welcome he got?! What the bloody hell had he been thinking?
Buffy jerked back up, stake in one hand, cross in the other, both trembling with fear and exhaustion, knowing this was all her fault. If anything had happened to her mom… “Don’t lie to me!” she squeaked, her voice giving way under the strain, despite every effort to keep it strong.
“Not soddin’ lying!” he barked, reaching for the cross and yanking it from her hand. His fingers smoldered, smoke rising from them where they touched the wood.
Buffy’s eyes went wide, disbelieving, her terror ratcheting up several notches as she watched him holding the cross as if… as if it were nothing at all. Her chin quivered, her mind flooding with images of her mother and dog crumpled and dying in a heap somewhere in the house. Of this vampire wiping their blood from his lips as he waited in ambush for her to come home… waited for his third Slayer to just walk into his trap.
And she’d done just that. God, she really was a reckless disappointment, wasn’t she?
“When ‘ave I ever lied to you, Slayer?” Spike ground out before he tossed the cross onto the sofa in the living room, wincing as a slip of burned skin caught and ripped.
Buffy shrieked in terrified rage, pulling the stake back to strike. Her heart twisted with remorse and guilt. She didn’t want to do this. Not to Spike. She’d called him, set them on this collision course. Reckless. All she’d wanted was to talk to him, but now he was here to kill her. Everyone betrayed her. Why would Spike – the evil, soulless vampire – be any different? He had more reason to hurt her than anyone else, and they’d succeeded. Why not him?
Buffy’s arm came forward in a deadly arc. The Slayer screamed with the effort, with frustration and heartache and desperation. Using every ounce of her paltry strength, putting her whole body behind it, the stake descended, plunging directly for Spike’s heart.
** X-X-X-X-X **
STORY BOARDS
Story board 1: If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link.
Story board 2 - If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link.
Story board 3 - If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can findit at this link.
End notes:
Oh no! That’s not quite the welcome Spike had dreamed of, was it? Nothing can ever be easy for these two! Thank you so much for reading!! Will have more on Thursday.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Chapter 9: Fifty Bucks
Chapter Text
Chapter Notes:
Thanks to all of you for reading! It means so much to me, like Snickers for my muse! Sending all the sloppy, joyful doggie kisses to everyone who has left a note, a like or a kudo. I love hearing from everyone! I apologize for falling behind in replying to your comments. My time is getting squeezed to the breaking point right now, so I’m focusing on keeping the posting schedule. I promise to get caught up on the comments, though!
Thanks also my two wonderful Beta readers and friends: Holi117 and Paganbaby, and to TeamEricNSookie for pre-reading. Extra special thanks to Holi117 in this chapter, which was one I went off-track way too quickly and she had to steer me back to the slow burn lane. She is a rock star!
All mistakes are mine because I keep fiddling with stuff. If you see any, PM me and I’ll fix it.
Chapter 9 : Fifty Bucks
Buffy’s arm came forward in a deadly arc. The Slayer screamed with the effort, with frustration and heartache and utter desperation. Using every ounce of her paltry strength, putting her whole body behind it, the stake descended, plunging directly for Spike’s heart.
“Bloody hell!” Spike exclaimed as he ducked and instinctively raised an arm to block her attack.
“Buffy! No!”
Everything froze for a moment. Buffy’s forearm braced against Spike’s, the stake hovering in the air above his heart. Thoughts raced through the Slayer’s mind at warp speed as her head shot around toward the sound. ‘Mom!’ Her mom was there. Wasn’t she? Was this a trick? Was she a vampire? Had he made her mother a demon? Was this some kind of sick joke to make Buffy stake her own mother? Another of the Council’s tests?
Buffy’s stomach dropped. Bile rose in her throat. Tears burned her eyes. Daggers sliced her guts into ribbons. Her head shook back and forth, more futile denial. “No, no, no…”
“Buffy, honey –” Joyce continued, reaching out and laying a warm hand on her daughter’s arm.
Warm hand. Not cold. Not dead. Warm hand.
“MOM! Oh, God… oh, Mom, I thought… I… they… he…” Buffy stammered, the stake clattering from her suddenly-lax grip as she threw herself at her mother.
“Bloody ungrateful bitch,” Spike grumbled under his breath as he bent down with a grimace and picked up the stake, tucking it into a duster pocket.
Joyce looked over her daughter’s head at the vampire, her eyes imploring him to not be angry as she held her sobbing, distraught child. Spike sighed and rolled his eyes, walking a few steps into the living room before turning back around and watching the two women.
He was an idiot. How could he have thought this would go any differently? That she’d welcome him? When had she ever welcomed him? His eyes landed on the Slayer again as she embraced her mother. Buffy looked so tiny, all of a sudden. So fragile. So shattered. Nothing like the fiery Valkyrie he’d left behind and thought of far more often than he knew he ought to. And it wasn’t just the bruises and cuts, or her limping gait, it was her heart, he thought – her light. Something other than just losing her strength or being beaten up had happened. Something dear to her had been stolen.
“Buffy, we were so worried. There was a vampire here,” Joyce began to explain as she smoothed a hand through Buffy’s hair, trying to calm her down.
“There’s still a vampire here!” the Slayer interrupted, shooting a wary look over her shoulder at Spike, suddenly aware that she’d dropped her stake. “He… he might be with them!” she accused again, stepping from her mother’s embrace but staying between the woman and the demon.
“You really think I’d hurt your mum? After everything?” Spike snapped, wishing instantly that he’d held his bloody tongue.
“Well, wouldn’t you?!”
“You’re a piece o’ work, Summers—” Spike began angrily, taking a step forward, jabbing a finger in her direction.
“No, no,” her mom assured her, giving Spike another pleading look and cutting off the vampire’s impending tirade. “Spike helped us! He… he fought him. The other one had your jacket… We thought… we… were afraid that he’d…” Joyce’s voice trailed off, unable to finish the thought.
Buffy turned back to her mom. “Spike helped? H-he’s not with them? Are you sure? Maybe it was a trick!”
Joyce shook her head. “No, believe me, honey, he’s not with them.”
Buffy stared at her mom for several long moments, wrapping her mind around the words. She finally nodded blankly. ‘Not with them doesn’t mean he’s not here to kill you. Fought off the other vamp to kill you himself.’
Her brows furrowed as she looked again at the blond standing a few feet away. She had to blink the mist of tears from her eyes to get him to come into focus. He looked different somehow. Less… less Spike-like. Worried? Tired? Ashen? The broken nose, bruises and blood on his face, and swelling around his eyes didn’t help. And he was standing more stiffly, protecting his ribs, a lot like she was. He had fought… but what was his end game? Why was he really here?
Since Spike didn’t seem to be attacking at that exact moment, Buffy bought some time and asked, “The other vamp… Kralik? O-or Blair?”
“There weren’t really formal introductions,” Joyce replied.
“Few fries short of a Happy Meal… square face, smelled of an apothecary… said he’d met ya today. Had your sodding coat,” Spike offered, trying to keep his disappointment and temper pushed down. He once again began patting his pockets down for his cigarettes. Buggering hell, maybe he should just take off?
“Kralik,” Buffy whispered, a shudder running through her. There was something very, very wrong about that vampire. She’d known it in the school, and Giles had confirmed it in the hospital. Her heart clenched and she valiantly fought back a wash of fresh tears. Giles. The image of her Watcher showing her the vial and syringe, of the baggie full of poisoned treats, washed through her mind and cast her aching heart even deeper into the shadows.
“I know who did this… t-to me and Spike,” Buffy declared, the words out before she could think of stopping them.
“You do? Who? Is that where you’ve been? How do we fix it?” Joyce demanded, turning her daughter to face her.
Buffy lifted her shimmering gaze to meet her mother’s. “Giles… Giles did it.”
“WHAT?!” both Joyce and Spike exclaimed as one.
“Are you sure? That can’t be…” Joyce stammered.
Buffy’s chin quivered as she fought to keep her emotions in check. “I’m sure,” she whispered, her throat tight.
“How – why!?” her mother asked.
“I’ll sodding kill ‘im,” Spike growled under his breath as he began pacing in a tight circle, listening to them talk.
Buffy sniffed and swallowed, gathering herself before answering her mom. “He… it’s a… test. The Council… when a Slayer turns eighteen, they circumcise them and call it a trial. I… I don’t really know why. I was supposed to fight Kralik in some kind of Thunderdome death match. It was supposed to be my birthday disaster party, you know, just to keep the tradition going. But he escaped early, I guess, and… and he came here?” the Slayer demanded, that part suddenly sinking in fully. “He was here!? At our house?”
“Spike… William, that is, fought him off, but he took Spike… the dog.”
“WHAT?!” Buffy choked out, whirling around to face their guest again. “After everything, after we got Dru back for you, you just let Kralik take him?!” she demanded of the vampire, her anger flaring back to life.
Spike came to an abrupt halt, whirling to face her. “Oh, that’s fuckin’ rich! Not two minutes ago you were accusing me of attacking your mum – which I clearly didn’t do!” Spike complained acerbically, stepping closer, trying to restrain his frustration. “Now I let that blighter take your sodding dog? What are ya gonna accuse me of next? Being the second gunman on the grassy knoll?!”
“Not a gunman, just a vampire with very questionable motives. So, you protected my mom, but let them take my dog, instead. The Guardian of the Twilight. The only other person or… you know… warrior in this house that would be a threat to you!”
“You’re off your bird! Didn’t let him take the mutt! Bloody hell! Was trying to keep ‘im from taking your mum!” Spike defended, finally pulling his cigarettes and lighter out of his pocket. “That’s gratitude for ya, ain’t it? Try to help and get nothing but shite about it. Clearly, no good deed goes unpunished with you white hats.”
“You seem ambulatory. If you didn’t want him out of the way, then why didn’t you go after him? Get him back?” Buffy pressed, her swollen hands curling into fists at her sides.
Buffy held her breath, not sure she wanted to know the answer. God! Why was Spike here?! What was his angle?! Why wasn’t he attacking? Had he made some deal with Kralik to just keep her talking? What the hell was going on? Buffy was so tired of being confused. She was tired, period. And hurting, inside and out. Giles’ betrayal had bled her just as surely as a vampire’s fangs. She couldn’t deal with much more tonight. Not when it was taking all that she had just to stay upright, to not crumple in on herself and give in to the tsunami of misery and pain inside. She hardened her features, waiting for his answer. The Slayer had to figure this out before she simply collapsed.
“And leave yer mum unguarded for him to circle ‘round and snatch up?” Spike shot back, taking a cigarette from the pack and putting it between his lips.
“She was safe in the house,” the Slayer pointed out.
“Yeah, if she would’ve stayed in the sodding house. Worse than you ‘bout following directions, that one,” Spike shot back, jabbing an accusing finger past Buffy at Joyce. “Can’t do one simple thing – stay put!”
“I’m afraid that’s true,” Joyce admitted quietly from behind Buffy, embarrassment coating her words. “I… I distracted William. It’s my fault he got hurt… my fault that horrible Kralik-person took Spike.”
Spike gave the woman an appreciative look for backing him up, for admitting her part in the fiasco. “Well, if I’m honest, there’s plenty ‘o ways to get humans outta their houses,” he allowed. “Would’ve taken nothing more than a bottle o’ whiskey, an old shirt, and a lighter to get her out,” the vampire pointed out, opening his Zippo and flicking it to life. “Hard to stay in a house that’s been set alight with a Molotov cocktail,” he continued, touching the flame to the end of the fag and inhaling sharply. “Didn’t think you’d care much for that happening to your mum,” he added as he exhaled a plume of smoke and stuffed the pack and lighter back into his pocket. “So, excuse me for trying to do the right thing. Should’a known it wouldn’t be good enough for the Princess of Perfection.”
Buffy ground her teeth, which hurt, so she stopped. But she closed the short distance to the vampire with one faltering step and plucked the cigarette from between his lips.
“Oi!” was all he could get out before she had the front door open and had tossed the cigarette through it out onto the front walk.
“My house. My rules. I’m tired of the games. What are you doing here, Spike?” the Slayer demanded again as she turned back around and slammed the door closed in one motion. Her face contorted in pain with the action and she automatically cradled her right arm against her chest.
“You fucking called me, you stupid bint!” he bellowed at the same time Joyce admitted, “I called him.”
“You?” Buffy and Joyce both said at once, looking at each other.
Spike rolled his eyes, exhausted and exasperated, his ribs aching and his stomach beginning to twinge with hunger. Fuck this. Why was he even here? He’d leave, snatch up a townie on his way out – with any luck he could find the Watcher and drain him. Then let this stubborn, ungrateful bitch deal with this all by her-bloody-self! “Both of you called me,” he revealed. “Said something was wrong, said you needed help. Apparently, ya got it all sorted, and you don’t need me and my questionable bloody motives. Can see when I’m not wanted, not good enough for you lot, so I’ll just be off,” he asserted, making to step by Buffy to get to the door. “Maybe next time you’re having a sodding breakdown, you should bloody well call Angel, hmm?”
“What?!”
Spike spun on his heel. “In fact. Where is the gigantic poof, huh? Don’t smell him anywhere. Don’t see yer soddin’ Watcher clamoring at the door wanting to help. Oh wait. That’s right. He bloody did this to you!”
“How dare you –”
“What? Tell it like it is? Sorry, Princess, thought you knew me by now. I don’t sugarcoat shit when I see it.”
“You’re right, Spike. I do know you! You’re an evil, soulless –”
“Yeah. I am. And you still called me! What does that tell you?”
She couldn’t deal with this. If he wasn’t going to attack her, then what was he doing here?
“I don’t have time for these games!” she spat, hardening her resolve once more as she spun on her heel, turning her back, practically daring him to reveal his true colors and make a damn move. One way or another, she needed this finished.
“You’re the one playin’ games! Calling me, begging, pleading, sounding like the sodding army of hell itself was after ya. May be evil and soulless, but at least I’m not a cold, heartless bitch.”
She spun back to him again, unable to stop herself, her body firing off pain signals with every tiny movement. “God! You just don’t know when to stop, do you? I knew calling you was a mistake!”
“And clearly comin’ here was an even bigger mistake!”
“Why did you come here? To mock me to death? Shove all my faults and stupid decisions in my face, remind me what a failure I am, what a shitty Slayer I’ve been, hoping I just lay back and offer up my neck?”
Spike growled, his cheeks sucking into tight hollows as he shook his head with irritation. “Why do ya keep asking me that? Have you gone soft in the head? You called, sounded like you needed me – needed my help. And I’m here! Got beat to shit saving your mum. Tried to save your fucking dog. Yet all you’ve done is toss it back in my face!”
“And, again, I ask why! If not to kill me, then –”
“Because I thought we were friends!” Spike blurted out, shouting it at her as his arms flung wide.
Buffy’s heart all but stopped for the briefest moment. Her eyes widened, and her mouth gaped, trembling. “You… You came because…”
“Oh, bloody hell,” Spike grumbled dropping his arms, and his chin.
“Because we’re… friends?”
Could he be telling the truth? Was he really here just because they’d called him? To help? But that didn’t make any sense… he was the Slayer of Slayers, and here was number three, just standing here, weak and beaten, and… why hadn’t she called Angel?
“Not just that,” Spike insisted, sniffing sharply and squaring his shoulders. “Got business elsewhere, ain’t I? You were… on the way… between points o’ California and… other points.” But his voice wasn’t as strong as it should have been, and he couldn’t look her in the eye. He’d been right about one thing: Buffy did know him well enough by now, and she could see through the defensive white lie for what it was.
Her conversation with Willow earlier that day replayed in her mind in a flash.
“He’d tell me the truth, even if it was harsh… Spike, he never lied to me or… or acted like I… like I couldn’t handle reality. I just… I wanted to hear his voice once more before I died. When I was most afraid, when I thought I was gonna die, I called Spike.”
Silence settled between the vampire and the Slayer for what had to be only seconds, but felt like a lifetime. His eyes finally met hers. Buffy stared at him, watching as his expressive blue eyes implored her, still flaring with an echo of anger and… hurt?
“I just…” He sighed. “I came, alright?” His tone was softer, tinged with something she didn’t think she’d ever heard in his voice before.
She felt something crack inside her chest and suddenly, there was nothing else she could do but believe his words. He’d fought Kralik when he didn’t have to. He’d risked his own safety to protect her mom.
He’d actually come to help her?
“You… you came to help me?” she stammered her thought aloud.
Spike rolled his whole head to the ceiling in exasperation. “What I’ve been sayin’, innit?”
Buffy nodded slowly, biting down on her lower lip in thought. “So-so… a truce, then?” she stammered tentatively, fighting to keep her composure, to not let this revelation crumble her resolve. She had to be strong. He was telling the truth, she knew it somehow, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t turn on her in the end. Everyone always did. She couldn’t let that happen again. Reckless.
“If you still want it,” he replied guardedly, looking back at her and shoving his hands into his duster pockets.
“Th-then we’d be even. Because I helped you before, with Dru…”
Spike grimaced at the sound of his sire’s name on the Slayer’s tongue. The emotional wounds still too raw and vibrant inside him. “Right,” he managed to get out. “Even. Tit for tat, or whatever.”
“Okay, then.”
Meeting her shimmering gaze, Spike felt as if his heart was in his throat. God, she looked so vulnerable. Not like his Slayer at all. Sod it all, he wanted to reach out and wipe the errant tear from her cheek. To scoop her up and take her somewhere safe, away from the fucking Council and this sodding Hellmouth – someplace where nothing could hurt her again. But even now, as downtrodden as she was, she was no damsel. ‘Probably beat your arse for just thinkin’ about saving her.’ That thought made his lips curve at the corners. His Slayer was a force of nature. Even now he could feel her backbone turning to steel, her stubborn resolve hardening, her infuriating, overbearing, autocratic disposition stirring back to brilliant life.
As their gazes met again, it was all Buffy could do not to reach out and touch him. Something behind those blue eyes was broken… calling to her to hug him and tell him everything would be okay. To help him, even as he was here, declaring he’d come to help her. She wanted to thank him for coming. Thank him for saving her mom. Thank him for the postcards that had kept her going all these weeks. She longed to find comfort in him. Comfort that she knew was wrong, was reckless, but was burning inside her all the same.
Badness. That way lay nothing but badness. She couldn’t cater to the naïve girl inside, the one that wanted to fall into his arms, to take shelter in his strength, if only for a little while before sending him back to his destiny, to Drusilla. That girl was reckless and disappointing. She couldn’t be that girl anymore. The words she wished she could say caught in her throat and died there. Her hands, which yearned to reach out and touch him, remained clenched at her sides.
Buffy took a deep breath and closed her eyes for just a moment. As she opened them again, she let all the air out, straightening her spine and slamming down her emotions into a dark little box.
“A truce then,” Spike repeated, shifting uncomfortably as he cleared his throat and took a small step back, sensing the change within her. Girl was like a pinball machine inside.
“Right. A truce. A temporary thing until you go on to your… uh, other business…”
“Right. ‘Course…” He cleared his throat again, fighting the urge to reach out and touch her, to ease her simmering distress. But he knew it wouldn’t be welcome. It would never be welcomed, and that was how it was supposed to be. He’d done enough damage just showing up here.
“No killing of anyone, including Giles,” Buffy clarified. “What’s been me and Giles is for me to deal with.”
Spike rolled his eyes. Heard that, had she? “Fine.”
Silence fell over them, uncomfortable and thick. Buffy cast around for something to say to break the oppressive tension, finally coming up with, “Just so you know, I’m counting this as you breaking your word again by coming back.”
“That’s not bloody fair. Thought we’d covered this. You sodding called me!” he argued. Bloody hell! Not just a pinball machine, but one having a fuckin’ grand mal seizure.
“I didn’t ask you to come, I asked you to call back,” she pointed out.
“That’s splitting hairs a mite thin,” he contended. “Anyway, did call you – you never called me back.”
“You did not.”
“Did so – left a message on your blasted machine.”
“You sooo didn’t!”
“Did… left two messages, in point of fact.”
“You are such a liar!”
“Am I, then? When have I ever lied to you, Slayer?” Spike arched his scarred brow at her, tucking his thumbs over his belt buckle. He rolled up onto his toes then back on his heels, waiting for her apology.
Buffy sighed and rolled her eyes. Stupid vampire. Only one in the whole world who didn’t lie… or not well enough to make it worthwhile, anyway. Wasn’t that one of the reason’s she’d called him? Because he’d tell her the truth, no matter what? God, this was so confusing! Spike was so damn confusing!
“I guess we need to get a new machine,” she muttered sourly.
“Sorry, didn’t quite catch that. Was that an apology?” he taunted, lifting a hand to his ear as if to hear better.
“Don’t push your luck,” Buffy ground out, her eyes narrowing in challenge.
Spike grinned in victory, happy with even that small admission. “So, got that settled. Now I reckon you need me to get Cujo,” he theorized as he began looking around the living room. “Just point me to the weapons, an’ I’ll—”
“No,” the Slayer said tightly, her voice steady, urging him to look back at her. “I need you to keep my mom safe. I’ll get Spike.”
“Buffy, no!” Joyce cried, coming closer to the blonde pair. They both twisted toward her, each suddenly realizing she’d been privy to their heated, awkward exchange. “You can’t.”
Spike ignored the shiver of embarrassment he felt surge through his chest. What did he care anyway? He hadn’t said anything that needed hiding. This was business. A truce transaction. Well, he had just called her daughter a heartless bitch. He winced inwardly, but kept his outward composure in place.
“Gotta go along with mum on this one, pet. Barely staying upright, you are,” Spike agreed. “I’ll go get the flea bag, bring him back safe and sound,” he assured her with a sigh, which sent more daggers through his chest. He hid the pain that washed over his face by turning to once again look for weapons.
“One: Not your ‘pet’. Two: I said ‘no,’” Buffy ground out.
Spike’s brows shot up. Back to that, then, eh? Not his pet. Didn’t mind him calling her ‘pet’ when he was opening her eyes ‘bout Angel’s sudden affinity for Slayers after the gypsy’s curse. Or when he was sharing his onion rings with her and her sodding dog. Or when he let her pick the radio station. Or when he kept Dru from attacking her while her back was turned. Or when she’d called him ‘friend’.
Buffy ignored the silent gesture and kept talking, “It’s not for you to do. They want a test? A trial? They want me to prove that I’m the Slayer… fine, then that’s what they’ll get… that’s what I’ll do. Show them I’m still the Slayer.”
“You can barely move,” Spike pointed out. “Could knock you over with a sodding feather, if I’d had a mind to. Still might, truce or no,” he threatened.
“Yeah, what about you, tough guy?” she countered, reaching a hand out and poking him in the ribs, then tweaking his nose, which had gotten smashed again in the latest melee.
“Bloody hell!” he objected, flinching back. “Still better ‘an you. You’re beat to fucking death.”
“I’m not dead yet,” she asserted, turning for the stairs. This was better. This Buffy knew. This didn’t lead to badness. To recklessness or disappointment. Arguing and bickering. Calling truces. This was better than staring into the blue ocean of his gaze, being swept up in the current and sinking into their bottomless depths.
Spike rolled his eyes to the ceiling in renewed exasperation, his hands going to his hips. Joyce touched his shoulder and, when he looked back at her, her gaze was pleading. She motioned with her head for him to follow her daughter, her intention clear: talk the girl out of this plan.
“I’m the Slayer,” Buffy continued as she began hobbling slowly up the stairs.
A whole silent conversation went on behind her between Joyce and Spike with hand gestures and facial expressions.
‘Talk her out of it!’
‘How the bloody hell am I supposed t’ do that?’
‘I don’t know, think of something!’
‘Brilliant! You’re the mum – you think of something!’
‘She’ll listen to you!’
‘Clearly not! Did ya not just hear that entire argument?’
‘Spike, please! You’ve got to make her listen!’
‘There is no sodding universe where that will happen!’
Meanwhile, Buffy kept talking, “If this is what I have to do to prove it, then, fine.”
Joyce pushed him toward the stairs, urging him to follow the girl. Spike sighed and rolled his eyes, looking at the slowly retreating Slayer as she limped away.
“I’ll show them just how a circumcised Slayer fights… and wins,” Buffy finished, leaning on the banister as she stepped up with one foot, paused, then brought other foot up to meet it, one stair at a time.
Spike grimaced. “Do wish you’d stop using that word.”
“What, ‘Slayer’?” she asked.
“No, the other one.”
“Circum—”
“Bloody hell!” Spike exclaimed, cutting her off, giving Joyce a dirty look as he followed Buffy up the stairs. “Not sure that’s the proper word – you sure you know what that means?”
Buffy shrugged, which she immediately regretted as fires reignited in her shoulder, but she kept walking. “Cutting off something that’s a natural part of you?” she guessed. “And, based on your reaction, something that you’d rather not have cut off.”
“Right, then… guess you do know what it means. Still don’t think this is a brilliant plan.”
“Well, your track record with plans is less than stellar, so I’m taking that as a ringing endorsement of mine.”
“Fuck’s sake, woman – if you’re lookin’ to off yourself, be happy to handle that for ya,” he offered as he followed her into her bedroom. “Call off the truce and I’ll drain ya dry. Promise to make it good for you.”
“Yeah, right. Thought I’d made my feelings about letting you bite me perfectly clear last time. No means no.”
“A bird can change her mind. Might as well let me have it rather than the Council’s rabid lapdog,” Spike suggested, slipping back into the old routine with her. This was better. This Spike knew. Arguing and bickering. Calling truces. This kept those ridiculous thoughts about protecting the Slayer, about holding her in his arms, down beneath his cocky veneer, where they belonged. This wouldn’t lead to rejection. He didn’t think he could take another cold dismissal, even from a friend… or enemy, depending on which way the pinball machine tilted.
“I’m not letting anyone have it,” Buffy assured him, stopping near the bed and turning around to face him. “Slayer blood stays inside Slayer—not for vampire consumption.”
“Wouldn’t count on that, condition you’re in,” Spike countered. “If you go out t’ get Cujo alone, chances are good—”
“Wow! Thanks for the vote of confidence!”
“Didn’t know you wanted a sodding cheerleader; left my pom-poms in the car. Trying to keep your bitchy ass alive, here, Slayer.”
“I’ve beaten the odds before, I’ll do it again,” she asserted with a pout.
Spike spun away from her, flinging his arms out in exasperation and regretting it immediately as knives twisted in his ribs. “You beat the odds at full strength! Not drugged by your sodding Watcher!” He turned back and strode up to her, getting in her face. “Hit me!”
“I’m not going to hit—”
He pushed her shoulder, making her stumble back. “HIT ME!” he insisted, shoving her again.
“Stop it!” Buffy gasped, her shoulder exploding in fire. She clutched her arm to her chest, trying to douse the flames that shot down her arm and up her neck.
A stab of guilt twisted Spike’s belly. He hated seeing her like this – weak and vulnerable – but he had to make his point. “Make me,” he growled back, knocking her back another step.
“Damn it!” she swore, lifting her good, left arm and throwing a jab at his jaw.
Spike leaned to the side almost leisurely, though he winced as his ribs creaked and ground together with the motion, and her fist whiffed by harmlessly. He stood back straight and arched a brow at her. “You were sayin’?”
“You’re an ass!”
“Yeah, well, if that’s what it takes to keep you from offing yourself.”
“I’m not offing myself! I’m not… I just… I have to do this!”
“You bloody well don’t have to do it alone!”
“I DO!” Buffy screamed, her voice breaking with the effort, her shoulder burning.
Spike stood in angry defiance, his hands on his hips, glaring at her. “The sodding drugs have rotted your fucking brain!” he asserted, jabbing one finger at her chest. “You’re acting like a stubborn little bint!”
“Yeah, well, I don’t know what that means, but if a ‘bint’ is someone who needs to redeem herself, then you’re right! That’s me! Buffy the Stupid. Buffy the Reckless. Buffy the Disappointing. Buffy the horrible Slayer and even worse daughter. Buffy the bint who trusts vampires, who falls in love with… with one and is… is frenemies with another. Buffy, who lets everyone down, whose own father won’t even… won’t… whose Watcher…” She stumbled over the final words until her voice trailed off. The tears she’d thought she’d defeated returned, burning her eyes and rolling down her cheeks. Her chin quivered with the effort to hold herself together, to keep from unraveling completely.
Spike’s face was contorted in confusion and disbelief, his eyes searching hers, trying to suss this out. “What the hell are you on about?”
Buffy blinked, waving a hand in dismissal and turned away from him. “Nothing. Forget it.”
“Oh, ho. No… you started it, you can sodding finish it.”
“Let it go, Spike,” she muttered, reaching down to pull a box of weapons out from beneath the bed.
With a stifled grunt of pain, Spike beat her to it, sliding it out and lifting it up onto the bed, but then he turned to face her, blocking her access to them. “Let’s have it, then.”
“Thought you’d never ask, but all the stakes are behind you.”
Spike arched a brow at her.
Buffy rolled her eyes.
Spike didn’t budge.
She sighed and shook her head, rubbing her exhausted eyes and aching head. “I have to do this, Spike. I have to dust this Kralik, get Spike back by myself. I have to try and… and just be a good Slayer. To prove to… to myself that I’m… I’m not as horrible as everyone thinks I am.” She finally looked up at him. “It has to just be me, can’t you see? Otherwise, I’ll never be anything but the stupid Slayer who slept with… who set Angelus free. I’ll never be anything but reckless and disappointing. I can’t be that. I just... I can’t.”
Spike stared at her in astonishment for several long moments, un-moving, un-breathing. He didn’t even blink. Finally, Buffy said, “I’m finished. You can tell by the lack of words coming from my mouth. Can I get my weapons now?”
“No.”
“No?”
“No, you bloody well can’t. Not ‘til I have my say.”
Buffy sighed and crossed her arms, which pulled at her shoulder, but she refused to change positions on the grounds of general stubbornness. “This should be good. Will there be more references to ‘bints’ in there?”
“Likely,” Spike grumbled as he ran a hand back through his disheveled curls and began to pace back and forth between her and the bed. Finally, after about three circuits, he stopped and glared at her. “That’s all bollocks – everything you said, utter drivel.”
“Okay, good talk. Can I please have my weapons?”
“Not done! You are so bloody wrong it’s painful!”
Buffy rolled her eyes. “Do tell.”
“Plan to!” he shot back, beginning his pacing again. “You’re the best Slayer I’ve ever met, Summers. Including the ones that got away. Resourceful, tricky, cunning, bloody devious, you are. Not some trained seal like that other one… what was her name?” He stopped and looked at her again, clearly trying to remember, holding a hand up, urging her to fill in the blank. “The island bird that Dru offed,” he prompted. “Kendall? Kesha?”
“Is there a point here?” she interrupted curtly.
“Yeah, there’s a sodding point. Dunno where you got the idea that you’re a bad Slayer or any of that other rubbish you were spouting, but it’s just that – rubbish! You’re a force o’ nature, a fireball, a sodding tsunami mowing down every nasty thing in your path.”
“Except you,” she pointed out. “So far…” she warned.
“Yeah, well, no such thing as a perfect storm,” Spike sniffed, squaring his shoulders. “Might’a missed one particularly talented bloke, but ya sent sodding Angelus straight t’ hell,” he reminded her.
“After making a truce with an evil, soulless vampire.”
“Who kept his word and bloody well helped!” he pointed out.
“Except when—” she began, but he cut her off.
“And let’s not forget ole bat face, Master of the Aurelian line...”
“He killed me! I literally died.”
“Well, yeah, but you bounced back nicely and killed him better!”
“Thanks to Xander.”
“Thanks to being smart enough to have a team around you. Another thing that sets you apart from the huddled masses o’ Slayers before you,” he insisted. “Which is my sodding point! You need to be smart ‘bout this now! Don’t need to do it alone.”
“You’re not listening to me, Spike!” Buffy insisted. “This is the one thing I absolutely have to do alone.”
“Because the bleedin’ Council says so?”
“No, because I say so,” Buffy countered. “Okay, apart from the whole disappointment thing… there’s another reason. I don’t know if you can understand this, but… it’s like… like they’re trying to turn me into something I’m not. Into the savee instead of the saver. If I let you fight my battle for me, then… then they win. I’m the damsel. I’m the… victim.” Buffy stood up straighter, squaring her shoulders, her gaze not wavering from his. “I can’t let that happen. I can’t let the bastards win, Spike. Even if I get my strength back, if I don’t do this, I’ll… I’ll never be me again. I’ll never be Buffy, the Vampire Slayer again.”
Spike sighed and dropped his chin to his chest, his eyes to the floor between them. He could understand that, unfortunately. And if there was one thing he couldn’t bear the thought of, it was Buffy without her fire, without her light, without her… effulgence. ‘Bloody fucking hell!’
He looked back up at her, his face set in grim determination. “Right, maybe I can’t stop ya from going. I get why you need this, Buffy, but… bloody hell, Slayer! If you go in there all doom and gloom, thinking you’re some run-o-the-mill Slayer full of misery and guilt, you’ll end up dead! You’re fucking magnificent, woman! Glorious! Not a demon alive can hold a candle to you when you put your mind to something. Not even me. You’re dousing your own fire, pe— errr… Slayer. That light inside sets you apart, makes you so sodding infuriating I wanna to rip my own head off! That brilliance, that glow, it’s what makes you… you. Smarter, craftier, sneakier, stronger than any woman – anyone – I’ve ever met.”
Buffy swallowed, her chin once again quivering with the effort of holding back her emotions. What was he talking about? Magnificent? Glorious? Smart? Had he hit his head on something in the last five minutes?
“Not any of those things. Certainly not strong…” she reminded him in a hoarse whisper, pulling her fist back and hitting him on the shoulder. It sent shockwaves of pain up her arm, but didn’t even make him wince. A gnat attacking a mastodon.
“All those things and more,” he assured her. “And not talking about that kind of strong, pet,” Spike replied gently, his eyes soft, his expression earnest. He reached a single hand out toward her chest. When she didn’t flinch back, he touched a finger down atop her thudding heart. “Strong here. Comes from inside. It’s how you try. How you fight. How you care so much about all those bloody Happy Meals, about this whole ungrateful world. How, right now, if your bastard of a Watcher called needing help, you’d go – you’d help his sorry arse. It’s who you are, Buffy. It’s how you burn with a flame so sodding bright no nasty thing could ever touch it.”
Buffy felt that blaze ignite in her breast, spreading out from Spike’s fingertip in a crackling webwork of confidence and conviction. They stood there for some time, their eyes locked, neither moving nor speaking, as it slowly suffused her whole being with that brilliant flame.
“Don’t be afraid to touch that flame, embrace it, use it. Never forget who you are: Buffy, the Bloody Brilliant Vampire Slayer. The best Slayer in sodding history. You never stop fighting. Never give up. Believe in yourself, Buffy.” Spike let his hand fall, his finger stilling thrumming with her brilliance, tingling with her warmth. He dropped his eyes, unable to hold her burning green gaze another moment, and whispered, “God knows, I do.”
Buffy swallowed, more hot tears streaming down her face. “Y-you… do?”
Spike glanced up at her through his lashes, then back down, rubbing a hand on the nape of his neck diffidently. What the bloody fuck was he doing, rolling over and showing her his soft underbelly. Dangerous, is what it was. Good way to get sliced open, gutted.
He sniffed and squared his shoulders with a shrug, finally lifting his gaze back to hers as he tucked is thumbs into his jean pockets. “Need to believe, don’t I? Got fifty bucks ridin’ on ya.”
A slow smile curved Buffy’s lips as she wiped the tears from her eyes. “Fifty bucks, huh?”
Spike shrugged one shoulder and turned around to begin looking through the weapons in the box on the bed.
“So, you have a vested interest in the outcome,” she continued, grabbing a tote bag and placing it next to the box on the bed.
“Could say that. Be right pissed if ya got yourself killed,” he agreed, not looking at her.
“Cos you’d lose something you… care about. Fifty bucks,” she clarified.
Spike shrugged again, wincing with the motion, as he handed her a crossbow to put in the bag. “’Xactly. Hard earned, that dosh was. Don’t need t’ just be tossing it away.”
Buffy nodded and selected a couple of stakes and a bottle of holy water. “Well, I’ll do my best to keep you from losing anything you care about… like all that money,” she assured him.
“See that you do, Slayer.”
** X-X-X-X-X **
STORY BOARD
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link.
End notes:
Uh-oh! How’s Buffy gonna get doggie-Spike back as injured as she is? If vampire-Spike follows her and helps her against her wishes, will Buffy ever forgive him? What about Joyce? Vamp-Spike can’t leave her alone either -- if something happens to her, Buffy for sure would never forgive him. More on Saturday. Same bat time, same bat station.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Chapter 10: Winners Can't be Choosers
Chapter Text
Chapter Notes:
Thanks to all of you for reading! It means so much to me, like Everlasting Gobstoppers for my muse! Sending all the sloppy, joyful doggie kisses to everyone who has left a note, a like or a kudo. I love hearing from everyone! I apologize for falling behind in replying to your comments. My time is getting squeezed to the breaking point right now, so I’m focusing on keeping the posting schedule. I promise to get caught up on the comments, though!
Thanks also my two wonderful Beta readers and friends: Holi117 and Paganbaby, and to TeamEricNSookie for pre-reading. All mistakes are mine because I keep fiddling with stuff. If you see any, PM me and I’ll fix it.
Some people have asked a couple of things about Kralik, like how old he is. We don’t know in canon how old he actually is, only that the Council had him in custody for six years (so, what, they’d been saving him just for Buffy?). My headcanon is that he was turned sometime in the early 1900s, so he’s not quite as old as Spike, but still pretty old. Some people also wondered if they had ‘criminally insane’ findings back then, and the answer is yes, though they didn’t exactly call it that.
"Complete madness" was first established as a defense to criminal charges by the common-law courts in late-thirteenth-century England. By the eighteenth century, the complete madness definition had evolved into the "wild beast" test. Under that test, the insanity defense was available to a person who was "totally deprived of his understanding and memory so as not to know what he [was] doing, no more than an infant, a brute, or a wild beast. By 1840, most jurisdictions had refined the wild beast test to ‘cognitive insanity’ and supplemented that with ‘irresistible impulse insanity’.
Chapter 10: Winners Can’t be Choosers
Buffy pulled up in front of the boarding house on Prescott and cut the engine of her mom’s Jeep. The whole world seemed to have gone silent as the rumble of the engine died, as if she were the only person alive. Her eyes were drawn inexorably to the decrepit, spooky old place, wasps buzzing painfully in her stomach, dread slithering coldly down her spine. She was exhausted. She was injured. She was weakened. She really didn’t want to go in there.
She had to go in there. The Slayer had to go in there.
Buffy took a deep breath to try and calm her nerves and got out of the Jeep. ‘No sense being stealthy,’ she thought, ‘They know I’m coming.’ It was clearly a trap. And she was walking right into it. She just needed to do her best to not get snagged in it.
“Simple,” Buffy muttered to herself walking to the back of the Cherokee. She opened the rear hatch and reached in to get the tote-bag of weapons she and Spike had assembled. Her first attempt to lift it blistered pain through her right shoulder, forcing her to drop it. She rubbed her shoulder a few moments, looking around worriedly in case Kralik came out here for her, but nothing stirred on the dark, lonely street.
“Maybe I should’ve let Spike come as a pack mule,” she mused, turning around and slipping the strap onto her left shoulder. “He’s got the temperament… stubborn, pig-headed, obstinate, annoying…” she continued, lifting the bag with a small groan of effort. The Slayer wobbled a moment, off-balance from the extra weight, but then steadied.
Her mind got stuck momentarily on Spike. He was here in Sunnydale. At her house. He’d come – and not to kill her. He’d answered her ranting, rambling, crazed call by getting in his car and showing up on her doorstep to help. He’d come as a friend. And he… he believed in her. The wasps in her stomach turned to drunken, giddy butterflies for a moment as her hopeful, naïve heart pushed past her defenses. He was worried about losing something he cared about tonight… and it wasn’t fifty dollars. Buffy rolled her eyes at his nonsensical fabrication – which was different than a lie because it was so transparent a blind mouse could see through it. The memory of it made Buffy flush with delight; the pretense about the bet bringing a smile to her lips.
She shook her head, willing those butterflies and traitorous thoughts away. Badness. Nothing but badness could come from that. Buffy couldn’t be that silly, stupid girl anymore. This night was a turning point in her life. No more being a disappointment to people around her, no more letting everyone down, no more recklessness. Though just who exactly was left for her to disappoint? Not Giles. Not her dad.
Her mom. Her dog. And herself. That was it. Okay, Willow and Xander. But that was definitely it.
‘And Spike?’ some part of her provided, unbidden. Suddenly, the image of her frenemy standing before her, his head ducked, looking up at her bashfully through his lashes, telling her that he believed in her, flashed in her mind.
The Slayer clenched her jaw, forcing thoughts of the vampire away again. Her mom, her dog, her friends, and herself. That was it.
Buffy let out a long breath, steeling her nerve. To keep the disappointment factor low, she just needed to live through the next hour, kill one insane vampire and another less insane one, and rescue her dog. All without her Slayer strength.
“Sure. No problem at all,’” Buffy mumbled as she reached up to pull the hatch closed. She struggled with it a few moments, finally having to use her entire body weight to get it to come down, then lean against it to get it to latch. She was already out of breath as she started across the street to the boarding house where Giles said Kralik was supposed to be.
As the Slayer walked up the cracked, overgrown walkway to the old place, the butterflies morphed back into wasps, her fear ratcheting up. She pulled a stake out of one of her pockets and held it at the ready, focusing on her breathing, on her mission. Spike – healer of her heart. He needed her, and she would be damned if she’d let him down.
With the determination of a Slayer, if not the strength, she opened the door, the hinges squeaking helpfully to announce her arrival to the world. She stopped and held her breath, waiting, eyes darting around warily, body tensed for an attack. After a few moments, when nothing happened, she stepped in cautiously, but stopped just inside the door, not letting it fall closed behind her.
Within the house, nothing moved. Nothing jumped out at her. No net fell on her head. Switching the stake to her left hand, she reached for a light switch and flipped it a few times. The room remained bathed in deep shadows.
“Stupid Council, too cheap to replace the lightbulbs,” she grumbled. She could see the power was on. There was an old, crusted wall lamp giving off a dull glow on the other side of the room, but it wasn’t enough for anyone other than vampires to see by. Buffy slipped her hand into her bag, keeping her eyes scanning the area, and pulled out a flashlight. She shone it around the room, but still didn’t see anything. No vampires. No dog.
She swallowed and stepped further into the house, using the stake she had out to prop the door open behind her, lest she be locked in.
With her heart thudding in her ears like a herd of wild wildebeests – was that redundant? – she set the weapons’ bag down and pulled out a crossbow. Buffy propped the flashlight up so she could see, and got the bolt nocked in the weapon with an effort that had daggers jabbing into her shoulder again. She stood perfectly still then, trying to get the pain to subside and just concentrated on her breathing. As she did so, she heard her dog’s unmistakable whine of distress – it sounded like it was coming from a nearby doorway.
Buffy’s heart lurched achingly in her chest. Spike! He was alive! But he was clearly suffering. Hearing her sweet, furry friend’s anguished cries was almost too much. She wanted to run to him, to barrel ahead, damn the consequences. But she held herself back with the silent chant of, ‘Trap, trap, trap.’
Tense as a tightly wound drum, with the crossbow in one hand and her flashlight in the other, the Slayer tip-toed toward the door. She wished to all that was holy that her heart wasn’t beating so loudly and that her feet weren’t so heavy on the frayed, faded carpet. She was sure every vampire within ten miles could hear her as she made her way to the open doorway. Shining her light through it, she saw there were stairs going down – the basement. Spike was in the basement.
She looked around, checking behind her once more, and started down the creaking stairs, one slow step at a time. Buffy kept checking behind her, waiting for the imminent attack. With each step she paused and swept her light, and the crossbow, back and then forward again. It was a trap, after all, and this seemed to be the most likely place to catch her, to hem her in, on these stairs. Her lungs constricted in her chest, her swollen throat closed up, making breathing a strain. Her knees felt like jelly, and her heart skittered like a frightened rabbit as she made her way down the creepy stairs into the even creepier basement. It smelled of mold and mildew and years of decay – a tomb.
‘My tomb? No, no … not my tomb. Not Spike’s and not mine,’ she assured herself as she reached a landing where the stairs turned. Her light fell on a mound of copper and black fur in the middle of the floor. Her dog lifted his head, his brown eyes confused and pleading as they met hers. His muzzle had been wrapped with duct tape, as had all his feet, all bound together.
“Spike!” She couldn’t stop the panicked exclamation from exploding from her lips. Buffy started to hurry forward, but checked herself, once again shining her trembling light around the room along with her weapon. There was a plethora of junk piled around, including water-stained boxes and disintegrating garbage bags piled, in places, all the way to the ceiling. A thick layer of dust coated everything, like icing on a cake. Her light bobbed around the dark room drunkenly, revealing a set of old wingback chairs, the upholstery once having been rich silken stripes of green and gold, but which were now faded and worn. Nearby, turned on its back, was a sofa with a picture of a grist mill done in browns and ochres repeated in a dizzying pattern across its tattered cushions. There was a mismatched assortment of dining chairs and lamps – some with shabby shades, others bare – and a wooden tea trolley piled high with teetering cups and bowls. Nightstands with old, stained mattresses leaned haphazardly against them filled almost an entire corner. Anything could be lurking in the dark recesses her light couldn’t touch.
Buffy tried to use her Slayer senses to feel if there were any vampires nearby. She’d felt Spike’s – the vampire’s – earlier, at home. But she hadn’t been tingling from head to toe with terror then, and he’d been right next to her.
‘Be right pissed if ya got yourself killed,’ the blond vampire’s voice rang in her mind. ‘Me too,’ she agreed silently, taking a few more cautious steps down until her feet hit the dirty floor.
Apart from Spike’s off-and-on whines and whimpers of distress, she couldn’t hear or see anything else in the room – alive or dead, or you know, undead. With one last sweep of her light, Buffy bolted the last few feet to her dog’s side, falling to her knees next to him. She dropped the flashlight on the floor, its beam wavering and jerking over the detritus stacked around them. Keeping the crossbow in her right hand, she dug in her pocket for the knife Spike had suggested she bring for just such a scenario.
“Likely have the mutt tied up… assuming he’s still—” Spike had stopped talking at her sharp look and cleared his throat. “Need a blade, good and sharp, have it in your pocket or wherever you keep such adornments,” he’d advised.
Spike began to growl, the sound nearly swallowed by the duct tape around his muzzle, and struggle fruitlessly against his bonds.
“It’s okay, baby, I’m here… gonna be okay,” Buffy soothed the dog, her shaking fingers struggling to get the blade of the small, but very sharp, pocketknife open while holding the crossbow.
“BOO!”
Buffy nearly jumped out of her sweat-soaked shirt. The knife that she’d just gotten open tumbled to the floor as she swung around toward the sound. The too familiar, and much too close, face of Zachary Kralik filled her entire field of vision. She pulled the trigger on the bow, sending the bolt flying off into the darkness, well wide of its mark.
A second later, her vision shattered, a bright light flashing in her wide, panicked eyes, blinding her. A sharp crack sounded around her ears, followed by the feel of an explosion through her skull, and then abruptly, she didn’t hear or see or feel anything else.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Spike paced.
Joyce wrung her hands.
Spike reached for his cigarettes.
Joyce eyed the whiskey decanter.
Spike pulled just the lighter out and began to flick the lid open and closed.
Joyce curled her hands into fists and took a step toward the door.
“Oi! Where ya think you’re goin’?” Spike demanded, moving between her and the locked front door.
“I can’t just sit here and do nothing!” she retorted, making to step past him. “Buffy needs me. I can’t let her—”
“Can and will,” Spike ordered, sliding over easily to block her path. “Not a fan o’ waiting, myself… never been one of my talents, but the Slayer said to wait.”
“And you’re just gonna do what she says?” the woman cried. “What kind of vampire are you?”
Spike arched a brow at her. “One who’d prefer to not have a pissed-off Slayer after me cos I let her mum get herself killed.”
Tears welled in Joyce’s eyes and spilled down her cheeks. “Please… please, William… I have to help her. She’s my daughter.”
A dagger twisted in his heart at her plaintive use of his given name; it reminded him too much of his own mother. “She’s the Slayer,” Spike reminded her, his voice softening, her tears burning his heart as sure as if they were holy water. “It’s something she has to do. Not saying I don’t agree with ya, just saying… I understand her reasons.”
“B-But, what if she needs help? I heard what you said to her – she’s stronger with allies. She needs allies now more than ever!” the distraught woman argued.
Spike pursed his lips, his own eyes darting toward the door. What would he do with the Slayer’s mum if he went after Buffy? Leaving her here wasn’t a good option. Taking her with him seemed even less brilliant. Maybe he could drop her somewhere... one of Buffy’s mate’s houses?
He turned back to face the woman. “You know where this boarding house is the Slayer was on about?”
Joyce nodded eagerly. “It’s just north of Union on Prescott—” she began, but was cut off by a voice from outside.
“Mother, may I die today?”
They both turned toward the big picture window and looked out. Kralik was coming up the front walk. Spike was glad to see the bastard had a limp, though he didn’t look nearly as bruised and beaten as Spike felt. ‘Fed recently… and well,’ Spike surmised, frowning. Spike had been too nervous and upset after Buffy left to even think of warming up a mug or two of pig’s blood. That had been stupid, he realized now. Even though he could tell Kralik wasn’t as old as he was, the wanker was better fed, was healing faster, and was most likely better rested at the moment. He was also fucking crazy – which made him unpredictable. All that put Spike at a definite disadvantage to the psychotic vamp. He’d need to be smart about this – not let his temper get the better of him. Right. Like that ever sodding worked.
With each step up the walk, Kralik laid something down on the ground next to his foot. Cards? Papers? Spike narrowed his eyes and pulled the sheer curtain back to see more clearly.
“Polaroids,” Spike muttered, his brows furrowed, his stomach tightening into burning knots. If Kralik was here, then where was Buffy? ‘Don’t you dare die on me, Slayer. Don’t you fucking dare!’
“What? What does that mean? Are we too late? Is she… Oh, God. Buffy! Please no… no, no, no…” Joyce chanted, shaking her head, her eyes unfocused, her entire body beginning to tremble.
“Joyce! Don’t fall apart on me now,” Spike ordered, doing his best to not fall apart himself. He shook her by the shoulders just hard enough to snap her out of it, using the motion to disburse the horrible images that had started flashing in his own mind of a broken girl with dead green eyes staring up at him accusingly.
“Gonna see what it is, yeah? What it means. Stay with me!”
She nodded blankly, more tears streaming from her eyes. Spike clenched his jaw and strode for the door, unlocking the deadbolt and swinging it open. Kralik had made it to the bottom of the porch steps. He held up one of the instant pictures for Spike to see. Buffy and Cujo. Tied up. Laying on a dirty floor. Buffy had blood staining her blonde hair on one side of her head and running down into her face.
Behind Spike, Joyce gasped. Spike put an arm out, bracing it on the doorjamb to keep her from rushing outside in some crazed and futile attempt at vengeance.
“All little girls need their mommies,” Kralik declared, flinging one of the photos toward the door like a Frisbee. He took a step up the stairs and flung another photo. “What a bad mommy.” Another step, another photo. “Letting her little girl go all alone through the dark and dangerous woods to the big, bad wolf’s house. Don’t you want to see her before the wolf gobbles her alllll up?”
Joyce picked the pictures up, crying, frantic, terrified. Spike and Buffy, both tied up… blood! There was blood! Her little girl was bleeding! She was hurt! Buffy needed her!
“She cried for her mommy. But mommy wasn’t there,” Kralik continued taunting. “So alone. So afraid.”
“Buffy!” Joyce sobbed. “No! Take me to her!”
“No!” Spike shouted, pushing Joyce back as she tried to get past him. “You stay in this fucking house. I’ll get her!” he swore, his blue eyes blazing into hers with unquestionable determination.
“Please,” Joyce begged. “Please… Buffy.”
Spike shook her again, this time a little harder than before. “Do you hear me? Stay in this house!”
Joyce nodded despondently. “Help my girl,” she pleaded.
Spike clenched his jaw and dipped his hand into his pocket, feeling the smooth wood of the stake Buffy had dropped earlier. “Stay,” he said one last time before he whirled around, drawing the stake. He dove out the open door right at the insane vampire with the photography fetish.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Buffy woke with a groan. There was a sledgehammer pounding against her head. She tried to lift a hand to stop it, but couldn’t. She tried to roll away, to stop the pummeling of her skull, but had little luck with that either. She managed to blink her eyes open. It took several moments before she could see anything, and a couple more to realize the sledgehammer was Spike’s tail swishing against her face.
“I’m up,” she tried to say, but it came out as, “Mmmppp.”
Spike apparently understood though, because he stopped battering her.
The Slayer groaned again and tried to sit up or roll over or do anything, but the world spun toward her, then reversed course and spiraled away, so she just stopped and waited for it to make up its mind. Taking stock, she realized her hands were tied behind her back and her legs were tied together. She was on the floor with her dog. It was wet and dirty and smelled like dead fish and rotten cabbage – which was the least of her worries, but still sucked.
“Werre dey?” The Slayer asked the dog. She shook her head, tried to get her brain to make her mouth say the words right. “Where. Are. They?” she enunciated slowly, her voice barely a whisper.
Spike whined, then swatted her with his tail again. Slightly less than helpful.
Buffy looked around the dark basement, her eyes straining to see anything. The effort sent barbs of agony lancing directly into her brain. She clamped her eyes closed, wincing against the pain. When she finally opened them again, the world seemed to have given up on its carnival ride impersonation, though she still couldn’t see much. The only light was the dim bulb filtering down the steps from the floor above, barely enough to make out ominous shapes all around them. Well, if the vampires were coming, they’d come whether she could see them or not.
Gathering her nerve, Buffy took a deep breath and rolled onto her back. Brilliant agony seared through her shoulder, making her cry out. Her face contorted in pain as she lifted her legs and hips off the floor until her hands were free from their weight, putting even more stress on her shoulders.
“Arrrrrrrrggghhhhhhhfffffffuuuuuuckkkk!” she screamed as she curled into a ball, bringing her thighs up to her chest. She stretched her arms as far as they would go, slipping her bound hands beneath her butt and up over her feet, ending up with them tied in front of her, instead of behind.
Spike whined and struggled, trying to get free to help her, but he was bound up too well, and still too weak to break the duct tape.
Buffy panted with the exertion and pain, her chest heaving as she laid back on the floor to recover. “Please… tell… me… they left… the… knife,” she gasped, finally struggling to a sitting position.
Spike kicked at something with his bound feet and the open knife slid across the dirt, coming to a rest against Buffy’s leg.
“Good boy,” she croaked, picking it up, wasting no time as she began slicing through her bonds.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Spike missed Kralik’s heart. The stake drove into the crazy vampire’s biceps muscle and stuck there as the two growling, roaring demons landed on the walk with a bruising thud. House lights blinked on in the neighborhood and curtains moved aside. Fearful faces peeped out of windows to try and see what was happening, to see what sounded like two ferocious lions slaughtering each other.
Fists and fangs flashed in the porch light, battering flesh and cracking bone. Blows were exchanged. Blood flew. Muscle and sinew alike were ripped with fangs and claws. Curses and oaths blistered from snarling lips. The two vampires rolled over the dew-damp grass, one on top, then the other, battling with everything they had.
After what seemed an eternity to Joyce, Spike finally rolled on top and stayed there, his fists battering down on the other vampire with a furious vengeance. When he had an opening, Spike reached for the other vamp’s head, set on twisting it off, but Kralik had been ready for that, and blocked Spike with his forearms, guarding his neck. Spike growled and reached for the stake protruding from the crazy vamp’s biceps, but, again, the brunette knew what he was after and defended it by momentarily dropping the defense of his neck to throw punches up at the blond. It went on this way, Spike winning but unable to put an end to it, as Joyce fidgeted nervously in the doorway and watched helplessly.
Then she heard something odd, and she realized it was coming from the downed demon. For a moment, it didn’t register, it was so incongruous to the situation. Then she realized what it was. Kralik was laughing. Chuckling, even. It sent an icy shiver of revulsion and fear down her spine.
Something was very, very wrong with this picture. Her eyes darted around the yard, trying to untangle the incongruous situation – Spike’s furious growls and Kralik’s amused chortling combining into a blood-curdling symphony. Her hand covered her mouth in shock when she finally realized why the beaten, bloodied, crazed vampire was laughing.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Buffy and Spike helped each other back up the creaking stairs. They were both woozy and wobbling, joints grinding, stiff muscles aching, knives dancing over their bruised and battered bodies. Her nerves were absolutely shot. Every creak of the stairs, every scurry of a mouse, every brush of her dog’s fur against her leg made the Slayer jump. She held the small knife at the ready in one hand, the heavy flashlight, which she’d found only after kicking it across the floor, in the other like a club. She’d bashed and slashed at vampires several times so far, hitting nothing but open air – ghosts, her imagination playing tricks.
At the top of the stairs she paused and listened, but didn’t hear anything. She looked down at her dog. “Anything?” she whispered to him, gripping the knife so hard the handle began to cut into her palm.
Spike began to shake his head in the negative, but stumbled and nearly fell back down the stairs, only saved when Buffy dropped the flashlight and grabbed him. The light bounced and flared as it tumbled down, banging, it seemed, on every single step. It came to a stop on the landing with a clang and went out, leaving nothing but total darkness below them.
Buffy held her breath, crouching down, waiting. She had one hand buried in her dog’s mane, not letting him tumble away. She held on to him for dear life – afraid the vampires would discover them at any moment. They were stronger together – her and Spike – she couldn’t let them get separated. In her other hand she still brandished the small knife. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing – barely. Unmoving, heart racing, eyes wide, she tried in vain to see what awaited them in the shadows. Waiting for the vampires. Waiting for pain. Waiting for death.
Spike finally got his feet back under him and stood next to her, his ears cocked up, listening and looking with her.
They stayed that way for one or two years, but nothing happened. No demons attacked. No death came for them. Buffy finally drew in a breath and stood up from her crouch, stepping forward out into the dimly lit main room where she’d entered. With one more look around, trying to see into the shadows, she dashed in a limping gait to her weapon’s bag, which the vampires had thoughtfully left for her. Her fingers closed on a stake and she yanked it out, spinning around again, willing her eyes to see the demons that had to be coming for them.
But nothing came. Nothing moved. Her heart thudded painfully against her ribs, the blood loud in her ears as it rushed past, her entire body quivering with the adrenaline-fueled fear. Was this some new strategy? Kill the Slayer by giving her a fear-induced heart attack?
“POP!”
Buffy jumped, spinning to face the sound, her eyes wide, her breath a distant memory as her throat closed over a squeak of surprise. The dim bulb in the wall sconce across the room had apparently blown out, casting the house into even deeper shadows. Spike barked a disdainful chastisement at the gutless coward of a light, but still nothing else stirred.
Buffy didn’t wait another moment, she turned for the door, ready to make a run for it, and her heart sank. The stake that had been propping it open was gone. Trapped! She twisted the handle and yanked frantically, using all her less-than-considerable might to force it open. Had to get out! Escape!
Nothing happened. The door remained steadfastly closed. Locked. Their escape barred. It didn’t even rattle in the frame as she tugged at it desperately. “No, no, no, no,” she chanted, tears of frustration pooling in her eyes.
She hurried to the window beside it, drawing back the heavy, dusty curtain only to find it bricked over. “No,” she ground out. “No, no, no!” she continued, trying the window on the other side of the door, only to find the same thing. Bricks. It really was a tomb. Her tomb. Spike’s tomb.
‘Not the Slayer. Victim. Damsel. Trapped. Disappointment. Stupid Buffy. Reckless Buffy. Going by yourself. Could you be any more of a bint?’
“Spike’s gonna lose his fifty bucks,” she muttered forlornly, sliding down against the door to sit on the gritty floor. She drew her knees up to her chest and dropped her head onto her folded arms atop them, exhausted. Done. Finished. It was over. She’d lost. She’d be dead soon. So would Spike. Spike. He didn’t deserve this. He should be in Romania biting the heads off vampires and pissing on their dust. Not here with her in this crazy, ridiculous situation… not about to die.
God, she was so tired of crying, but she couldn’t stop the tears. Even as her dog nuzzled against her, whining softly and licking her arms, trying to get to her face, she couldn’t stop. Failure. She wouldn’t even be William the Bloody’s third Slayer… she’d just be the one who set Angelus free then knowingly walked into a trap and got herself, well, trapped. And killed. Along with her best friend. “Stupid bint,” she muttered. “As usual, Spike, you were wrong.”
‘Like hell I was! I know Slayers, and I know you, and I’m not sodding wrong!’
“Great, not only am I gonna die, now I have to listen to Radio-Spike argue with me in my head?”
‘What the fuck are you doin’ sitting on that arse like a fucking damsel? Eh!? You’re a fighter! Get up!’
Buffy shook her head against her arms. “Tired.”
‘Sod tired! Find that fire! That brilliance, that glow! Smarter, craftier, sneakier, stronger than any woman – anyone – I’ve ever met. Find a fucking way out! Get up and fight, woman! GET YOUR ARSE UP!’
“If I do, will you shut up?” she asked the voice in her head.
‘Damn sure won’t if you don’t get up.’
Buffy clamped her eyes closed and forcibly swallowed her tears, gathering her tattered wits and shattered courage. She took Spike’s words, his conviction, his belief in her, and wrapped them all around her like a cloak as she looked inside for that fire he swore was there. Buffy was afraid it was burned out, doused with her tears, with her heartache and exhaustion. But as his voice filled her head again, she found the barest spark still there, waiting in the darkness.
‘You’re fucking magnificent, woman! Glorious! Not a demon alive can hold a candle to you when you put your mind to something. Not even me. It’s how you try. How you fight. It’s who you are, Buffy. It’s how you burn with a flame so sodding bright no nasty thing could ever touch it.’
Buffy took a deep breath and sniffed back her tears, lifting her head from her folded arms. She held onto that tiny spark, keeping her frenemy’s cloak of belief pulled tight around her shoulders. Spike licked the tears from her cheeks, making her wince back from the slobbery tongue, which left more dampness than it removed.
With a grunt of effort, she was back to her feet. Everything ached. A few places burned. Others throbbed. Some shot daggers into her ribs. Didn’t matter. Spark. Flame. Fight.
She hobbled forward, bumping into furniture as she headed for the light down the hall. There was no stealth. If the vampires were here, they were playing with her and they’d come when they came. If they weren’t, then they’d still come when they came. Either way, they were coming. She just didn’t know when or from what direction.
The light was shining from some kind of sitting room, she supposed they would call it. A sitting room with tools scattered all around it. Tools like an axe.
Spark. Flame. Fight.
“We’re getting the hell outta here,” the Slayer told Spike, who had stayed right at her side.
“Woof!” he rejoiced happily, bouncing off the floor with his front feet.
Buffy grinned. “Woof is fucking right.”
She grabbed the axe and hobbled back into the murk of the front room, managing to avoid most of the furniture this time. She stood in front of the door – wooden, thank goodness – and lifted the axe to her shoulder with a grunt of effort and cry of pain.
“Just need to make like Paul Bunyan and—"
There was a sound behind them – unidentifiable but not her imagination. She was sure it was real because when she whirled toward it, Spike did too. Their eyes strained to see in the dim light that spilled from the sitting room down the hall, willing the near-darkness to part and reveal its secrets. They both stood frozen there again, waiting, the axe resting against her shoulder, her swollen fingers clutching the haft desperately.
Sweat beaded on Buffy’s flushed skin and was running down her face, down her body, cold and clammy. She thought that was what terror felt like – that drop sliding down her spine like a cold blade, just looking for the perfect spot to slip in to her flesh.
Suddenly, the sound repeated and there was movement in the gloom. The vampires had come! Buffy jerked, her body spasming in fright. Spike barked, bounding forward. She tried to call to him, to urge him to not leave her, but her throat wouldn’t let the words out. She watched in horror as he vanished in the blackness, his feet loud on the floorboards for a moment, a crunching sound, and then silence.
“NO! SPIKE!” The words burst from her in a panic as Buffy lurched forward, axe gripped in her sweaty hands, following him into the gaping maw of what she knew had to be death itself.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Though Spike was now dominating the clash with Kralik, Joyce knew something was very wrong. Kralik wasn’t acting defeated at all. He was humming and chuckling as Spike pummeled him, as if he hadn’t a care in the world. She realized exactly why that was in the next moment.
What could only be the other vampire Buffy had mentioned: Blair.
Before Joyce could call out a warning to Spike, the other vampire – fresh, well-fed, and uninjured – pounced. Blair grabbed Spike from behind, locking his hands on the blond’s elbows, and dragged the beaten, bloodied, and exhausted master vampire off his lunatic sire.
“No, no, no…” Joyce chanted frantically, her eyes darting around, her mind whirling. She had to do something! Had to help! Buffy’s life was at stake! Stake… STAKE! Her gaze jumped to the basket of weapons by the door – stakes. Stakes killed vampires. She’d seen Buffy do it before. Not often, but… how hard could it be? Stake to the heart; vampire go ‘poof’.
She reached down and grabbed one, determined to help Spike save her daughter, no matter what it took.
In the yard, Spike struggled to pull free of the fledge’s hold, but he’d spent his adrenaline-fueled energy on the square-jawed fruit loop, and did little more than jostle Blair where he stood. His strength was waning – the last days without much sleep or a proper meal catching up with him at the worst possible moment.
Kralik kept sniggering as he pushed leisurely up to his feet, making a show of brushing grass and dirt from his clothes. The insane vamp was bleeding from numerous gouges and gashes that peppered his face, neck, and arms. The thick blood trickled down his face, mingled with the mud and grass, and coated the swelling bruises from Spike’s beating with brilliant red. He wiped some from his eyes and licked it from his fingers, taking his time now, knowing that Spike was pinned by his minion.
Spike wasn’t in much better shape. Though he was less bruised, he was leaking blood from too many bites and gouges – blood he could ill afford to lose. The blond was getting weaker with each drop that fell from his body and he once again cursed his stupidity for not feeding, even on pig’s blood, when he’d had the chance. As Spike snarled and thrashed against his captor, the crazy vampire pulled the stake out of his biceps with a devilish grin.
“That hurt,” he said conversationally, looking up at Spike. “I told you before I’d share the little girl. Didn’t have to get greedy.” Kralik considered the stake a moment, then lifted it to his lips. He stuck out his tongue and licked the blood from it, savoring it like a child given a set of beaters covered in ooey-gooey chocolate cake mix.
“Now then,” the brunette said after he’d gotten the stake clean. “Whatever shall I do with this?” he wondered, looking back at Spike, a satisfied grin on his ugly face. He took a step forward, within arm’s reach of the blond, who was still tugging at his captor, trying to pull his arms free. “Just so you know before you have to go, here’s what’s gonna happen to that Slayer you seem so keen on keeping for yourself: I’m gonna take her dear, sweet, delicious mother to her and give them a touching reunion.
“I do love a touching reunion,” Kralik sighed dramatically. “Very Disney… all fairytales. They’re my favorite. Of course, mine have better endings. After that tearful embrace, I’m gonna let mommy watch as I drain all the bubbles from that bubbly little glass of champagne. Well… I might leave one or two, you know, so when the little girl rises, she’ll still have that same sparkle when she eats her mother’s face.”
A grin spread over Spike’s mouth, showing his blood-coated fangs. Kralik had told him what he was going to do… not what he’d done. “Take it you’ve not had the pleasure o’ trying to kill this particular Slayer before. Lemme give you a bit of advice, one vamp to another, eh?”
Kralik waved the stake, inviting Spike to continue.
Spike leaned forward as far as he could, catching and holding the other vamp’s gaze. His elbows were still pinned behind him by Blair, but his hands were free. He slid one hand into his duster pocket and came out with his Zippo. As he spoke, he flipped it open and spun the flint.
“Don’t count your ducks before they’ve quacked,” he advised Kralik. Then he leaned back and touched the flame to Blair’s trousers. In the same moment, using Blair as leverage, Spike lifted both legs and slammed his boots into Kralik’s chest. The surprised, stake-wielding vampire stumbled back toward the street and Blair’s hold on Spike’s elbows loosened at the same time.
Spike yanked free of Blair, who stood looking utterly perplexed by the flames consuming him. In the next moment the fledge burst into dust, which fluttered harmlessly to the grass. Spike never looked back, keeping his eyes on the threat – Kralik – who was chuckling again. If Spike had looked back, he would’ve known why Kralik was laughing; he would’ve seen a frightened, determined mother swinging a stake through Blair’s dust and directly at Spike’s back.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Buffy practically fell over her dog in the dark corner of the room. She caught herself at the last moment, somehow managing to not chop off anything vital with the axe in the process. Her eyes were finally starting to adjust to the paltry light that filtered in from down the hall, and to her immense relief she saw no vampires or other deadly threats waiting for them. What she did see made her scrunch up her face in revulsion.
“Spike, ewwww…” she chastised as the tail of a mouse dangled lifelessly from her dog’s muzzle, its body completely engulfed in his big mouth. Despite her disdain, Spike looked supremely pleased with himself, his tail wagging victoriously.
“Put it down and stop goofing off,” Buffy ordered, her face still a mask of repulsion. Spike seemed to shrug, his feeling of accomplishment undeterred, but set the wet, lifeless mouse down on the threadbare carpet. She shuddered and began limping back for the door, using the axe like a cane, Spike at her side. ‘Get out. Get out. Have to get out.’
Back in front of the door, she gritted her teeth and lifted the axe, swinging it back and then forward with every ounce of strength she had. It bit into the wood and stuck there. “You have got to be kidding me,” the Slayer swore, yanking on the handle and wiggling it to try and get it free.
‘Your mum hits harder than that! Fuck’s sake, Slayer!’ Spike’s voice taunted her. ‘Pretend it’s my head!’
Buffy set her jaw and swung again, picturing Spike’s hard, stubborn, mulish head. An atom bomb exploded in her shoulder. She screamed. The axe sunk in again, a little deeper this time. More sweat drenched her skin, soaking through her clothes as she worked the blade out and lifted it again. Her arm went numb with the next blow and pain shot up into her skull like daggers. The old wood splintered. Her heart leapt. The dog barked his encouragement. She tugged it free again. Lifted. Shrieked. Swung. The crack widened, lengthened. Again. Again. Again. And finally, with a strength Buffy didn’t know she had, the door split in two, one side swinging free while the other remained locked with the heavy bolt.
“Yes!” Buffy shrieked, her throat raw and painful, but she didn’t care anymore. Everything was raw and painful, but they were free! She could feel the cool night air on her face. Smell the fresh scent of life outside, in direct opposition to the death within the house. Her heart leapt with joy, her spirit sensing victory – or at least survival of this round – as she and the dog squeezed out through the splintered opening and charged in a hobbled sprint from the tomb.
It didn’t take long for Buffy and Spike to get to the Jeep and scramble in. Mortal fear and icy adrenaline overpowered their injuries and exhaustion, allowing her to give Spike little more than a hard boost to help him get loaded up. She then hurried to the driver’s door, constantly looking around the dark and deserted street for the vampires, which she knew would jump out at her at any moment. Her sweaty fingers slipped on the door handle once, but then she had it open and was inside, getting all the locks closed with a reassuring ‘click’. The keys were in her trembling hand the next moment. She tried to get them into the ignition but missed. Tried again and dropped them.
“Oh my God! Blonde in a slasher movie trope much!” Buffy swore in exasperation, grabbing them up from the floorboard and finally shoving the key into the slot.
She twisted the ignition and pushed on the gas, fully expecting the motor to stay silent, to be flooded, or just start and then die – out of gas or something equally ridiculous. But neither happened. The engine turned over and purred comfortingly beneath the hood, the warning bell dinging periodically, telling her to fasten her seatbelt.
Spark. Flame. Fight.
Win.
“Thank you, Spike,” she whispered, slamming the Jeep into drive. The Cherokee squealed away from the curb, leaving the boarding house and Prescott Lane in her rearview mirror.
** X-X-X-X-X **
“Spike!” Joyce exclaimed, unable to stop the momentum of her plunging stake as it met nothing but thin air where Blair had just been standing only a millisecond before.
Spike twisted at the last moment, the stake ripping through the leather duster, slamming into his flesh, and severing ligaments in his shoulder. He howled in pain, and fell to his knees, writhing as he tried to reach back and pull it out. The movement propelled his agony to a whole new level of hell, and he crumpled to his side as stars burst and danced across his vision.
“Spike!” Joyce screamed again, dropping down next to him in a state of utter terror, not sure what to do to help him. “Oh my God! I’m so sorry! Spike!”
“What did I tell you?” Kralik asked as he got back to his feet, supremely pleased. “Disney Movie of the Week. Am I right?”
Joyce looked up at him, her heart on the verge of bursting, her mind nothing but a black void of blinding fear, her body little more than trembling jelly, completely out of her control.
“Run. House…” Spike gasped, trying to reach up and push her into motion. “Go!”
Joyce tried to stand, to run, but her legs were as weak as overcooked noodles, quivering beneath her. She dropped back to her knees on the grass next to Spike, frozen, unable to run, unable to think. Worst of all she was unable to save her daughter. ‘Buffy. Oh, God… Buffy!’
Joyce watched in icy horror as Kralik began a slow shuffle across the lawn toward them. The crazy vamp was wounded. He was bleeding. One eye was swollen nearly closed. At least one fang was gone. He was limping. But somehow, he still seemed to be winning.
Spike howled in pain as he struggled to his feet, lurching and stumbling as the stake twisted in his back, tearing muscles and tendons with each jerky movement. “Run,” he gasped again, putting himself between the woman and the vampire.
Joyce couldn’t run. She couldn’t stand. But she could crawl. And she did. With trembling, frightened movements and sobbing cries, she scurried for the house on all fours, leaving Spike standing alone.
“Wait! She’s not your mother too, is she?” Kralik asked with a gleam in his one open eye.
“Not my mum,” Spike rasped, swaying where he stood, holding his right arm to his chest, trying to keep from moving it until he really, really needed to.
“Oh… do you have a mother? Cos, I’d really love to meet her… and, you know… kill her.”
“A mite too late for that,” Spike informed him, widening his stance, getting his balance, trying to judge if Joyce was to the house yet. If he could get that stake out of Kralik’s hand… Bloody hell! How was he gonna do that? He couldn’t even beat the sodding Slayer right now, let alone this fruitcake. Fuck!
But he had to do something. He’d just started ‘his turn’; still didn’t know what that meant, where it would lead. His welcome by the Slayer hadn’t exactly been the friendly one he’d imagined; she’d tried to stake him. But, apart from that, she hadn’t kicked him out – seemed like a good sign. And she had all his postcards up around the mirror in her room. Spike hadn’t mentioned it, didn’t want to get her started on some new tirade, but he’d seen them. She’d kept them. Had to mean something, didn’t it?
He just needed to not dust, Spike reminded himself. Didn’t have to win this round. Was how he’d survived meeting and fighting as many Slayers as he had – knowing when to retreat and regroup.
“Oh well, guess I’ll just have to settle for the one, then,” the psychotic vampire sighed. “See ya in hell,” he bid Spike, raising the stake to strike.
Spike tensed, desperate, ready to do whatever he could to buy himself, and Joyce, a little more time. A chance to find out what sort of carnival ride ‘his turn’ would be. He began to chortle almost involuntarily, then to laugh maniacally. A deep, dark, sinister chuckle rolled from his battered body and bloodied lips, filling the yard with madness. He’d spent a sodding century keeping Dru safe – safe as could be, catering to her every whim – and just a few days on his own – truly on his own, taking his bloody turn – he was gonna dust. It was just too sodding ironic to not be hysterical. Or maybe he was just hysterical.
Kralik hesitated, confused by Spike’s laughter, looking for some kind of trap.
Then a motor roared.
Tires squealed.
Shocks shuddered and screeched in protest as they bounced over the curb and through some low shrubs lining the walk.
There was a deafening ‘THUD!’ of impact not two feet from where Spike stood, still laughing.
Spike jerked backwards in reflex, turning at the last minute and landing on his side to keep from driving the stake in deeper. Another yowl tore from his throat, cutting off the chuckling, and a crimson sleet of agony sluiced down over his vision, momentarily blinding him.
Joyce screamed, thinking Spike had been hit, and reversed course, scrambling back to him.
Kralik bounced over the hood of the Jeep, smashed against the windshield, rolled up over the roof and crashed back down to the grass behind the furious driver.
Buffy stomped on the brakes, barely avoiding slamming into Mrs. Kowalski’s prized privet hedge, and jerked the Jeep into reverse. Sod flew as her wheels spun on the damp grass, then caught just as Kralik stumbled back to his feet. The bumper of the Jeep mowed him down at the knee, his head smacked against glass of the rear hatch, shattering it, before he was swallowed beneath the vehicle.
Buffy screeched to another halt, the headlights of the Jeep wobbling drunkenly, each shining in a different direction. Kralik was down – his legs broken, his head caved in on one side – but he wasn’t out. Not out in the way he needed to be.
Buffy put the Cherokee into drive again, carefully lined up the wheels, and drove forward. She could feel the tire lift, the wheel jerk slightly in her hand, as Kralik’s head was crushed beneath the weight of the Jeep. The SUV dropped back to the grass with a jerk as the mass-murdering psychopath disintegrated beneath the overheated rubber, dusted.
Buffy pressed on the brake and dropped her head to the wheel as tears of exhausted victory welled in her eyes. Spike leaned forward from the back, licking at her neck, nuzzling her comfortingly. “You have dead mouse breath,” she complained, turning her face away from him.
“Whooof!” he replied happily, trying to squeeze between the seat and the door to get to her face.
Buffy shook her head, took a deep breath and sat back. “I love you, too, boy. We did it… we got him,” she rasped, reaching over to scratch his ears, keeping his dead mouse breath out of her face.
“Whooof!” the dog agreed, his tail slapping against one of the few unbroken windows in the SUV.
Buffy put the Jeep in park, cut the motor, and tumbled out on unsteady legs, bracing herself against the vehicle, half-bent over, barely able to stand. She opened the back for Spike to get out, and the big dog jumped down, only stumbling a little when he hit, before heading for the two people remaining in the yard. Buffy limped along behind him, all her aches and pains redoubling with each step.
“Mom. Spike. God! Are you alright?” the Slayer called as she got up to them.
“Not… the word… I’d use,” Spike ground out, trying not to move his torso at all, which was made more difficult by the dog, who was sniffing and snuffling all around his face and neck. “Sod off, Cujo! Your breath stinks like musty rats. Bloody hell!”
“Oh my God!” the Slayer exclaimed, stepping around behind the vampire to assess the damage, only then realizing he had a stake in his back. She looked down at her mom, dread growing like a lead weight in her chest. If Spike was hurt this badly, what had happened to her mom?
“Are you hurt?! Did they… are you…?” the girl began.
“Buffy… Buffy! You’re… you’re not …?” Joyce stammered at the same time, looking up at her daughter.
Joyce finally pushed up to her feet, eyes wide, her mind racing. “Oh, Buffy! I was so scared! I thought… he had… he had pictures!” she exclaimed, pulling her girl into a bone-crushing hug.
Buffy gasped from the pain of her mother’s embrace, but didn’t try to pull back. “I’ll be alright,” she assured her mom. “Had worse,” she lied.
“Touchin’ as this is, could ya do a bloke a favor and pull the bloody knife outta my back?” Spike growled from the ground.
Buffy and Joyce released their hug, tears of relief in each of their eyes. “Your head! You’ve been bleeding!” Joyce announced, reaching a trembling hand for her daughter’s blood-stained hair.
Buffy touched the side of her head and winced, her fingers coming away damp and red. “That explains the double-vision,” she only half-joked.
“Some of us are still bleeding,” Spike carped.
Buffy sighed tiredly and knelt behind him. “It’s not a knife, it’s a stake,” she informed him, wrapping her fingers around the protruding end.
“Oh, bloody wonderful!” he snarled, gritting his teeth as Buffy moved it around. “Oi! Watch the heart!”
“Don’t be a baby,” she chastised. “It’s nowhere near your heart.”
“Well, it hurts!” he shot back. “Get it out.”
“Hold still and I will,” she ordered, trying to get a grip on the smooth, blood-slick wood.
“For fuck’s sake! What’re you doing, playing fiddlesticks back there?” Spike complained.
Buffy rolled her eyes. “I forgot what a big baby you are. Geez, give me a minute…”
“Ya been messing about there for a bleedin’ hour! Pull it out!”
Buffy sighed, gripped the wood as tightly as she could, and yanked. She fell back on her butt with the effort. The vampire screamed. The dog whined. Joyce gasped. The stake didn’t move.
“Umm,” she said sheepishly as Spike panted and writhed in pain on the ground. “It’s stuck.”
“Figured that out, did ya?” Spike groaned.
“I could get … someone…” Buffy stammered, trying to think who she could get – Oz and Xander were probably still at the hospital with Willow, Giles was, of course, out of the question… hmmm. “Oh! Angel!”
“No bloody way,” Spike objected through clenched teeth. “Dust first.”
Buffy sighed. “I’m sorry,” she said gently, meaning it, laying a hand comfortingly on his arm. “Who staked you, anyway?”
Joyce cringed. “That would be me.”
“You?!” Buffy exclaimed, looking up at her mom. “Why?”
“It was an accident. I was aiming for a completely different vampire.”
“An accidental staking?” Buffy mused, shaking her head.
“Clearly need a lesson in stake safety in this sodding house,” Spike grumbled, trying to sit up.
“Here,” Joyce offered, “Let me try. I got it in, maybe…” she suggested with a shrug.
“Beginning to know what a voodoo doll feels like,” the vampire complained as he felt Joyce brace one hand on his back and wrap the other around the end of the stake.
“Okay, this might hurt…” she warned.
Spike rolled his eyes behind closed lids and clenched his jaw. Was she bloody serious?
The next moment he felt the stake tug on the cartilage and tendons in his shoulder. He howled and jerked away from the pain. The wood slipped free of his flesh with a squelch, and a fount of blood.
“You got it!” Buffy proclaimed in victory as Spike pounded a fist into the sod, mainly to keep from pounding it into anyone else, no matter how much they may deserve it.
“C’mon, let’s get you inside… patch you up,” Buffy urged the vampire, as she tried to stand back up, but wavered dizzily. Every trial she’d endured – mental, emotional, and physical – was quickly catching up to the Slayer now that the battle was over. She could feel her energy draining away, getting sucked into a blackhole of utter exhaustion.
Joyce caught her daughter’s arm and steadied her, then reached down to help Spike back to his feet. The vampire and the Slayer leaned on the elder Summers as they made their way slowly back to the house.
“Did we win? Is it over?” Joyce asked as they trudged past the line of Polaroid’s and limped up the porch steps.
Buffy nodded tiredly, her eyelids suddenly drooping, her limbs filled with lead weights. “We’re still here, so I think we won. Yay,” she cheered flatly. “Go us.”
“If this is what you white hats call winnin’, think I’d rather lose,” Spike continued to carp wearily.
“God, you are such a baby! You aren’t in a wheelchair, are you?” Buffy pointed out, blinking to try and keep her eyes open.
“Oh, well, ‘scuse me, but that’s a mighty low barometer for measuring victory, Slayer.”
“Yeah, well, winners can’t be choosers.”
“Think ya mean ‘beggars.’”
“’Winners can’t be beggars’? That doesn’t sound right,” Buffy countered, frowning as they tromped, bleeding and staggering, into the house.
“Beggars can’t be…” Spike began in exasperation, then sighed, shaking his head as Joyce led them to the couch.
“See? I am right, aren’t I?” Buffy pressed as the two spent warriors collapsed onto the cushions, both groaning and wincing in pain. Joyce made sure they were settled okay before she hurried to the bathroom for the first-aid kit.
“Not right, just too tired t’ argue,” he mumbled.
“Hmph,” Buffy grunted, yawning. The exhaustion was washing over her now like a tidal wave, threatening to drown her. She’d gone beyond her second wind, and third wind and was on her six-hundredth wind, and it was petering out quickly. “So, to get you to stop arguing with me, I just need to stake you in the back?” she muttered.
Spike finally stopped fighting the inevitable – he was done. He let his eyes fall closed, and leaned his head back against the cushions. Everything hurt. He knew he should get some blood, needed it to heal, but his body was too tired to care. His eyelids had the weight of hard-earned survival pulling them down, dragging him headlong into the long-overdue oblivion of sleep. “Could try… haven’t managed it yet, Slayer,” he slurred.
“That a challenge?” she wondered drowsily, curling her legs up on the couch and leaning into him, her own eyes fluttering closed.
“Just a fact,” he rumbled, unconsciously slipping his arm around her as she settled her head on his good shoulder.
“Shouldn’t bleed on the sofa,” she warned, snuggling in closer to him with a bone-tired sigh.
“Mmm… too late,” he pointed out groggily.
“Spike?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
“For bleedin’ on the sofa?”
Her words were slow and punctuated with yawns, but Buffy eventually got them all out, “For coming. For believing in me. For reminding me who I am.”
A small smile curled his cracked lips, though she didn’t see it. “It’s what friends are for, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Buffy agreed, her battered body and frayed emotions relaxing for the first time in days as she cuddled recklessly closer to the vampire. To her friend.
“’Night, Spike.”
“Ni’, pet,” was the hushed reply.
The Guardian of the Twilight pushed the front door closed with his nose, then padded into the living room, wagging his tail happily. He laid down at Buffy and Spike’s feet with a contented, if exhausted, sigh. The bad rabbits were dead. His hoomans were safe. And his friend, the white rabbit, was back. The only thing that could make this night better would be cheezeburgers.
Maybe tomorrow there would be cheezeburgers.
** X-X-X-X-X **
STORY BOARDS
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link.
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link.
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link .
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link .
End notes:
Phew!! Smooth sailing from here on out? Hmmm.... Don't count your ducks before they've quacked.
Chapter 11: Oxford
Chapter Text
Chapter Notes:
Thanks to all of you for reading! It means so much to me, like Peeps for my muse! Sending all the sloppy, joyful doggie kisses to everyone who has left a note, a like or a kudo. I love hearing from everyone! I apologize for falling behind in replying to your comments. My time is getting squeezed to the breaking point right now, so I’m focusing on keeping the posting schedule. I promise to get caught up on the comments, though!
Thanks also my two wonderful Beta readers and friends: Holi117 and Paganbaby, and to TeamEricNSookie for pre-reading. All mistakes are mine because I keep fiddling with stuff. If you see any, PM me and I’ll fix it.
Chapter 11: Oxford
“I’m not sure we have enough bandages—” Joyce was saying as she returned to the living room with the first-aid kit. She stopped when she saw the two warriors passed-out, leaning against each other on the couch, the dog collapsed, asleep at their feet. She’d been psyching herself up to do some type of minor surgery, or at least plenty of bandaging – but apparently that could wait. Joyce closed her eyes and took in a deep, shuddering breath, letting it out in a sigh of relief, allowing herself to relax for the first time in what seemed forever. They’d all made it. The Slayer and the vampire were certainly the worse for it, but the worst was over, and they’d all survived. They would heal.
Joyce set the first-aid kit down and grabbed the throw blanket from the chair, draping it over the two sleeping blondes on the couch. She leaned down and touched a soft kiss against her daughter’s forehead, sending up a silent prayer of gratitude. The exhausted Slayer mumbled something and snuggled even closer to the vampire she was using as a pillow, making Spike adjust his position, until they were both comfortable again. After a moment, they both settled – Slayer and vampire – neither opening their eyes nor fully waking. It would look sweet if not for all the dried blood, scrapes, gouges, bruises, and swelling. Maybe it was what qualified for sweet on the Hellmouth, the elder Summers thought. Joyce smiled wanly and brushed a couple of stray curls back away from Spike’s eyes before she reached over and pulled the heavy curtains closed, remembering their guest’s ‘sun allergy’.
With that done, Joyce collapsed down into the chair opposite them and began to sob quietly as everything from the past few days, and especially the last few hours, crashed down on her. She buried her face in her hands as her shoulders shook with the release of all the terror and tension that had built up in her body and her soul. She’d nearly lost her little girl today. She’d nearly died herself. And Mr. Giles had been behind it all... Giles and the Council. She was still trying to comprehend that, trying to come to grips with it, but her exhausted mind wasn’t fully capable of processing all that yet. What she did know without a doubt was, if not for William, she’d have been the one that Kralik would’ve taken rather than their dog. A shudder of horrified revulsion skittered down her spine at the prospect. There was evil and then there was vile; and Kralik was most certainly the vilest creature Joyce had ever encountered.
She felt so ashamed for how she’d behaved. She didn’t know how she’d ever be able to face Spike in the morning. In her misguided attempt to help, she’d done nothing but cause more problems and get the vampire fighting for her hurt. Hell, she’d staked him herself! Joyce’s stomach churned and twisted in regret and humiliation at the thought. She might’ve dusted her protector! Killed the friend who’d come when she’d called. The one who sacrificed his own wellbeing for her, her daughter – even for their dog.
“I’m so sorry, Spike,” Joyce burbled into her hands, her body trembling, wracked with sobs. “Thank you for coming, thank you for everything… so sorry.”
** X-X-X-X-X **
Spike swam up from the misty hold of exhaustion, slowly rising through a sea of treacle to the surface where wakefulness waited. There was something warm and heavy atop him, which he couldn’t sort out for many long moments, not until his mind parted the fog of his deep, heavy sleep.
Buffy.
He blinked his eyes open to find himself sprawled out on the Summers’ sofa, the Slayer draped over him like a living blanket. He looked around the room, still getting his bearings. Light filtered in around the edges of the heavy drapes, illuminating the room in a soft glow. They were alone. How they’d ended up laying down on the couch, he had no idea. He didn’t even know how long they’d been here. A few hours or a few days – either would’ve been possible.
Spike looked down at the disheveled mane of blood-soaked sunshine that rested against his chest. Buffy’s heart thumped against his ribs, steady and strong. An unconscious purr of contentment rumbled up from deep inside him, pulsing in time with each of her deep breaths. He’d not felt anything as astonishingly comforting as this in his entire unlife. Her heart. Her warmth. Her breath. Her trust.
Trust in him.
Spike slowly lifted one hand and slipped his fingers through the ends of her hair where it fanned out over his t-shirt. It was grimy and bloody and an absolute revelation. Like fine silk that had been ill-treated and abused. Rough on the outside, but still rich and smooth beneath – a flowing river of sunbeams between his fingers.
Her tresses were just like the Slayer they belonged to. A study in antitheses. Frightened girl. Strong woman. Insecure one moment and stubbornly confident the next. Emotional yet rational. Dedicated in her duty to slay his kind, and yet it was Spike who she’d called when she’d been most vulnerable.
His enemy. His friend. The haunter of his dreams. The prowler always sneaking into his unguarded thoughts.
Maybe Dru was right. Maybe he had gone soft. But if this is what soft felt like – to be trusted, to have friends, to be useful, to be needed – then maybe it wasn’t all bad. The tenderness and innocence of this moment filled a nearly forgotten void deep inside him. Perhaps where his soul had been? He wasn’t sure. But it was a place Dru could never seem to touch; an unconscious need that Buffy soothed without even trying.
He wished he could wake every evening just like this, filled with this warm serenity.
“My Slayer,” Spike breathed contentedly, his eyes fluttering closed.
“Hmmm? What?” Buffy’s sleep-roughened voice replied.
Spike’s eyes shot open as he looked down to find her blinking awake, her face awash in the same confusion his must’ve been when he’d first woken up. He quickly dropped his hand from her hair, his body stiffening beneath her as he watched comprehension dawn for the Slayer. Would she stay? Would she relax back against him? Would she give him more time swathed in her warmth?
“Oh…what’s…?” Buffy stuttered. She immediately began trying to sit up, pull away, her muscles and joints protesting each demand for them to move.
Spike’s purr turned to a hurt and angry growl. Of course she wouldn’t stay. Couldn’t get away from him fast enough, could she? Never mind him driving like hell to get here. Never mind that he’d reminded her of her fire. Never mind him fighting like mad to save her mum. The Slayer couldn’t stand to be touching him; couldn’t bear sullying her virtue by laying, however innocently, with the likes of him.
Buffy’s palm pressed on his fly as she tried to sit up and her eyes went wide as she encountered a surprising hardness beneath.
Her shocked eyes met his as she momentarily froze in place.
Spike arched a brow at her, a slow smirk curving his mouth. “Like what ya found there?” he asked, pulling his cloak of cockiness tight around his bruised and battered emotions.
Buffy squeaked and yanked her hand away like it’d been burnt.
She began to scramble, trying to find somewhere that wasn’t part of Spike to put her hands, to push up, but there was nothing. She elbowed him in the ribs, drawing a gasp of pain from the vampire, and dug a knee into his thigh, which elicited a hiss.
“Oh, God, I’m sorry!” she rasped, jerking her hand off him. Her lower-back sent a sharp twinge of pain up and down her spine and she reached back automatically, trying to soothe it. In the process, the drugged, injured, exhausted Slayer lost her balance and started to fall off the couch. She caught herself on the vampire’s shoulder, which intensified his discomfort and added a colorful howling curse to the mix.
“Sorry!” she barely eked out, snatching her hand away again, before she tumbled off the couch, landing on the thick furball sleeping beneath them. Both the Slayer and the dog cried out in surprise, Buffy’s shoulder and back complaining bitterly about the rough treatment as the dog yipped in when her full weight landed on his still-healing injuries.
“Bloody hell,” Spike growled, his hurt feelings searching for an outlet as he turned onto his side to look down at her. “That how you treat all the vampires you sleep with?”
“Sleep with?” Buffy shrilled, trying to get up at the same time the dog was, neither of them succeeding. “There was no ‘sleeping with’! Not a single moment of… of ‘sleeping with’! There is no ‘with’! I just… fell asleep… with…”
“Didn’t seem too upset by the prospect when you were lifting that curse on Ang—”
He stopped, knowing instantly that he’d gone too far. The hurt that flashed in her eyes had Spike regretting the dig immediately, but it was too late.
Buffy’s face turned to stone as she cradled her right arm and pushed up off her dog, struggling to her feet. “That was once – one vampire, one mistake. Not making it again,” she hissed, finally getting up. “There is no ‘with’ here.”
Spike’s ire continued to grow with her words, her knife digging into one of his most tender spots – Angel always ruining everything for him. “Fine by me, but you were the one on top, Slayer. Wasn’t me pinning you down. If ya wanted another vampire to scratch that itch, all ya had to do was ask – satisfaction guaranteed,” he assured her, curling his tongue against his teeth lecherously, sinking further into his natural defenses.
“You are such a pig! I don’t know what I was thinking even calling you,” the Slayer grated out as she started for the stairs, the dog backing up out of the way, watching everything warily.
“Thinking when the hounds o’ hell were after you, that Spike would be the one who’d come fight at your side, that’s what,” he asserted, getting to his feet with no small effort, his face twisted with pain when his shoulder shifted, but he didn’t let that stop him. “Didn’t see anyone else about last night – not your mates, not your ex, certainly not your sodding Watcher. Me – right here, right in the thick of it with ya,” he seethed. ‘Good enough to protect her mum, but god forbid she be seen with me in the light o’ day like her beloved Angel.’
Buffy stopped with one foot on the bottom step, not looking at him, and shook her head.
“No?!” Spiked demanded incredulously, taking a step toward her. “I bloody well was—”
“That’s not why I called you,” Buffy whispered.
He stopped; his brows furrowed. “Then… why?”
She snorted to herself and turned around to face him. “Because I wanted someone to tell me why… why it was happening… what was wrong with me. I knew you’d… if you knew, that you’d tell me, no matter how harsh it was. You’d tell me the truth. So, I guess I shouldn’t get mad when you throw it back in my face.”
Spike clenched his jaw, trying to calm down. What the hell was he doing? ‘Knew she’d never touch you when you came here. Why are ya getting brassed off about it now?’ Unfortunately, he knew why – because he’d let himself indulge, bask in the feel of her when he’d woken and found her still there, with him. Bloody daft, that was. He sighed, regrouping. “Didn’t mean to throw anything in your face… Just… hurt. Pain bypasses my limited brain-cells and shoves all sorts of rubbish right outta my mouth. Like one o’ those squid that shoots out ink, ya know, in self-defense.”
Buffy nodded. “I – I didn’t mean to hurt your shoulder… or your ribs… or, you know… anything else,” she apologized with a blush, her eyes darting below his belt. “I was just trying to get up…”
Spike pursed his lips. Wasn’t the physical pain he’d been talking about, but she didn’t need to know that. He took another tentative step toward her. “It’s alright… didn’t mean what I said. Was a low blow. Both know all that bollocks with the enormous git wasn’t your fault.”
Buffy nodded, dropping her eyes to the floor, wishing she could believe him – wishing it wasn’t her fault. Reckless.
“Did you not hear a bloody thing I told ya last night? ‘Bout your fire... how sodding magnificent you are?” he demanded. “Wouldn’t say that if I thought that was your fault, now would I?”
Buffy wanted to believe him, wanted to believe the sincere look in his eyes, but deep down she knew the truth – she’d been a reckless disappointment as a Slayer and a daughter. She had to do better now. She had a second chance, largely because of Spike, and she had to do better this time. She finally cleared her throat, never answering him, and searched for a change of subject. “So, you’re a squid?” she questioned, tilting her head curiously.
Spike blew out a breath in exasperation. “Not the point I was tryin’ to make. Just tossed out that Angel bollocks, cos… well, was the first thing that sprang to my tongue. Not cos it’s true. Didn’t ya check on what I told you about Angel and Slayers?”
Damn it, he wasn’t letting it go. Buffy nodded, biting down on her lower lip. “Yeah, we’ve been looking into it.”
“And?”
“And… Angel was in the same towns as a few different Slayers after the curse. And, yet, I was the only one stupid enough to sleep with him, so…” Buffy shrugged and turned for the stairs again. “I guess that still makes me the reckless one.”
“Buffy…” Spike cajoled, taking another step toward her.
“I’m gonna get a shower, clean up. You can get one when I’m done,” she said, waving him off.
Spike sighed as she hobbled up the stairs away from him, his hands going to his hips, chin hitting his chest. ‘Bloody brilliant. Can’t keep your sodding mouth shut.’ But she had hurt him. Should’ve known, though. She’d never consciously touch a monster like him. The Slayer had just been too out of it when they’d collapsed there – hadn’t been thinking right. Soon as she realized, off she went, running for the hills, virtue fluttering.
The dog walked over to the vampire and huffed out a disgusted breath.
“Don’t need any lip from you, Fido,” Spike grumbled, patting down his pockets for his fags.
“Grrrrrr-arff,” the dog half-growled, shoulder-checking the vampire.
Spike stumbled sideways, grimacing when he jarred his impaled shoulder. “Fine… don’t need any lip from you, Cujo,” he corrected, as he looked around, trying to decide which porch would be out of direct sunlight.
“Woof!” the dog admonished when Spike pulled his cigarettes and lighter out of his pocket.
“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered. “Slayer’s house, Slayer’s rules… I’m goin’,” the vampire assured the Guardian as he headed for the kitchen and the back porch, which seemed the safest bet for a sun-free smoke break.
The blond stopped and looked back up the stairs, then down at the dog. “Tell her I’m sorry, yeah? Really didn’t mean nothing by it… Just, mouth runs away with me at times.”
The dog looked toward the second floor, then back at the vampire, apparently considering. He huffed out a derisive breath, gave the blond a look that seemed to convey that he would owe him one, and headed up after his hooman.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Buffy leaned against the sink and looked at her face in the mirror, trying not to cry. She’d survived the Council’s test, but so what? She was still the reckless one. The disappointing one. All her other achievements seemed to fade to the background in the harsh light of her one gigantic blunder.
And falling asleep in the arms of the ‘enemy’ again – so not helping. Especially considering how safe she’d felt there. For the first time in days, she’d actually slept peacefully. And how soothing it had been when the demon’s rumbling purr vibrated through her, easing every ache in her body and lulling her back towards sleep. And how relaxing it had felt when he’d stroked her hair so gently. And how their bodies seemed to mold together so perfectly. And how hard he’d been when her hand closed over…
Bad. Bad Buffy. Bad, bad, badness.
Of course, all that had come to an embarrassing end when she’d stupidly spoken and let him know she wasn’t actually asleep. God, he must think she’s such a slut, snuggled all up to him like that, draped over him like a big ho. Then, of course, she had to put her hand there. Like something Drusilla would do. Drusilla. His girlfriend. She moaned and rubbed her eyes, shaking her head dejectedly. Bad Buffy.
The Slayer swallowed and looked up to meet her own eyes in the mirror. “You’ve got another chance now. You need to get it right this time. No badness. No reckless. No more stupid Buffy.”
There was a scratching and whining at the door and Buffy broke away from her self-scolding to let her companion in. “Did that giant squid send you up here?” she asked, letting the big dog enter.
Spike sneezed then sat down and looked up at her intently.
Buffy snorted a small laugh, which shifted the daggers in her back and shoulder, and turned the chuckle into a groan. “I’m okay,” she assured him when the dog whined in worry. “We might as well both get cleaned up while we’re here,” the Slayer suggested as she started to struggle out of her grimy, blood-and-sweat-soaked clothes.
She wrinkled her nose up, tossing them on the floor near the hamper. “Well, there’s one advantage to ‘sleeping with’ someone that doesn’t have to breathe, I guess,” she muttered. “They don’t have to smell you.”
“Woof!” Spike agreed, sliding the shower curtain open with his nose.
“Yeah, well, you don’t smell like roses, either, buddy,” she griped as he climbed into the bathtub to wait for her. “Also, I don’t think that tub was really built for two,” Buffy observed, eying the limited amount of remaining space as she leaned in to turn on the water.
‘Unless the second was a buff vampire with strong, gentle hands who could wash your hair for you and your back and…’
‘Bad Buffy! Very bad,’ she chastised herself angrily, her emotions cartwheeling, but determined be a good Slayer from now on, and that meant not snuggling up with vampires, no matter how safe they made her feel.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Spike inhaled the nicotine and released it in a slow exhale of blue-grey smoke that floated out into the rays of sun filtering into the backyard. He still wasn’t sure what day it was or how long they’d Rip Van Winkled, only that it was getting on into late afternoon. Which meant the time he had left here was very short. Buffy’d likely kick his ass out soon as the sun was down.
This hadn’t worked out anything like he’d thought. He scoffed at the foolish image he’d had of Buffy greeting him at the door, of her smiling, of her welcoming him as a friend. That was bloody William’s doing – daft sod. What was worse was that the demon had wanted it too, had fallen for it, actually believed it. Believed he’d had a friend in this world.
“Could you get any more pathetic?” he chastised himself, taking another drag on the cigarette. “Demons don’t make friends with Slayers – they make meals outta them.”
Spike was on his third cigarette, the last one he had on him, when he heard someone in the kitchen. He listened a moment, cocking his head. Not Buffy. Joyce. Well, maybe he did have one friend. Even if the barmy woman wouldn’t do as he told her when he was trying to keep her safe.
He’d finished his cigarette and had chucked the butt into the flowerbed when she stuck her head out the door. “I’ve got some blood heated up… and cocoa,” she announced, not making eye contact.
“Ta, luv,” Spike replied, a grimace washing over his face as he got up.
Joyce winced in response. “Still bad?”
Spike shrugged his other shoulder, which hurt considerably less. “Be right as rain in a day or two,” he assured her as he followed her into the kitchen. On the counter was, as promised, a warm mug of blood as well as one of cocoa. In addition, there was a bowl of hot chili peppers and a bag of mini-marshmallows.
“I can’t even begin to say how sorry I am,” Joyce apologized, wringing her hands and averting her eyes from the wounded warrior.
“No worries, pet,” Spike replied, sitting down at the counter. “Had worse… mostly from your daughter. ‘Preciate ya missing the heart,” he joked, as he contemplated the offerings before him.
Joyce rolled her eyes. “Yes, well, considering I was trying to help, not impale you, that’s a small blessing.”
Spike looked up and smiled at her reassuringly. “Not sure the Slayer would agree,” he suggested, taking a couple of chili peppers, breaking them in half and dropping them into the blood. Maybe that would help conceal the vile taste of days-old dead pig.
“I’m sure that’s not true,” Joyce disagreed, picking up a dishcloth and wiping the counter, just to have something to do with her hands. “Buffy… likes you.”
Spike snorted. “Could tell by her warm welcome – always lovely t’ be accused of killing the family and nearly staked. Not to mention how she scurried away this afternoon like I had soddin’ leprosy.”
“Well, she’s been through a lot,” Joyce pointed out, shaking her head as she scrubbed at a spot that had been on the Formica for the last five years, still not looking at him. “She could use a friend… one who really understands her world and how she must be feeling.” Joyce stopped her fruitless scrubbing and finally looked up at Spike earnestly. “One who won’t be constantly trying to pressure her into anything she doesn’t want, like Angel keeps doing. Which I know you wouldn’t, since you’re so devoted to Drusilla.”
Spike cleared his throat uncomfortably and dropped his eyes to the mug of blood, swirling the chili peppers around in it. “Uh, yeah,” he stammered, lifting the cup to his lips and stopping himself from saying anything else by drinking it all in several long swallows.
“I mean, I know you joke around, tease, but it’s just that – teasing. Nothing serious.”
“Mmmm,” Spike hummed noncommittally, the mug still to his lips.
“So, when… umm, when is Drusilla expecting you back?” the woman wondered, wringing her hands again.
Spike choked on the last few drops of blood. He finally sat the empty mug back down and took a drink of the cocoa to clear not only the taste, but his strangled throat. “Uh, didn’t set any particulars with her,” he answered evasively.
Joyce nodded, watching as he drank more of the chocolate, the little marshmallows disappearing with the liquid. “Not any better with the chilis?” she assumed, frowning.
Spike took a couple more sips of the hot chocolate, swirled it around his mouth, then swallowed it. “A bit better,” he admitted. “Maybe heat the next one up with the peppers in it, eh?” the vampire suggested, pushing the mug across the counter to her. He really didn’t want more. While it was some better, the blood wasn’t fresh and there was just so much you could do to mask the stale flavor. But, old or not, it was blood, and he’d need it to heal. Since the Slayer wasn’t likely to abide him going hunting, it would have to do. Though maybe if he were hunting the Watcher that did all this to them, she’d give him a pass. He snorted to himself, knowing better. Bloody girl was too sodding good for that; was one of the things that drew people to her... like a sun drawing planets into her brilliant orbit.
“Sure,” Joyce agreed, going back to the fridge for another container, happy to be able to do something to help. “I’ve got… Worcestershire sauce… ummm… horseradish, Tabasco, soy sauce, bar-b-que… Do you want to try any of that?” she asked as she dug through the various condiments in the fridge.
Spike considered a moment. “Tabasco might be a bit of alright,” he suggested. “Not sure ‘bout the rest, maybe give them a go later, yeah?”
Joyce nodded, setting the bottle of hot sauce on the counter as she got another mug of blood ready, including a couple of the fresh chilis, and popped it into the microwave.
Spike knew when Buffy came out of the bathroom. A mist of warm, mango and vanilla scented air floated down the stairs, followed closely by an excited, damp furball covered in the same sweet scent. Spike arched a brow at the big dog. ‘Sleep with the Slayer and shower with her, too? Bloody hell!’
“Out you go,” Joyce ordered, moving to the back door as the dog wiggled and waggled in gleeful exuberance around the kitchen, leaving a soggy sheen of bathwater on the floor in his wake. “And no rolling in the dirt!” she warned.
“Wooof!” Spike agreed, bounding out into the yard.
“Never seen anyone quite so happy for a wash up before,” Spike observed as the microwave dinged.
“I think the happy comes from the bath being over,” Joyce replied, getting the mug of blood and setting it on the counter for him.
“Reckon so,” Spike allowed, shaking a generous amount of Tabasco sauce into the blood and stirring it with his finger. ‘If I showered with the Slayer, I’d never want the bath to be over...’
Joyce gave him a reproachful look and set a spoon down next to him.
“Uh… apologies,” he muttered, sucking the blood off his digit.
“What are you apologizing for now?” Buffy asked flippantly as she came into the kitchen, smelling very much like the dog that had just passed through, only with the sweet undertone of ‘Slayer’ instead of the musk of ‘wet hound’.
Spike looked up at her, but she didn’t meet his eyes as she detoured to the pantry and pulled out a box of cereal. Buffy was clean, her hair slightly damp, like the dog’s. No makeup, no shoes. Swollen, purple and yellow bruises were still visible on her face and neck. There were scrapes and cuts starting to scab over, as well. She still favored her right shoulder, but overall, she seemed to be moving a little better. The girl was dressed in grey sweatpants and faded green t-shirt that said, ‘I may be wrong …. but I doubt it,’ on the front.
‘Not planning on going out, then,’ Spike surmised.
A little swath of golden skin peeked out on her lower back as she reached for the breakfast food. Spike cleared his throat and looked away. “Uh, forgot m’ table manners is all,” he answered her, picking up the blood and taking a sip.
“You can take the vampire out of the grave, but ya can’t make him use a coaster,” Buffy muttered, getting out a bowl.
Spike scowled at her back as he added in a few more shakes of hot sauce into the blood and stirred it with the spoon.
Buffy turned to look at him then, bringing the box of Cocoa Puffs and bowl with her to the breakfast bar. “That’s not human, is it?”
Spike rolled his eyes. “No, Slayer, it’s porcine.”
Buffy furrowed her brows. “Where did you get that?”
“I got it for him… at the butcher shop,” Joyce provided.
Buffy looked more confused, her gaze shifting between her mom and the vampire. “They sell porcupine blood at the butchers now?”
“Porcine,” Spike repeated impatiently. “Swine, oink-oink, Wilbur, pig, as in ‘the three little’ …Bloody hell, thought you’d made it past primary school, Slayer.”
Buffy lifted her chin, squared her shoulders and stomped over to the fridge, pulling a paper from under one of the magnets. She turned and slapped it down on the counter in front of the smartassed blond. “I’ll have you know I scored 1430 on my SATs. And that was with zero sleep and an annoying vampire lurking in his car in my front yard threatening my dog. I could go to… to Harvard or Yale or… or… Oxford,” she declared with a pout.
“Pffft, Oxford,” Spike scoffed. “Cambridge. Now that’s a proper university,” he asserted.
“Yeah, well, I could get in there, too! Just because you use words that went out with Star Trek… the original one, not that TNG one.”
Spike snorted. “Have you know, Slayer, Star Trek will live forever, like me. ‘Resistance is futile.’”
Buffy rolled her eyes. “Seriously? You’re a Trekkie? Could you get any more annoying?”
“That a challenge?” he wondered, smirking at her.
Buffy rolled her eyes and grabbed the milk out of the fridge. “Why don’t you take your porcine ass up and wash some of that stink off?”
“Very good, Slayer. Used it in a proper sentence and everything. T’morrow we’ll learn another word you clearly don’t know the meaning of: ‘gratitude,’” Spike snapped, before gulping down the remainder of the blood.
“Ha-ha,” Buffy mocked, pouring her cereal in a bowl. “I have gratitude; I’m a gratitude-a-thon,” she asserted, adding the milk. “I thanked you last night when you were bleeding all over the sofa. Or did your memory leak out with your stolen blood?”
Spike set the empty mug down and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand as he stood up. “Can take the Slayer outta the graveyard, but can’t make her less of a bitch,” he countered, picking up what remained in the cup of cocoa and taking it with him as he headed for the stairs.
Buffy blew out a disgusted breath and rolled her eyes before grabbing a spoon and digging viciously into the innocent bowl of chocolatey-goodness.
“Buffy,” Joyce said reprovingly.
“What?” the girl snapped.
Joyce gave her her best ‘I taught you better than that’ looks. “Spike helped us. I think you could at least try to be a little nice to him.”
Buffy looked back down at her cereal, guilt weighing heavily on her heart, because she really was a grateful-athon. The things Spike had said to her before she’d gone to the boarding house, his voice in her head, kept her going when she really wanted to quit, to give up, to let her fire snuff, and there was no doubt he’d saved her mom. How much more full of ‘grate’ could she be? But, how was she supposed to do this? Be a good Slayer and be nice to Spike? Not be reckless, but be forever indebted to her mortal enemy, sometimes ally, for his help? Not be a disappointment, but be friends with a soulless vampire?
She had no idea. “Yeah, fine,” the Slayer agreed sullenly, unsure how to walk this razor’s edge and not go back on her pledge to the universe, and to herself, to be better.
Joyce sighed. How had these two not killed each other on that road trip? Deciding to stay out of it, she went over to let the dog back in – at least he was in a good mood.
** X-X-X-X-X **
“Wooof!” Spike warned, taking his eyes off the bowl of chocolatey puffs that he kept hoping would drop from Buffy’s hands, and starting for the front door. A moment later there was a knock.
“Were you expecting anyone?” Joyce asked, as she and Buffy both followed him.
“No,” the Slayer replied anxiously as the dog continued barking at the door. Buffy put an arm out to try and keep her mother behind her.
“Buffy, honestly! It’s daylight, how bad could it be?” Joyce objected to her daughter’s silent instruction.
Buffy rolled her eyes. “Just had to say it, didn’t you?” she groaned as she grabbed a stake from the basket by the door before peeking out the sidelight window. “Yep, totally jinxed it,” the Slayer announced as she unlocked the deadbolt and pulled the door open, stake still in hand.
The Guardian went out first, though his bark died as he met the first ‘intruder’, morphing into a low, ominous growl.
“You’ve got some nerve—” Buffy began, holding the stake up, ready to strike.
“Buffy, my dear,” Giles entreated, looking disheveled, still wearing the same clothes he’d had on the previous day. “I… I do apologize for this intrusion, but, the vampire, Kralik… we’ve searched all night but have been unable to locate him, o-or Blair. I fear one or both may be coming for you.”
“Wow… figured that out all on your own? You must’ve gone to Oxford,” the Slayer retorted.
“I – yes, but… I’m sorry, I don’t follow,” Giles stammered as the dog sniffed derisively at the second man.
“I believe your Slayer is trying to tell you that the vampire was already here,” the other man drawled haughtily from behind Giles.
“He must be the brains of the operation,” Buffy snarked. “Let me guess… Council.”
“Errr… y-yes,” Giles replied, stepping aside. “Buffy Summers, this is Quentin Travers, head of the Council of Watchers.”
“So, you’re the one that set that vampire free?” she asked, still holding the stake at the ready.
“I assure you, Miss Summers, I did not set Kralik free. Due to an unfortunate circumstance, he escaped,” Travers replied.
“To-may-to, to-mah-to,” Buffy retorted.
“Miss Summers, would you mind calling off your hound?” the Council Head requested.
“I have a better idea,” Buffy replied. “How about I have him rip your limbs off and use them as chew toys, like your vampire tried to do to us?”
Spike took up a position between Buffy and the newcomer, his eyes narrowed, watching Travers intently, a threatening growl still rumbling from his chest.
Both men looked down at the dog who obligingly bared his fangs for them. They both took a step back, Travers staying slightly behind Giles and to one side. “I completely understand—” Rupert began.
“Spare me,” Buffy cut him off. “Why don’t you go crawl back under your rock so I don’t have to clean blood off my porch this afternoon? I’m really not in the mood for housework right now.”
“Buffy,” Giles implored, holding his hands out placatingly, even as the dog continued to eye him suspiciously. “If you know where either vampire is, please do let us know. It is urgent that we contain them.”
“Well, you’ll need a shop vac and a whisk broom. They’re both dust on the lawn… right over there,” the Slayer informed him, waving the stake toward the half-demolished Jeep still parked under the trees in the front yard.
“Y-you… dusted them both?” Giles gawped. “H-how… when?”
“I dusted Kralik. Vehicular demon-cide. Blair was… Someone else got him. Are you happy? Do I get a cookie?” she snarked bitterly.
“Oi! Would one ‘a you ladies do a bloke a favor and fetch my bag outta the boot o’ my car?” Spike asked as he sauntered down the stairs.
Buffy and Joyce turned from the door and looked up at the vampire.
“Holy…” Joyce began, her eyes wide as pie plates.
“…Shit,” Buffy finished.
“W-what… is…? Is that… Spike?” Giles stuttered, staring gobsmacked at the vampire who was wearing nothing but a smirk and a towel slung low around his slim hips. Another towel was in Spike’s hands, casually drying his hair. “I demand to know the meaning of this!” Giles insisted from the porch, looking between the three people in the house. “What is he doing here? And why is he… errr… in this state of undress?”
Buffy felt a bright flush tingle her skin, rising from her chest all the way up to heat her face and prickle her scalp. Jesus God, the vamp looked better than she’d remembered, even with the bruises and swelling peppering his body. Those abs were… yeah, could totally do laundry on them. And his strong arms… and his shoulders and… chest… solid… and chiseled… and … Oh, God, he wasn’t gonna drop the towel again, was he? Here? In front of her mom? In front of Giles? Panic started to rise along with her blush as her eyes finally lifted from his physique and met his amused gaze.
Buffy shook her head in a small, but frantic, negative motion. “Don’t you dare,” she mouthed as she saw the mischievous gleam spark in his sapphire blue eyes. “I mean it,” she threatened in a whisper, pointedly brandishing the stake.
Spike curled his tongue against his teeth and ambled up to Buffy, leaning in very close to her ear. “You owe me one,” he murmured, before stepping away.
“You suck,” she growled back, sotto voce.
Spike winked at her, sucking his cheeks in and sharpening his cheekbones into razors. He grinned then, and turned his attention to the others. “Sorry, didn’t know ya had guests,” he said louder. “Reckon they’ll just let anyone in this house, eh, Watcher? Even back-stabbing pricks and holier-than-thou twits. Though, it appears you aren’t actually inside, are you?” he pointed out. “Invitation been revoked?”
“Buffy! This is… is quite… disturbing,” Giles stammered.
“You don’t get to be disturbed anymore,” Buffy shot back, turning her back on the half-naked vampire. She deliberately put herself between him and the others in the hopes that any wardrobe malfunction would be hidden from view. She could feel Spike not two feet behind her, though. Feel the tingling sparks of his power skittering up and down her spine and settling warmly in other places she really didn’t want to think about.
The dog began wagging his tail. Apparently happy to have backup in case things got ugly, he padded back inside, taking a seat on the hardwood next to his namesake. The vampire scratched his ears absently, keeping his eyes on the gits outside, particularly checking their hands for weapons, but they didn’t seem to be armed. “Bloody convenient having the Bubble and Squeak delivered, Slayer. Would’a dressed for dinner if I’d known,” Spike taunted.
“William the Bloody. Am I correct?” Travers asked flatly, looking past Buffy’s shoulder and eyeing Spike coolly, unfazed by the barely veiled threat. With the dog back inside, both tweed-clad men took a step forward, resuming their positions closer to the door.
Spike gathered up the towel he’d been holding and draped it around his neck, gave the dog a final pat on the top of the head, and stepped forward, next to Buffy, a cocky grin curving his lips. “Heard of me, have you?”
“No, actually. We've met in your pre-peroxide days. 1963. My colleagues and I fell upon you slaughtering an orphanage in Vienna. Killed two of our men before you escaped,” Travers recounted.
Spike arched a brow. “Reckon I should’a stuck around and finished the job, eh? Might’a saved the Slayer a bit of bother. Don’t usually leave tasks half-done like that; sets a bad example for the bitty vamps. Impressionable, they are. Wouldn’t want them growing up without proper schooling,” he revealed in a grave, confidential tone.
Buffy pulled her lips between her teeth and looked away, momentarily closing her eyes and shaking her head. Leave it to Spike to make her smile inappropriately.
“Yes. Very amusing,” Quentin drawled, looking at Buffy. “I see you find it so, Miss Summers,” he accused condescendingly. “Do you often entertain naked vampires in your home?”
“First, none of your business. Two, he’s not naked. And C, he’s a guest and a friend.”
“Is he, indeed? I will be making a report to the Council—”
“I’m quaking in my affordable but stylish boots,” Buffy quipped, interrupting him. “Make all the reports you want to the Council; it won’t change anything. Spike’s my friend. When I lost my power, he came to help me. Not you, not Giles – William the Bloody. The Council tried to kill me; the Slayer of Slayers came to help me. What the hell is wrong with this picture?” she demanded, her voice nearing a shriek.
“The primary thing I see wrong with this picture is my Slayer harboring a demon. That’s quite unacceptable,” Travers replied, his demeanor remaining calm, which just irked Buffy more.
“Your Slayer? YOUR Slayer? Newsflash – I’m not your Slayer. I don’t work with backstabbing chameleons!” Buffy barked. “Also, I’m not harboring him. We have a temporary truce – allowing us to work together for the greater good. You know that thing you keep telling me I’m supposed to care about?”
“And you think a soulless vampire will honor such an agreement? That he will not slaughter you in your sleep? My dear girl, you are quite delusional,” Travers rejoined.
“This soulless vampire has more honor in his little finger than your club of feeble old men has ever had!” Buffy retorted, jabbing the stake at Travers as she reached out and touched her other hand down on Spike’s bare shoulder. “Spike might kill me one day, but it won’t be during a truce. And I guarantee he’s man enough to look me in the eye when he does it, not stab me in the back like big, fat cowardly chameleons! He’s certainly not going to lie to me or drug me or send his pet psychopath after me.”
The Slayer scrunched up her face and looked at Spike. “You aren’t gonna do that again, right? Send those hitmen after me?”
“Never. Have my word on it,” Spike promised, standing up straighter. Her hand was a tangible warmth on his shoulder, like her words were on his heart. Her guest. Her friend. Her trust. Small bursts of sunlight spread down his torso from her touch, filling him with renewed confidence in his decision to come here, which he’d been seriously doubting after their conversation earlier. The girl really was like a pinball machine, and while it was tilting in his favor, Spike was going to play. “Kill ya fair and square when the time comes. Face-to-face like a proper missionary, if that’s your fancy… though could try out some other positions first, if ya like,” he suggested with a leer, curling his tongue against his teeth.
“Don’t be a pig in front of the company,” Buffy chastised lightly, rolling her eyes.
“Oh, dear Lord. Buffy—” Giles began in exasperation.
Buffy whirled on Giles. “Don’t ‘Buffy’ me. If it wasn’t for him, your cute little unstable escapee would’ve killed my mother. Kralik came here. To my fucking house. He came after my mother,” Buffy snarled, still gripping the stake in her hand, though her fingers were beginning to tremble and ache. “So, Spike and his piggy remarks and half-nakedness? He stays. You go.”
“Buffy, I am still your Watcher and I must warn you—”
“No, Mr. Giles, you are not her Watcher,” Joyce interjected, stepping forward and coming into the argument for the first time. “What you are is just what Buffy said, a coward and a monster.”
“Joyce, believe me, it was never my intention—” Giles tried to defend, but Joyce kept talking, getting angrier by the moment.
“Intention?!” she repeated incredulously. “I’m not judging by intentions! I’m talking about actions. You poisoned our dog! You drugged my daughter! You took her strength away from her. You watched her suffer, saw her injuries and her desperation, and did nothing but lie right to our faces about it! Buffy could’ve died! And for what? To save the world? To stop some horrible evil from spreading? To keep innocent people safe from the horrors around them?”
Joyce paused a moment, her chest heaving as she looked from Giles to Travers and back again. Giles, at least, had the good sense to look ashamed. “No,” she answered for them, breaking the tense silence. “For the entertainment of some toothless old men. Did you get off on it? On the control and the power? Is that how you get it hard these days, Ripper?”
Giles gritted his teeth, his face flushing with shame and embarrassment. “Joyce, I promise you—” he pleaded.
“Is that why you do this?” Joyce continued, talking over him. “This so-called trial? So you can feel high and mighty? So you can fool yourself into thinking you matter? Did watching Buffy suffer, hearing her beg for help, give you some sick thrill?”
“I assure you, it did not,” Giles replied, abashed.
“What about you?” she asked turning her attention to Travers.
“Mrs. Summers. While I understand you’re upset—” the head of the Council began placatingly.
“You understand nothing,” Joyce shot back. “If you understood anything, you wouldn’t have this trial… this circumcision…”
“Cruciamentum,” Giles corrected with a grimace.
“It’s barbaric,” the elder Summers continued.
“We’re fighting a war, Mrs. Summers—” Travers defended.
“You’re waging a war,” Giles pointed out feebly. “She’s fighting it. There is a difference.”
“Certain sacrifices must be made,” Travers continued, ignoring his comrade.
“Pffft!” Spike interjected. “What ya mean is, when the little girls get old enough t’ start thinking for themselves, you lot are afraid ya can’t control them properly. Afraid the student will surpass the master, are you? Only way to get in new blood that you can twist to your liking is to off the old one. Just how many Slayers actually survive this little torture, eh?”
Expressions of surprise washed over the two men’s faces. Spike arched a brow. “Yeah, I speak sodding Latin, just didn’t know the proper name of it ‘til now. Cruciamentum… torture, torment, pain. Comes from ‘crucio’, to crucify. Didn’t tell the chit that bit, then, did you?”
“No,” Buffy answered for them, finally removing her hand from the vampire’s shoulder and crossing her arms over her chest.
Spike regretted the withdrawal of her touch immediately, but pressed on, glaring at Travers, “Haven’t answered the question, Vienna. How many don’t make it?”
“Oh, my God,” Buffy breathed, her mind flipping back through the research they’d been doing on Slayers, remembering all the final journal entries of countless Watchers. ‘Age at time of death: eighteen.’ She looked up at Giles, then over to Travers. “He’s right. I… I don’t know why I didn’t… I just figured time had caught up to them, but that’s not it at all. You killed them. You killed them so you could have a new girl… a confused, frightened girl you could control, not one coming into her own. You don’t want women Slayers… you want girls.”
“That’s preposterous,” Travers insisted patronizingly. “The Tento di Cruciamentum is a time-honored rite of passage. A Slayer is not just physical prowess. She must have cunning, imagination, and a confidence derived from self-reliance. When it is done, the Slayer is stronger for it.”
“Or deader,” Buffy added angrily, her eyes narrowed dangerously. “Mostly, deader.”
“Looks like the title o’ ‘Slayer of Slayers’ rightfully belongs to you then, eh, 007?” Spike asked, sneering at Travers.
“Stay away from my daughter,” Joyce seethed, stepping up to close the door. “And get off my porch before I call the police... or worse.”
“A Slayer needs a Watcher,” Travers insisted, slipping his foot into the opening to keep her from slamming it.
“My daughter is done being your cat’s paw. If Faith wants to play your games, then fine – she can decide for herself. But I warn you, if you try this ‘time honored’ crucifixion on that girl, or any other girl, I will put a stop to it in ways that will have your balls in a very public vise,” Joyce threatened. “Now get your foot out of my fucking door before I have Spike rip it off.”
The vampire and the dog both stepped up, pleased to be of service. Travers pulled his foot out. The two Spikes looked disappointed as Joyce thumped the door closed in the man’s face.
“The gall!” Joyce exclaimed, clenching her fists in anger and frustration. “I could just — argh!”
“Want me to kill ‘em for ya?” Spike offered, arching a brow at the elder Summers.
“Yes,” both Joyce and Buffy said at once.
“Quick n’ easy or long and painful?” he wondered, gripping the towel that hung around his neck with both hands.
“Very painful,” Buffy grumbled.
“Right, then…” Spike agreed, pulling the door open again. Giles and Travers were partway down the walkway and looked back when the door opened. Spike began to step out onto the porch, but stopped and frowned. “Might work better if I had on some pants,” he suggested, looking down at himself. He heard Giles suggest that they hurry along, making Spike chuckle to himself. If not for the truce with the Slayer those two gits would be worm food by now. ‘Course, the truce wouldn’t last forever, now, would it?
Buffy rolled her eyes and sighed, finally dropping the stake back into the basket by the door and massaging her aching hand with the other. “Excuses, excuses…” she muttered, then began in a mocking tone, “I don’t have any pants. The sun’s still out. Tweed gets stuck in my teeth. Old man blood tastes like mothballs.”
Spike shrugged. “Now that ya mention it, tweed is a bitch t’ get outta your fangs.”
“You are such a baby.” The Slayer huffed out a breath, watching out the door as Giles and Travers got into her ex-Watcher’s car. “And now it’s too late. God, you are a pathetic excuse for a vampire.”
Spike shrugged his uninjured shoulder. “Just seems a bit too ‘Rom-Com’ to be torturin’ the wankers in a bath towel.”
Buffy snorted, shaking her head. “Fine. I’ll get your bag from the car for you. Keys,” she requested, holding out her hand as soon as the two Council members pulled away.
“Oh, right,” Spike muttered, patting down the towel around his hips as if they would be hidden in there. “Gimme a mo’,” he said, as he turned and started back upstairs.
The phone began to ring. “I’ll get it,” Joyce offered, heading back into the kitchen to answer it.
“And you thought my plan sucked. You wanted us to get your bag, but didn’t bring the keys?” Buffy called after him. “Or did you think we’d refuse and just let you prance around the house-half naked until dark?”
Spike reappeared at the landing, his lips pursed into a smirk as he sauntered down. “Well, ya don’t seem averse to the idea judging by—”
“Shut up,” Buffy snapped, grabbing the keys from his hand when he came within reach. Creepy vampire smelling. This was okay right? Friendly banter with a soulless demon maybe wasn’t on the Council’s approved behavior list, but it was on her mom’s. And the Council didn’t count now, did it? She officially didn’t work for them anymore. Maybe she could navigate this razor’s edge after all.
Spike bit down on his bottom lip, his eyes glittering with mischief. “Give that face-to-face thing some thought, Slayer. Could try out some other positions if ya want – you know, all nonlethal-like. Make sure that’s the one you want to go with later. Would hate for you to not be completely satisfied with your last dance. Bad for my image, that.”
Buffy rolled her eyes and started out the door. “You may not have noticed, but I’m not that easy to kill, Spike. So, maybe you need to be the one thinking about his last dance.”
Spike watched her ass sway away from him down the walk, his smirk growing. “I have, Slayer… believe me, I have,” he muttered to himself, enjoying the view.
STORY BOARD
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link.
End Notes:
Thank you so much for reading! Things are going to calm down for a minute or two, but that doesn’t mean the slow burn is going to fire up into a raging spuffy wildfire just yet. I did warn you! I hope you aren't too disappointed that Giles and Travers didn't get bitten, beat up, or peed on. I really loved all the insults though, Joyce's was an especially excellent burn, I thought. Don't give up hope on at least one of them (Giles/Travers) paying some dues in the coming chapters.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a good Spike-in-a-towel picture to include in the story board, but the Spike doll with the towel/sheet is from this website: https://www.sashacustoms.co.uk/whedon/buffy/btvs-6/p6-11-sheet-spike
Also, did you notice the DeSoto keys in the story board (bottom left). Aren't they cool? I actually thought about buying them just for funsies, but they wanted like $90 for that set of blanks! Uh, no. But I really like them.
I was gonna have Buffy make some comment about getting circumcised in a tent cos of the: “Tento di Cruciamentum” and then have Spike translate it, but it turns out that phrase does not translate well from Latin. Per Darren Lester's page/article: “Don’t Speak Latin in Front of the Books”: Latin as the Lingua Franca of Magic in Buffy the Vampire Slayer --- ‘Tento’ means ‘held’ and so we could do a very loose translation of ‘Held in Torture’ but ‘di’ isn’t a word in Latin. It appears that we have a mix of Latin and modern Italian, with ‘tento di’ being Italian for “I try to…” resulting in a mixed translation of “I try to torment”. Therefore, I just skipped that joke.
Also, if you are unfamiliar with Bubble and Squeak, from Wiki: Bubble and Squeak is a British dish made from cooked potatoes and cabbage, mixed together and fried. The food writer Howard Hillman classes it as one of the "great peasant dishes of the world". The dish has been known since at least the 18th century, and in its early versions it contained cooked beef. Basically, Spike was saying dinner had been delivered.
Chapter 12: Pure Animal Magnetism
Chapter Text
Chapter Notes:
Thanks to all of you for reading! It means so much to me, like M&Ms for my muse! Sending all the sloppy, joyful doggie kisses to everyone who has left a note, a like or a kudo. I love hearing from everyone! I apologize for falling behind in replying to your comments; I can’t seem to quite get caught up, but I’m working on it and loving every one of them.
Thanks also my two wonderful Beta readers and friends: Holi117 and Paganbaby, and to TeamEricNSookie for pre-reading. All mistakes are mine because I keep fiddling with stuff. If you see any, PM me and I’ll fix it.
Chapter 12: Pure Animal Magnetism
Spike could’ve gone back into the bathroom to get dressed, but he didn’t. Instead, he went across the hall to Buffy’s room. The box of weapons was still on the bed where they’d left them. Apparently that had been less than twenty-four hours ago. The vampire dropped his bag on the floor and, with a grunt of pain from shifting ribs, lifted the box off the bed and slid it back underneath.
He’d been in this room on his previous visit to Sunnydale. Buffy’d had him lugging all her bags down to the car for their roadtrip. How the hell she’d filled so many was still a mystery – like those tiny cars at the circus with hundreds of clowns pouring out of them. The room hadn’t changed much in the last few months, except for one thing: postcards.
Spike stood in front of the mirror on her dressing table and let his eyes wander over the colorful images, unable to keep a smile from curving his lips. He touched each one, remembering where he’d been when he’d sent it. The ‘fuck you and your fucking cheese’ one made him cringe, but apparently, she hadn’t taken it too badly – she’d kept it. She’d kept them all. His heart soared and her words to the gits from the Council filtered back to him.
She was his friend. She trusted him. She thought he had honor.
Had anyone else ever made such a passionate declaration about him? That he had honor? He’d always thought he’d been honorable as a man, but no one, apart from his mother, seemed to take any notice. Not until Dru, of course. But then, she saw burning baby fish, as well, so how much reliance could you put in that?
Buffy saw it, though. She saw it in him even now, when he wasn’t actually a man anymore.
Spike was still smiling, his heart light, as he turned and picked his bag up and put it on the bed. From beneath his stolen dinero, he dug out a pair of jeans, t-shirt, and overshirt as he searched for… There! A postcard he’d picked up in Hermosillo, after getting Buffy’s first voice mail. The one that made him start toward California. The one that made him believe he had a friend. The postcard was generic, with no place name on it, just bright, stylized flowers vining over a glossy black background.
He fished out a pen from the bag and considered what to write. Funny? Piggy? Sweet? Friendly? Maybe a little haiku about pinball machines. Or about sunshine. Or pinball machines tilting wildly in the sunshine.
He pursed his lips, ideas floating around in his mind for some time before he finally decided and wrote it out. Spike smiled as he slipped it onto the mirror with the others, then set about getting dressed.
** X-X-X-X-X **
“That was Xander on the phone,” Joyce said as she came back into the living room. Buffy was on the couch fighting off a renewed wave of exhaustion as her adrenaline from the verbal clash with Giles and Travers waned. Spike, the vampire, had gone back upstairs to get dressed.
The girl looked up, her heart sinking, her anxiety skyrocketing. “About Willow?! Is she—?” she began worriedly.
“She’s okay,” her mom assured Buffy quickly. “Still a little dizzy, so they’re going to keep her one more night at the hospital.”
Buffy’s eyes closed in relief and she nodded. “Okay… okay good. I mean, not good, but not... not terrible.”
“Do you want me to take you up to see her?” Joyce offered.
“In a little while,” Buffy said, looking out the window at the dwindling light. “Maybe we can all go.”
Joyce’s brows went up. “All?”
“I’m afraid to tell you this, but… the Jeep isn’t… ummm… road worthy,” Buffy reminded her with a grimace. “Maybe Spike will drive us.”
“Spike’s not a sodding taxi service,” he complained coming down the stairs in a fresh set of black jeans and t-shirt and a blue overshirt. He had his duster in his hands. “Where’re we goin’?”
Buffy smiled, rolling her eyes. “The hospital.”
Concern washed over his bruised face as he walked up to her, looking her over. “You hurt, pet?”
“No… well, yes, clearly,” Buffy admitted, rubbing her shoulder. That hurt the worst, but she knew her face was still a mask of bruises and scrapes, and her throat was still swollen and sore from nearly being strangled. “But the hospital isn’t for me. Willow, she… Kralik kinda slammed her into some bookcases yesterday.” God, was it only yesterday? It seemed like a lifetime since that happened. Time did really funky things when you were scared out of your mind and fighting for your life.
“Willow… the redhead with the sweater fetish, yeah?” Spike asked, gesturing at his chest as if he had on a fluffy, pink sweater.
“The very one,” Buffy agreed, still trying to soothe the ache in her neck and shoulder.
“Right – no worries. Maybe I can nick a pint or two o’ the good stuff while I’m there. Get this impalement mended.” Spike’s brows were still furrowed when he set his duster down on the coffee table and took over massaging Buffy’s shoulder for her.
Buffy dropped her hand, letting him work his fingers into her flesh. “There will be no stealing of blood. People need it, to, you know, replenish the blood loss from all the neck trauma in this town.”
“Well, I haven’t inflicted any neck trauma,” Spike argued.
Buffy turned a skeptical gaze up at him.
“In this town… of late,” he qualified with a sniff. “So, I reckon that should rate a pint or two in payment for what I didn’t take from the tap. Not t’ mention, was yer mum that skewered me like a bloody shish kabob in the first place,” he pointed out.
Buffy sighed and rolled her eyes. “Fine, but only two,” she acquiesced. The Slayer closed her eyes then, losing herself in the strength and tenderness of his hands for a few moments. She was snapped out of it with a grimace and an exclaimed, “Ow!” when he hit a tender spot.
“It’s outta the socket, Slayer. Bloody hell… why didn’t ya put it back in?” he chastised, feeling around the joint gently.
Buffy sighed. “I didn’t know it was out. It just hurt.”
“I reckon so,” he agreed, reaching down for her arm.
“What are you doing?”
“Puttin’ it back in. Or do you enjoy the agony?”
“Do you even know how to put it back in?” she asked suspiciously.
“Thought you trusted me,” Spike retorted, arching a brow at her.
Buffy sighed. “Fine, Mr. Trustworthy, but if you fuck up my shoulder worse, I’m staking your ass.”
“That’s Dr. Trustworthy to you,” he countered, kneeling beside her. “Sit up straight,” he instructed as he supported her bent arm next to her body.
“Now you sound like my Great Aunt Henrietta,” Buffy grumbled. “’Sit up straight. Elbows off the table. Eat all your vegetables. Don’t run in the house. Don’t speak unless spoken to,’” she jeered in a mocking tone. “Ugh. I really hated her.”
Spike snorted as he held her elbow against her side and pulled her forearm out laterally from her body. “Anybody ya don’t ya hate, Slayer?”
Buffy looked over and met his eyes for a long moment. “A few,” she admitted, clearing her throat and shifting her gaze down to her arm where his hands were gripping her. “I mean, some I hate less than others.”
“That so?” Spike asked as he lifted her entire arm and pressed it across her body.
“Ahh!” she exclaimed as something deep inside popped audibly.
Spike released his hold and began massaging her shoulder again as she shrugged it up and down and tilted her neck from side to side, feeling the joint move almost pain-free again. “You actually fixed it!” Buffy declared.
“Don’t sound so sodding surprised,” he complained, rising from the floor to sit on the couch next to her.
Buffy turned a bit, giving him better access to her back, as he continued massaging the knots and spasms out of the abused muscles around the joint. She noticed that, unlike Angel who didn’t seem to remember she wasn’t at full strength, Spike was being just firm enough to help but not hurt her. “No… I mean… ummm… Thank you,” she spluttered out. “For everything.”
Spike smiled behind her as his hands kneaded her upper back and neck, her hair falling over his fingers like a silken waterfall. Maybe you could take the bitch outta the Slayer after all. “Welcome, Slayer.”
** X-X-X-X-X **
Buffy rolled her eyes when Spike pulled into the ‘Reserved for doctor on call’ spot right near the ER doors at the hospital a little after dark. “You put one shoulder back in place and now you think you’re Marcus Welby, MD?” she quipped from the back seat as he turned off the engine.
Spike shrugged. He missed the weight of his duster on his shoulders, but it was bloody, dirty, and ripped. He’d have to find someone to mend it and clean it up before he could wear it again. “If the doc wanted the spot, should’a been here ‘fore now,” he reasoned, getting out of the car.
“You know, they could tow you,” Joyce warned from beside him in the front.
“Wreckers are too pissy-arsed these days t’ take on Millie,” Spike dismissed.
“Millie?” Buffy questioned, purposely not opening her door. “One – what kind of geek names their car? And two – what kind of super-geek names it ‘Millie’?”
“Oi!” Spike objected, swinging his door closed and reaching for the handle of Buffy’s door. “Millie’s a brilliant name. Millie doesn’t let ya down, doesn’t leave ya stranded in the sun, and doesn’t take any shite from the commie cars you lot have let invade the colonies. Plus, it’s bloody un-American to not name your car.”
“Spike, in case you forgot, you aren’t American,” the Slayer pointed out.
Buffy’s heart did that stupid little thing, like when she’d get one of Spike’s postcards, when he opened the door for her. So, it wasn’t just Dru he opened doors for. It surprised her a little, honestly. Yeah, she’d been testing him, but she didn’t realize she’d be so happy about him passing the test.
Not that she’d tell him that, of course.
“Millie is,” he rejoined, thumping a hand down on the roof a few times. “Hundred-percent Detroit steel.”
“Which repels dragons, because they’re Fae,” Joyce provided confidently, joining them, carrying the bright bouquet of yellow and orange flowers they’d gotten for Willow.
Buffy arched a brow at her mother as she got out. “Dragons?”
“Of course, there are some that eat only Detroit steel… I guess those aren’t Fae,” her mother continued, looking at Spike for clarification.
Spike cleared his throat and ducked his head, rubbing a hand on the back of his neck. “Uh, right… some dragons are right keen on Detroit steel… others can’t abide the stuff.”
“Dragons,” Buffy repeated skeptically as Spike closed the door behind her. “Have you been smoking some of that funny oregano?”
Spike straightened, hooking his thumbs over his belt buckle. “What? You tellin’ me you’ve never seen a dragon?” he challenged.
“And you’re telling me you have?” Buffy demanded as they started walking for the entrance to the ER.
“Used to be bloody common… you know, way back when, in the time of Star Trek and flower children,” Spike contended.
“In the time of LSD and bad acid trips, you mean,” Buffy countered, rolling her eyes.
“Wait – you’re saying there aren’t any dragons?” Joyce asked, confused.
“Well, not now,” Spike asserted. “Got banished, didn’t they? Always wantin’ to come back, though. Slayer kept ‘em out by running a shiny sword through the big ninny who pulled it outta the rock.”
“You ran a sword through King Arthur?” Joyce asked, even more confused.
“He means Angel,” Buffy sighed as the automatic doors slid open to admit them to the hospital.
“Angel is King Arthur?” her mother continued, trying to sort this out.
“No, Mom, it wasn’t that sword or that rock… it’s…” Buffy shook her head, waving a hand to try and shoo away the whole conversation like an annoying fly. She looked over at Spike, who was looking pleased with himself. “How is it when you show up the whole world tilts just slightly off its axis and simple conversations become a Three Stooges’ skit?”
“Abbott and Costello,” he corrected her.
“Some old guys saying stupid stuff! Question stands,” Buffy retorted.
Spike shrugged, smirking. “Must be my pure animal magnetism affecting the atmosphere,” he suggested as they stopped in front of a bank of elevators.
“Well, if scalpels and pushpins start hurtling through the air toward you, don’t expect me to stop them, Mr. Magneto,” Buffy warned.
“That’s Dr. Magneto to you,” he corrected haughtily, looking around. “Blood bank’s in the rear. Meet ya back at the car when you’re done, Miss Daisy.”
“Spike?” Buffy said, putting a hand out to stop him as he turned to go.
“Yeah?”
“Truce rules apply,” she reminded him “No eating of people. Two pints of bagged blood – no more. And… try to get some that’s going out of date soon, okay?”
“Dunno what the sodding date is, Slayer,” he admitted.
“The seventeenth,” Buffy provided. “…Of January… 1999.”
“Not that daft. Know what bleedin’ month and year it is,” he groused.
“Spike,” Buffy drawled. “We have a deal, right?” she persisted.
“Truce rules. No worries,” he agreed as she dropped her hand from his arm.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Spike slipped into the blood bank unseen and began shopping. A crisply complex AB positive or a smooth, buttery B negative? Perhaps an earthy, yet elegant O neg? Remembering Buffy’s request to find something near its expiration, Spike began scanning the dates on the bags. It was made easier, he noted, by the oldest being in the front of each bin. Maybe he could talk her into letting him get more if there were several nearing expiration…
He picked a couple of AB negatives (velvety and refined) which would expire the next day and headed out, tearing into the first bag with his fangs as he went. He’d no sooner turned down the hallway to head back toward the ER when he heard his name snarled and someone slammed into him from behind, pinning him to the wall.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Angel hissed against Spike’s ear, his forearm pressing across the back of Spike’s shoulders, holding him against the wall.
“Bloody hell! Let off, you buggering sod!” the blond demanded as icy daggers stabbed through his impaled shoulder. The blood he’d just opened gushed from the bag, running down the wall, pooling on the floor and staining his blue overshirt.
Angel pressed harder. “What are you doing here?” he demanded again in an angry, clipped tone. “You’re supposed to be in Brazil!”
“Free bloody country! Changed my mind, didn’t I?” Spike ground out, bringing one foot up and stomping his heavy boot heel down on Angel’s patent leather, crushing the larger vamp’s toes. In the next moment Spike jerked his head back to smash into his grandsire’s nose. He missed Angel’s nose, but managed a good crack against the brunette’s jaw.
The elder vamp yipped, jerking back, and released his hold enough for Spike to twist away.
The blond dropped the nearly-empty bag of blood but still clutched the unopened one in his right hand, turning to face his grandsire, his demon face falling away now that he was free. “You owe me another sodding pint, you tosser!”
“I don’t owe you anything! You were stealing blood! And you haven’t answered my question! What the hell are you doing here?” Angel retorted.
“Could ask you the same thing! You just happened t’ be passing by?” Spike shot back.
“I live here!” Angel shot back angrily, his hands curling into fists.
“Thought you lived in that drafty ol’ mansion across town. Gotta say, this is an improvement,” Spike quipped, looking around at the sterile, too-bright, white hallway.
“I don’t live here, you idiot!”
“Just said you did…” Spike pointed out.
“I meant – never mind.” Angel growled in frustration. “I’m here making sure the delivery actually gets delivered and not stolen by lazy vampires, which apparently includes you,” the bigger vamp explained, waving a hand behind him to indicate the blood bank nurse carrying a cooler, apparently full of a new blood supply.
“Yeah? Well, I was just makin’ sure they didn’t use any of this old rubbish on the poor sods coming in with neck trauma. Public service, that is,” Spike asserted, holding up the almost-expired bag.
Angel crossed his arms over his chest and glared at the younger vamp. “What are you doing here, Spike, and since when are you such a good Samaritan?”
Spike sniffed, squaring his shoulders and hooked one thumb into the front pocket of his jeans, his other hand still holding the bag of blood. “Since the Slayer called me in special, deputized me into her little Scooby group and everything. White hat’s on order. Six to eight weeks for delivery.”
Angel narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Buffy would never call you, and when she finds out you’re here, stealing blood, she’s finally gonna dust your smart ass.”
A smirk spread over Spike’s face. “Let’s ask her, shall we? Up on the second floor with her mates,” he revealed, motioning with his head in the direction of the elevators.
A flash of doubt washed over Angel’s expression, but he hardened it back to confidence quickly. “Fine. Let’s go – leave the blood.”
“Get stuffed. Not leaving the sodding blood – ‘fore we’re done you’ll be getting me another,” Spike insisted smugly.
“That’ll be the day,” Angel growled as he started forward toward Spike.
Spike stepped to the side and turned toward the elevators, giving his grandsire a suspicious side-eye. Angel shoved him in the shoulder. Spike retaliated with an elbow to his ribs. The brunette smacked Spike on the back of the head. Spike shot one foot out and tripped Angel, making him stumble to catch his balance. By the time they got to the elevators, they’d exchanged a dozen blows of one type or another. In the elevator, they each stood in one back corner, glaring incredulously at each other. When the doors opened on the second floor, they both waited for the other to move. They waited so long the doors started to close, then they both darted for the narrow opening, banging into each other and the doors as they tried to squeeze through. The doors opened back up when they hit them, and they both tumbled out, staggering into the wall opposite. With more scowls and glowers, they turned almost as one toward the unmistakable scent of the Slayer, and began down the hallway.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Buffy knocked lightly on the open door as she and her mom entered Willow’s room. The three occupants, Willow, Oz, and Xander looked up from their card game at the sound.
“Buffy!” Willow exclaimed, her eyes going wide, taking in her friend’s battered appearance.
“Hey,” Buffy replied in greeting, giving the witch a small smile. Oz and Xander stood up from their seats on either side of the bed as Buffy approached, and took a step back as the Slayer bent down to hug her friend. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t protect you…”
“It’s not your fault. I’ll be okay, just a bump… or two. They said Giles drugged you?” Willow asked, wrapping her arms around the blond’s neck. “That’s not… they misunderstood, right?”
Buffy shook her head and pulled back, emotion clogging her throat as she blinked back the betrayal burning her eyes. “No,” she rasped out. “They didn’t. Giles… the Council… it’s a thing.”
“A barbaric, misogynistic, cruel, and horrible torture they call a ‘rite of passage’,” Joyce provided bitterly from behind Buffy. “Hello, Willow,” she added, setting the flowers down on the table they’d been using for their card game. “How are you?”
“I’m okay, really,” the witch assured her. “The flowers are pretty. Thanks.”
“So, you made with the slaying, anyway? Crazy vamp go poof?” Xander asked, looking at Buffy.
She nodded, dabbing at her eyes.
“Oh, yes,” Joyce interjected. “Buffy was very brave! So was Spike—”
“Spike’s a good boy,” Willow agreed.
“Not that Spike…” Buffy admitted, a flush rising in her cheeks. “The, um… other one.”
Willow’s eyes went wide. “He came? And… and…?”
“We truced,” Buffy confided, a small smile quirking her lips. “He helped. He… he dusted Blair. He saved my mom.”
“He was very heroic,” Joyce agreed.
“Wait, Spike… as in… Spike? …Like, grrrr-Spike? That Spike?” Xander stammered.
“Buffy! It is imperative that I speak with you,” a new voice interrupted. Everyone turned to find a disheveled Giles in the doorway. His tie was loose and hanging askew, his hair stuck up at odd angles, his glasses had smudges on the lenses, and his shirt was wrinkled, as if he’d slept in it. There were dark circles beneath his eyes, however, which suggested he hadn’t slept at all.
“I thought I made my position very clear,” Joyce retorted sternly, folding her arms over her chest as she stared down the exhausted-looking man.
“Joyce, Buffy, I beg you. This is of the utmost importance. The Council—”
“The Council is not part of our lives any longer,” Mrs. Summers interrupted. “And neither are you. Now get out of here before I call for security to remove you.”
“You don’t understand—” Giles entreated.
“No, you don’t understand! Stay away from my daughter!” Joyce insisted, pushing him back out into the hall and slamming the door in his face.
“Wow,” Willow muttered. “He… he really did it, didn’t he?”
“Yeah,” Buffy confirmed turning to face her friend again. “He did.”
Before she could say more, the door burst open again.
“Oi! Slayer, need a word,” Spike demanded at the same time Angel carped, “Buffy, I caught Spike stealing blood.”
Buffy sighed heavily and turned around. She was in no mood for this right now.
“Was minding my own business, following orders, picked out the nearly expired stuff – only two –” Spike explained, holding up the remaining pint for her to see. “And Captain Forehead here comes along like the sodding Blood Sheriff, knocks me up against the wall, spills a whole pint—”
“Buffy, he says you knew he was here, that you called him!” Angel piped up. “I was escorting tonight’s delivery in when I caught him plundering—”
“There was no plundering!” Spike objected.
“—the blood supply, stealing blood! I told you he’d be back to kill you! I told you not to trust him!”
“If was here to kill the chit, why would I be plundering the sodding blood supply?! Which I was not doing… was careful as a church mouse, not wasting a bit – until you slammed me against the sodding wall.”
“You need to take care of this, Buffy. If you won’t, then I will,” Angel continued, reaching into a pocket and producing a stake.
Spike did a quick sidekick and knocked the weapon from Angel’s hand. It went tumbling out into the hallway, clattering along the slick linoleum and away. Angel swung a haymaker at Spike. The blond ducked and charged forward like a linebacker, hitting Angel in the ribs and driving the bigger vamp back, out of the room and into the opposite wall. The other bag of blood, still in his hand, ruptured and spewed its contents in a wide arc over the pristine hallway.
“Oh. My. God,” Buffy growled, stomping after them, intent on kicking both their asses before remembering she couldn’t – literally couldn’t kick the ass of anything larger than a gnat or maybe a medium-sized mosquito.
“Stop it, this instant!” she ordered in her best ‘dog-mom voice’ as Angel broke free of Spike’s tackle, sending the blond stumbling back, leaving red boot prints in his wake. Buffy took the opportunity to step between them, her arms crossed sternly over her chest, facing Angel. The brunette took a threatening step, as if to go around her. “I said ‘stop’,” she repeated, moving to the side to block him.
“He started it!” Angel defended, pointing an accusing finger at Spike, who glared at him from behind Buffy.
“Like hell!” the younger vamp countered. “You smashed me into the sodding wall downstairs!”
“When I saw you stealing blood!”
“Which the Slayer said I could on account o’ saving her mum!”
“That’s a load of crap! Buffy would never—”
“Buffy would and did,” the Slayer confirmed curtly.
Angel blinked at her. “What?”
Buffy rolled her eyes and huffed out a breath. “Spike was trying to save my mom and she accidentally staked him,” the girl explained. “I… felt bad, so told him he could get two pints of nearly expired blood.”
“Which is exactly what I had,” Spike interjected.
“She didn’t stake him very well,” Angel pointed out. “I could give her a demonstration…”
“Angel,” Buffy said warningly. “I have a truce with Spike. You do remember what that means, right?”
“Means the magnificent poof owes me two pints of blood… human,” Spike suggested. “And an apology.”
“In your dreams,” Angel growled back, looking around for his stake. “How ‘bout I just dust you and call it even?”
“Damn it, Angel!” Buffy snarled, pointing the stake out to Spike with a tilt of her head. “I gave my word. Spike saved my mom. There will be no violence against him while he’s in my town.”
Spike retrieved the stake before Angel saw it, making it back to the Slayer before the bigger vamp could intercept him. Never looking at him, Buffy extended a hand, palm up, and he slapped the wood down in her grip. Buffy winced but managed to not gasp when the smooth wood hit her flesh with bruising force. She wrapped her stiff fingers around it and re-crossed her arms, shifting her gaze back to her ex. “Do we understand each other?”
“For all you know he’s the one behind all this!” Angel suggested hotly.
“He’s not behind anything!” Buffy retorted. “It was the C—”
But Angel cut off her explanation, “Then what is he even doing here!?” he demanded hotly.
“He’s here because I called him, just like he said,” Buffy confirmed.
“You what!?” Why would you do that?”
“Because no one here had any answers! Because I thought he might know something about what was happening to me and Spike!”
Angel scoffed. “The only way he’d know anything is if he was behind it. You can’t trust him,” the brunette insisted again.
“I already did.”
“You’re going to regret it.”
“I usually do,” she replied with a shrug. “It seems to be a recurring theme.”
Angel scowled and shifted his gaze to Spike. “If you break your word and end the truce or if I find out you’re behind this—” he began threateningly.
“Not a gigantic git like you, Angelus. If I end the truce, I’ll tell the girl, fair and square. Not shag her and—”
“Shut up, Spike,” both Angel and Buffy said at once.
Spike pursed his lips together and tucked his thumbs over his belt buckle, hardening the glare he had trained on Angel.
“Are we done here?” Buffy asked the brunette.
Angel rolled his eyes, shaking his head. “I don’t like this.”
“Didn’t really ask you,” Buffy pointed out. “I’m sending Spike back down for two more pints of blood. He’s not to be… molested. If anything happens and he breaks his word, I’ll deal with him. Are we clear?”
Angel kept shaking his head, looking at her incredulously. “You’ve changed.”
Buffy snorted. “You have no idea.”
“Can I have my stake back?”
Buffy handed it back to him. “I mean it. Leave Spike alone.”
“I hear you,” he said grudgingly, turning toward the elevators, tucking the stake back into a pocket.
Buffy put a hand out to stop Spike from following him. “You okay?” she asked, turning her eyes to him for the first time.
Spike looked down at his clothes. “Need a sodding laundry. This town’s hell on my wardrobe.”
“I meant your body, not your clothes.”
“Worried ‘bout my body, are you?” Spike teased, wagging his brows at her. “Could check it for yourself,” he suggested. “Want me to make a suggestion on where to start?”
“Why do you turn everything into something piggy?” Buffy retorted, rolling her eyes.
Spike grinned at her. “Part o’ my charm.”
“Part of your annoyance,” she grumbled. “How much of that blood is yours?”
Spike looked down again. “None… is all from an alcoholic taxi driver who enjoys Fritos and chili con carne.”
Buffy wrinkled her nose. “You can tell all that from tasting the blood?”
“Let me taste yours and I can tell ya what you had for dinner last night,” he suggested. “Better than the Amazing Kreskin, I am.”
“I didn’t have any dinner last night,” she reminded him. “And, once again, no Buffy blood leaves Buffy veins. It’s a rule, like gravity and Macy’s ‘One Day’ sale lasting two days. Try to remember it.”
“Rules are made to be broken.”
“Noses are made to be broken,” she shot back.
Spike chuckled and shrugged good-naturedly. “Worth a shot.”
“Do you ever give up?”
“Know the answer to that already, Slayer,” he asserted, widening his eyes and pressing the tip of his tongue against his teeth.
Buffy rolled her eyes and sighed. “What about your shoulder?”
He rolled it a little, grimacing. “Didn’t do it any favors, but don’t think it’s worse.”
Buffy turned and watched Angel get on the elevator before taking her hand away to let Spike go. “Sorry.”
“Not your fault – relatively sure you aren’t his keeper. Don’t seem t’ even be very friendly-like with the wanker… unless I’m missing something?” he asked, arching a brow at her.
She shook her head. “No. You aren’t missing anything,” Buffy confirmed.
Spike nodded, looking around at the four people in the room behind them, who were all watching intently, then down the hall. “Well, I reckon…” he suggested, waving a hand toward the elevators.
Buffy nodded. “Try to… keep out of his way. Don’t annoy him by, you know, being you in his general vicinity.”
Spike snorted. “But I’m so good at it.”
Buffy pursed her lips together to stifle a smile. “Well, do your best.”
“Always do my best, pet,” he assured her, turning and following the trail of bloody footprints down the hall.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Angel stalked out of the elevator, his black overcoat flaring out in the gust of his anger, and turned for the exit. Buffy had no idea what she was doing, trusting Spike. How could she think Spike, of all people, would know what was happening to her and the mangy mutt? A growl vibrated up and down the deserted hallway as Angel’s hands curled into impotent fists. He wanted to smash his grandchilde to a bloody pulp, drown him in holy water, and hang him out to dry in the sun.
But there was a truce. His frustrated growl grew so fierce that it vibrated the air and even the walls, setting off alarms on some of the more sensitive equipment as he passed.
Fine then. If that’s how it was going to be, two could play this game. He’d just find proof. Proof that Spike was behind all of it. Proof that she couldn’t trust him. Then she’d see. She’d see that he was right, that he, Angel, was the one she should trust, the one she could always count on.
He slammed the exit doors open, rattling the glass in the frames as the double doors smacked against the walls behind them. Angel strode into the night, determined to show Buffy the truth about Spike and find a cure for whatever was harming her and the mongrel.
He pursed his lips, thinking… the mongrel. This had all started with him. So that was probably the best place to start looking for clues. Angel nodded to himself as he stormed back toward his mansion. Gypsies… Romani… the creators of the Guardian of the Twilight. They could have answers. There was a large community of them living just south of L.A. If he hurried, he could be there before daybreak.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Spike was grinning as he got into the empty elevator and leaned against the wall, waiting for it to carry him downstairs. The Slayer had backed him up. Hadn’t backpedaled or denied giving him permission to nick a coupl’a pints of blood. Had actually apologized to him for the wanker. Had asked if he was okay. Had told fucking Angelus to sod off. Well, she’d used nicer words, but came out to the same thing.
Bloody hell, he couldn’t remember Dru actually apologizing to him for anything. And as for asking if he was okay? Pffft! Was like she couldn’t even see his blood, even when she’d been the one to draw it. And she certainly wouldn’t have taken his side over her beloved daddy’s.
This was a bit of alright.
The elevator stopped and the doors slid open. Spike was still a bit lost in thought as he stepped out and started for the blood bank. He’d only made it a couple of feet when someone behind him called his name. This was getting to be sodding annoying.
Spike turned, his brow furrowing as he took in the man coming toward him.
“Got a death wish, Watcher, or are you just bloody daft?” Spike asked, his fangs itching to sink into this wanker’s neck and drain him dry for what he’d done to Buffy and her mum. “Got permission t’ kill you good and proper, I do.”
“If that were true, I wouldn’t still be ambulatory,” Giles pointed out.
Spike scowled, rolling his eyes.
“I know Buffy’s upset with me,” Giles continued.
Spike snorted. “Master of understatement, you are,” he replied, widening his stance and shaking out his arms, readying for an attack, not sure what the plonker was playing at. If the git attacked him, he could defend himself, at least. Relatively sure Buffy wouldn’t hold that against him.
“But I have some vital information that she needs to know,” the older man continued, unfazed. The Watcher held his hands up in a peaceful gesture and stopped well out of striking range. “She won’t listen to me. Perhaps she’ll listen to you.”
“You do know the chit, right?” Spike wondered. “Blond, stubborn, not keen on taking advice from vampires… least not soulless ones. Which begs the question – Angel just came outta that same elevator… why are you talkin’ to me?”
“Buffy is even less likely to take help or advice from Angel. I would’ve thought the reason would be obvious to you, since you’re the one who suggested his possible hidden agenda,” Giles pointed out. “For whatever reason, she trusts you… apparently enough to sleep in the same room with you,” he said with a note of accusation in his tone.
“Oi! Last night was just—”
“Last night?” Giles exclaimed, his voice rising several octaves, his eyes going wide. “I was speaking of your mission to save Drusilla.”
“Oh, well, forget what I said ‘bout last night, then,” Spike sniffed dismissively. “What were you saying ‘bout the Slayer? Need me to pass a note along ‘fore I drain you?”
Giles slipped his fingers beneath his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose where a splitting headache had moved in and set up housekeeping. After a moment, he sighed and looked back at the vampire. “A message, yes. It is vitally important that she be warned about the Council.”
“A mite late for that, dontcha think? Probably should’a done that before ya poisoned her and the mutt.”
“Yes, well… be that as it may, it will likely get worse,” the Watcher revealed. “I believe Travers is planning on, uh… a severe re-education program.”
Spike arched a brow. “They’re gonna hold her back? Make the Slayer repeat a grade? Don’t see the harm in that. Way she butchers the language—”
“You cannot possibly be this much of a prat!” Giles admonished, throwing his hands up in exasperation. “Or are you simply taking the piss?”
Spike smiled enigmatically.
Giles sighed and shook his head. “Please pay attention. This may all be a joke to you, but I assure you it is not to Buffy. They plan to remove her to England for reprogramming. I believe he’s called in a retrieval team, or soon will. A… special operations unit. They handle the Council’s trickier jobs… smuggling, interrogation, wet works. From what I’ve overheard, h-he considers Buffy a… a rogue Slayer.”
Spike arched a brow. “They’re planning to Slayer-nap the girl?”
“They call it ‘asset recovery’… dead or alive,” Giles confirmed. “And they will kill her, one way or another. If they capture her, they’ll not stop their efforts at re-education until she submits… until they break her.”
A low, instinctive growl rumbled from Spike’s throat. “When’s this happenin’?”
“I’m not certain. I could even be mistaken. I… I’m no longer privy to the inner workings of the Council. I’ve been… let go.”
“Let go,” Spike repeated thoughtfully. “You mean sacked; kicked out o’ the wee wanker’s club.”
Giles rolled his eyes and reached for his glasses, but stopped before he removed them. “Yes, that would be one way to put it. Therefore, I am not certain of the plan or timing. I have been trying to contact a few personal friends I still have at the Council, but thus far, I have not received any callbacks. I may be incorrect, perhaps Travers has not activated them, but… Buffy needs to be prepared. If they come, I imagine they will do so before the Cruciamentum drugs wear off; within the week.”
“Human?” Spike asked.
“Yes, but well trained and well-armed.”
“Armed with what?” Spike questioned.
“Guns. Crossbows. Tranquilizer darts. Perhaps other weapons… military grade.”
“Full-service little buggers, aren’t they?” Spike mused rhetorically. “How many are on one o’ these teams?”
“Usually two to four.”
Spike’s brows went up. “Two t’ four? Humans? Pffft!” he snorted. “Can take them with one hand behind my back. Bloody hell! Thought there was a sodding army comin’ in.”
“You don’t seem to understand,” Giles entreated as he began pacing back and forth in front of the blond. “These men are very good at what they do. They will know about you and Angel, and even about the Guardian. They… That bloody pillock Travers took my diaries – they’ll know everything. They’re ruthless and coldblooded. They aren’t just going to walk up to Buffy’s’ door, knock, and allow you to snap their necks. They’re organized and disciplined. They’ll have a plan… a good one.”
Spike grinned devilishly. “Love a good plan. All seem to turn to utter shite around me. It’s part o’ my magnetism. And I guarantee they aren’t as coldblooded as I am.”
STORY BOARDS
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link.
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link.
End Notes:
Uh-oh! Does this mean more trouble is on the way for Buffy and the gang? This time from the Council?
Did you notice that one of the postcards was missing from around the mirror? Some time ago (in chapters, but not in actual story time), Buffy fell asleep with the postcard with Spike’s phone number on it and it got left in the bedcovers.
Joyce’s dragon reference is from the first story in the series: Not Monster Enough https://dark-solace.org/elysian/viewstory.php?sid=5914
The name ‘Millie’ is a girl's name of German, English origin meaning "gentle strength; strong in work".
If you don’t get the ‘magnetism’ thing in the second story board, those are Bucky Balls (they are magnetic), which James Marsters was (is?) quite fond of fiddling with (there are some videos of him at cons with them). The photo in the bottom right is by Mark Devine.
Attribution link for the bright embroidery flowers card: https://www.freepik.com/free-photos-vectors/background
Thank you so much for reading!
Chapter 13: Home, James
Chapter Text
Chapter Notes:
Sorry I’m so late posting, but I did make it before midnight (my time) on Thursday, so still hanging in here on the posting schedule.
Thanks to all of you for reading! It means so much to me, like vampires in bath towels for my muse! Sending all the sloppy, joyful doggie kisses to everyone who has left a note, a like or a kudo. I got caught up for like a minute on replying to comments, but seem to have fallen behind again – which is an amazing problem to have! Thank you! I’m working on it and loving every one of them.
Thanks also my two wonderful Beta readers and friends: Holi117 and Paganbaby, and to TeamEricNSookie for pre-reading. All mistakes are mine because I keep fiddling with stuff. If you see any, PM me and I’ll fix it.
Chapter 13: Home, James
** X-X-X-X-X **
Buffy watched Spike saunter down the hospital hallway and get on the elevator, contemplating her life. If anyone had told her last year that she’d be taking Spike’s side over Angel’s, that she’d be relying on the annoying blond rather than the steadfast brunette, she’d have probably punched them – hard. My how things change. She thought about following him, making sure Angel didn’t start another fight, but finally decided that Spike could take care of himself, even with his injuries, and turned to rejoin her friends and mom.
“Sorry about that,” Buffy said as she came back into Willow’s hospital room, where Oz, Xander, and her mom waited with the patient.
“You just took Spike’s side over Angel’s?” Xander asked, echoing Buffy’s own thoughts, his mind whirling.
“I told you, Spike saved my mom… he dusted Blair, we have a truce,” Buffy reminded him.
“What is Spike even doing here?” Xander continued. “I thought he was banished… again.”
“I called him,” Joyce said before Buffy could answer. “No one seemed to know what was wrong with Buffy… I thought he might.”
“But it was Giles, right?” Willow asked, not for the first time.
“We didn’t know that at the time,” Joyce replied.
“You’re sure it was Giles? Like, super-extra-positively-sure?” the redhead pressed.
“You aren’t getting past that anytime soon, are you?” Buffy wondered.
“Well, no – Giles! Giles is like… you know, Giles!” Willow pointed out.
“Yeah,” the Slayer replied morosely – she did know exactly what her friend meant. “Just like Angel was Angel until he wasn’t, and my dad was my dad, until he wasn’t. Giles was Giles… until he wasn’t.”
“I’m sorry, Buffy,” Willow said regretfully, meeting her friend’s eyes. “B-but Spike… he’s still Spike, right?”
Buffy gave the redhead a small smile. “Spike is still Spike. Annoying, piggy, stubborn, exasperating…”
“I think you forgot deadly, murderous, demonic, soulless,” Xander added.
“I haven’t forgotten, Xander,” Buffy corrected him sternly. “We have a truce – like I told Angel. He’s not any of those things while he’s here.”
“A truce gives him a soul?” the brunette retorted insolently. “Makes him something other than a demon who’ll stab you in the back at the first chance?”
“Are you even serious right now?” Buffy shot back, turning fully to face him. “So far, he’s about the only one who hasn’t stabbed me in the back.”
“What? How do you figure? When did I ever stab you in the back?” Xander demanded.
“What do you call trying your hand at felony sexual assault?” Buffy prompted menacingly.
“What?” Joyce asked, but no one answered her.
“I – that wasn’t me! I was possessed by a hyena demon!” Xander defended.
Buffy narrowed her eyes. “I thought you said you didn’t remember what happened.”
“I – it – came back to me,” Xander stuttered, looking nervous and decidedly uncomfortable for a moment before gathering himself. “Point still stands – it wasn’t me. I was under the influence of demonic hyena mojo.”
“Well, you know Spike? He’s under the influence of demonic vampire mojo all the time, but somehow when one of us says ‘truce’, he’s able to set it aside… control it. That soulless murderer actually understands that no means no – which you didn’t seem to get at all, at least not until I hit you with a desk. And, yeah, when the truce is over, we’ll be back to mortal enemies and all bets are off, but I assure you he will not stab me in the back while we’re under a truce. Or shove me up against the Coke machine and—”
“Fine! I get it!” Xander interrupted, raising his hands in surrender. “Spike’s a prince!”
Buffy rolled her eyes. “Far from it. He’s just…”
“A bloody handsome devil who brightens the place up,” Spike filled in as he came in the door behind Buffy.
Buffy turned around. “I was gonna say a ‘strangely honorable, yet infuriating, vampire,’” she contended. “I thought you were meeting us at the car, Jeeves.”
“Got a bit of a situation needs seein’ to first,” Spike revealed. “Need you to trust me a mo’, Slayer.”
Buffy arched a brow at him, folding her arms over her chest. “This should be good. What happened? You couldn’t find the blood bank, so you just drained the first orderly to walk by?”
“Noooo…” Spike drawled. “Put away the claws, kitten, trust me and just listen.”
“I am listening. So far, I’m not hearing anything worth listening to,” Buffy pointed out.
“You will in a mo’. Got your word, then – ears open?”
“Why do I think I’m gonna regret this?” Buffy sighed. “Just spill it, Spike – I’m listening.”
“Not me doin’ the spilling,” Spike clarified, stepping aside to reveal Giles behind him. “It’s the Watcher.”
“Yup, regret turned up to eleven,” Buffy moaned, rolling her eyes.
** X-X-X-X-X **
“That’s harsh.” Oz was the first to speak when Giles finished telling them about the Council and the possibility of an ‘asset recovery’ team being deployed.
“Quite,” the ex-Watcher agreed, scrubbing his glasses for the tenth or eleventh time since he came into the room, the chilly hospital air seeming balmy in comparison to his wintry reception.
“B-but… I thought the Council was supposed to help the Slayer. Y-you know, like with… supportiveness a-and lots of big, heavy books,” Willow added.
“You do remember they just drugged me and poisoned Spike, right?” Buffy reminded her.
“Oh. Yeah,” the redhead mumbled, dropping her gaze to the blanket covering her.
“Well, I simply won’t stand for it,” Joyce insisted. “I’ll notify the police and have them arrested.”
“On what grounds?” Giles replied. “Lurking? Once they begin, they’ll be in and gone well before the police of this town could put down their jelly donuts.”
“Then I’ll take Buffy and go away for a while – down to L.A. or out to my sister’s in Illinois – until this all blows over,” Joyce suggested.
“I wouldn’t recommend that,” Giles countered. “They use magical means to locate the Slayer. They would find you, regardless of where you traveled. Honestly, it would make it that much easier for them to simply attack you on the highway.”
“So, what do we do?” Xander asked.
“Kill ‘em,” Spike suggested, looking at Buffy, who hadn’t said anything.
Everyone turned their eyes to the Slayer. Her vision had gone blurry as Giles explained the new threat, but she could feel the weight of their gazes all boring into her, waiting for her. It wasn’t ending, this nightmare she was trapped in – it wasn’t going away. It wasn’t bad enough that the Council had taken her strength and set a monster loose on her and her mother, but now they were going to… to what? To take her prisoner? Lock her up? Make sure she never ‘harbored’ another vampire? Turn her into nothing but a machine… a tool, a weapon of mass demonic destruction.
She felt the tremors of loathing, fear, and anger begin to quiver deep inside her chest, it made her breaths come in shallow gasps. But even worse was the heavy darkness of hopelessness growing like a cancer in her belly. She was never getting out of this nightmare. She felt like a rat trapped in a maze and there were only dead ends, no matter which way she turned – no way out.
“I-I don’t kill humans,” Buffy whispered into the oppressive silence that had fallen over the room.
“I do,” Spike replied simply.
Buffy blinked, clearing her vision, and looked up at him. Their eyes met and locked. She could see the utter conviction in his determined, blue gaze. The unwavering confidence. He would kill them. All she had to do was say ‘yes’. It would be self-defense. Justified. She could use him as her weapon; wield him like a sword. She didn’t even have to speak; all she had to do was nod.
All she had to do was turn her back on everything she’d just fought so hard for. Turn her back on being the Slayer and all that had grown to mean to her. Turn her back on her convictions, on her morals… on herself.
All she had to do was lower herself to the Council’s level.
Buffy’s head moved right then left in a barely-there negative shake.
“No? No?!” Spike demanded, taking a frustrated step toward her, his eyes turning to blue lasers. “Did you not hear what the geezer said?”
“’Geezer’?!” Giles objected, but no one paid him any mind.
Buffy swallowed and blinked before meeting Spike’s gaze again. “I heard. They… they keep wanting to turn me into something I’m not. They keep wanting to steal me.”
“Yeah, bloody literally – did ya miss that bit?”
“No, I didn’t miss it, but if we play the game on their terms, then they win, no matter what happens,” Buffy replied levelly.
“Buffy,” Spike pleaded, the blue flames behind his eyes softening to worry. “Can’t just roll over, pet. Your sodding white hat morals won’t do ya any good if you’re locked in a bloody cage… or worse.”
“I’m not planning on rolling over.”
“So, again I ask,” Xander interjected, “What do we do?”
Buffy didn’t look away from Spike. “We fight; we find a way to win without killing humans.”
“Not all humans are worth saving,” Spike asserted, his hands planted on his hips.
Buffy nodded, her mouth set in a grim line. “I know, but who’s worthy and who’s not? That’s not for me to decide… or you.”
Spike closed his eyes, dropping his chin to his chest and shook his head in dismay.
“Spike, I…” Buffy cleared her throat. “I would… appreciate your help. I mean… if they’re as ruthless as Giles says –”
“They’ll come after your mum… or your mates, t’ get leverage on you,” Spike filled in, looking up at her.
“I need help to keep them safe. But I need you to do it my way. Are you still with me?”
“You’re bloody handcuffing me here, Summers… and not in the good way,” he argued, hands on hips, blue eyes glaring at her like sharpened sapphires.
Buffy folded her arms over her chest and held is hard gaze. Everything went still, silent in the room. Neither blond looked away for what seemed an eternity. No one in the room spoke or moved, watching the wordless war between the vampire and the Slayer.
Finally, Spike’s chin dropped to his chest. He clenched his jaw and shook his head, but muttered a disconsolate, “Fine. I’m with ya.”
** X-X-X-X-X **
Spike paced in the parking lot near the DeSoto, chain-smoking and waiting for Buffy and Joyce to say their goodbyes. As pissed off as he was with the Council and their underhanded, dishonorable schemes, he couldn’t help but feel a little bit pleased, too. Buffy actually said she needed him. She’d said a lot about him – to Angel, to her chums, to her Watcher and the git from the Council, but saying that she needed him… that felt, well, it felt fucking good. Dru never admitted to needing him and, except when she’d been so sick after Prague, all efforts he made to keep her safe were met with anger and disdain.
Buffy had actually asked him to help keep her mates and her mum safe. She’d asked him to help her. The bloody Slayer had asked him. Not Angel. Him. Yeah, he’d have to follow her rules, drink the sodding pig’s blood, not snap the necks of whoever the Council sent or that twat of a Watcher, but… he could do that. Probably. And, if the wankers took their time ‘bout showing up, he’d have an excuse to stay another few days.
Maybe by then something else would pop up and Buffy would need him to stay longer. Needed. Bloody hell, might have to send the Council a fruit basket or a singing telegram.
Spike stopped his pacing when he saw Giles approaching. He leaned casually back against the boot of the DeSoto and pulled his fags and Zippo from his pocket. The vampire was just lighting another as the ex-Watcher neared.
“Spike,” Giles greeted him in a neutral tone as he got closer.
“Watcher,” Spike replied, just as flatly.
“Ex… ex-Watcher, actually,” Giles corrected.
Spike shrugged and took a long drag on the cigarette.
“I, err… would like to, uh, thank you f-for… intervening on my behalf,” Giles said, stumbling a little over the words. He stopped in front of Spike and removed his glasses, scrubbing a hand over his face and rubbing his tired eyes, before looking back up at the vampire.
“Didn’t do it for you,” Spike admitted.
“I’m well aware of that. May I?” Giles asked, indicating the smokes.
Spike frowned, but handed over the fags and lighter.
Giles slipped his glasses back on and took the proffered cigarettes, tapping one out of the pack. He lit it with an indrawn sigh of weariness and defeat. He breathed out the mentholated smoke, handing the items back to the blond. “I still appreciate you getting Buffy to listen. She needed to understand the threat.”
Spike shrugged and slipped them back into his pocket, sliding over to let Giles lean against the trunk, as well. The man took the invitation and settled back on the sturdy metal, taking another drag on the cigarette. “Your appearance here in Sunnydale seems… fortuitous,” the ex-Watcher ventured, trying to sound nonchalant.
“Does it, then?”
“It makes one wonder just why you’ve returned and what your, err, interest is in this situation.”
“Not hard t’ figure. Slayer called, needed someone she could trust to watch her back. Someone she knew wouldn’t shove a knife in while pretendin’ to protect her.”
Giles grimaced and took another drag on his cigarette. “And you just came out of the goodness of your heart?”
Spike gave the man a saccharine smile. “Regular Gandhi, I am.”
“I don’t know why I didn’t see it before. The resemblance is astounding,” Giles mocked flatly as he tapped the ash from the end of the cigarette before lifting it to his lips again.
“Separated at birth, we were.” Spike smirked as he pulled a flask out of his back pocket, opened it, and took a swallow. He noticed Giles eyeing it as he started to put the lid back on. The vampire rolled his eyes, but took the hint, offering it to the ex-Watcher. The man sniffed it experimentally, decided it was whiskey, and took a swig before handing it back. The two Brits stood in silence for a minute or longer, smoking, drinking, and watching the cars and ambulances coming and going from the ER.
Finally, Giles said, “Buffy may trust you, but I do not.”
“That makes us even, then, doesn’t it?” Spike retorted easily. “Difference is I haven’t turned on the girl, have I? So, between us, who do you reckon’s the better man?”
“You aren’t a man, you’re a soulless demon,” Giles shot back, his hackles rising.
“And yet, I’m the one she trusts. I’m the one she called. I’m the one that protected her mum. What’s that say about you, Watcher?”
Giles scowled, but the shame of his duplicity made it impossible to argue with the vampire. He’d chosen the Council over his Slayer. He’d fallen back on his training, on following the rules, on doing as he was instructed rather than relying on his instincts and his heart. It was as if he’d learned nothing over the last two years in Sunnydale, and Buffy was paying the price for his traitorous ineptitude.
“I’ve done some foolish things in my life, but I believe this was the worst,” Giles admitted morosely. “Do you think she’ll ever forgive me?”
Spike arched a brow, turning his head to look at the man, then looked back out into the night. “Dunno. I wouldn’t. But seems she forgives more than she ought from you blighters.”
Giles snorted and took the flask back from Spike. “She’s quite special, you know?”
“Noticed that, did you?” Spike agreed. “Bloody glorious is what she is. Got a light inside ‘er… bright as the sun and twice as deadly.”
It was Giles’ turn to look over at the vampire, handing him the whiskey back. “Except to you… and Angel.”
“Killed Angel once. Not her fault he didn’t stay sodding dead,” Spike reminded him, shaking the flask and finding it nearly empty. He upended it over his mouth, draining it, then capped it and put it back in his pocket. “Reckon she’ll be the dust of me one day, too. Just not as easy t’ kill as the magnificent poof.”
“Mmmm,” Giles hummed neutrally. “It’s quite extraordinary, really. She’s defeated some formidable opponents, including Lothos, The Master, and Angelus. And yet here you stand, the Slayer of Slayers, more than a year since your first meeting, neither slain nor victorious.”
Spike dropped the end of his cigarette to the pavement and ground it beneath his boot. “You got a point, Watcher?”
Giles shook his head, flicking the ash from his cigarette before bringing it to his lips again. “If I did, I’m too knackered to know what it is,” he admitted before inhaling the last of the nicotine. The man dropped the butt to the ground and pushed off the car, turning to look at Spike. “For whatever reason, she’s put her trust in you. If you turn on her, there will be unimaginable consequences.”
Spike nodded and stood up straight, taking his weight off the DeSoto. “Gonna hunt me down an’ cut off my balls, are you?”
“Something like that. But I’m the least of your worries. I’d be more wary of her mother, if I were you,” he advised, motioning with his chin toward the hospital doors where Joyce and Buffy were coming out.
Spike snorted, following Giles’ gaze to look at the two women. “Buffy comes by her fire honest,” he agreed.
“Yes,” Giles sighed as he turned, preparing to walk away. “I’ll… I’ll be in touch if I hear anything. You will pass on any new information to the Slayer for me?”
The blond looked back at him. “Said I would, didn’t I?”
“Ah, forgive me. I forgot I was dealing with Gandhi,” Giles drawled as he began walking away.
“Not gonna turn on her,” Spike called after him, his voice sincere. “Do my best to keep her safe.”
Giles stopped and gave the vampire an uncertain nod before striding off towards his own car.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Spike was holding the back door open for Buffy as she and Joyce approached the DeSoto. “You okay, pet?” he asked as the Slayer got to him.
“Really not,” she admitted, stopping and giving him a weary smile. “Did you ever get any blood?”
Spike nodded and rolled his shoulder experimentally. “Feeling better already. ‘Course, with these Council wankers coming, a little nip of Slayer blood—”
“Do you ever stop?” Buffy groaned, rolling her eyes.
Spike grinned at her cheekily, rocking up on the balls of his feet. “Never. More of my irresistible charm.”
“Hmph,” she grunted, sliding into the car. “You’ve spent too much time with Dru – you’re delusional.”
“One day, Slayer… one day you’ll let me have a taste,” he asserted, closing the door.
“In your dreams,” she muttered, leaning her head back and letting her eyes fall closed.
Spike’s smile turned wry. ‘You’ve no idea, Slayer.’
“Where to now, Miss Daisy?” he asked, opening the driver’s door. Joyce had already gotten into the passenger’s seat, forgoing his door-opening chivalry.
“Home, James,” Buffy muttered, not opening her eyes. She was so very tired. She wished the world would just stop so she could get off for a while, but, thus far, that had never happened. The girl seriously doubted it would anytime soon… if anything, it just kept spinning faster and faster, heading for out-of-control.
“And don’t spare the horses?” Spike asked, starting the car.
“See? Delusional. We don’t have any horses… let alone spare ones,” Buffy asserted tiredly. “Mom wouldn’t even get me a pony, even though I begged and begged and promised to be good for the rest of my life.”
The vampire looked at Joyce, brows raised. The woman smiled and shrugged. “She was eight,” the elder Summers explained.
Spike shook his head as he backed out of the reserved parking space. “Right, Slayer… home with no spare horses, then.”
** X-X-X-X-X **
With the Jeep still in the grass, Spike parked in the driveway. “Home sweet home,” he announced, cutting the engine.
Buffy moaned, half in relief at being home, half in dread of having to move. She was beyond exhausted, mentally, physically, but mostly emotionally. She felt like her heart had been taken out and kicked around like a particularly abused Hacky Sack. Every blow took her breath away, bruising her to her core. All Buffy really wanted to do was curl up in her bed and sleep for a year, sleep until she forgot her dad’s dismissal, her Watcher’s betrayal, Angelus’ cruelty, and even Angel’s possible treachery.
But she couldn’t do any of that. The Council was coming for her. Probably. They needed to be ready to defend the house; they needed a plan.
With a weary sigh, she reached for the door handle just as Spike swung it open for her. Another thing for her to worry about – Spike. Would he keep his word and not kill anyone? She was sure he would mean to keep his word, but in the heat of a fight, would he really be able to? Another sigh escaped her as she stepped out of the car. She’d been defending the vampire, defending her decision to call him, to everyone from the head of the Council to Xander – declaring her trust in him. Just how far did that trust go? How much control did Spike really have over his demon?
Buffy started trudging toward the house, every cell in her body feeling weak and wobbly. Spike must’ve sensed it, or just seen it, because he was there before she’d taken three steps, an arm around her, supportive, encouraging. She looked up at him with an appreciative nod and another weary smile, and he returned the smile with a shy one of his own.
How far could she trust him? She remembered their last night in the hotel during the road trip, when Dru had insisted on the blood oath. Buffy’s palm had been bleeding, dripping freely. Spike had burst into the room, thinking Drusilla had attacked her, yelled at his sire for breaking the truce, for breaking his word. But, as soon as the full effect of Buffy’s flowing blood hit him, Spike’s demon burst forward, focused solely on the ruby droplets. Before she could react, he’d grabbed her wrist and lifted it toward his lips. Slayer blood. Irresistible. Powerful. Buffy had been unarmed, her stake several feet away, but instead of using that advantage, he’d stopped himself. He’d let the Guardian dog heal her wound. Not taken even a drop for himself. He’d controlled the demon… at least long enough to get himself out of the room, away from the temptation. He hadn’t broken his word or betrayed her trust.
“You won’t make me regret this, will you?” Buffy asked him as they began up the porch steps.
“Depends… what ‘this’ did ya mean, Slayer?” Spike asked. “If you were planning on letting me get you into bed, can assure you, you won’t regret a minute,” he teased, wagging his brows at her.
Buffy rolled her eyes and elbowed him in the side, which drew a yelp of pain when his knitting ribs shifted. “Don’t be a pig,” she admonished. “Or a baby. I barely touched you. It couldn’t have hurt that much.”
Spike shrugged. “Could kiss it and make it better,” he suggested, lifting the hem of his t-shirt to expose his battered torso.
Buffy stopped beneath the porch light in front of the door and reached her hand out to touch the purpled flesh, the edges of which were starting to turn green and yellow with healing. Her warm fingers feathered over the swollen injury, making Spike shiver. He watched her gently caress his skin, her expression worried, regretful. Bloody hell, she really was glorious, warm as a sunbeam, soft as a cloud.
He suddenly wanted those hands to be touching every part of him, a vision of her lips joining her hands on his body, nearly made him moan in pleasure. He shook himself mentally. ‘What the bloody fuck’s wrong with you? Gonna ruin everything!’ Spike cleared his throat and stepped back before he did something he would absolutely regret, something that would most certainly get him booted to the curb, or worse.
“Sorry,” Buffy offered sincerely, looking up to meet his eyes. “I didn’t know it was still that bad.”
“Pfft,” he scoffed nonchalantly, dropping the shirt. “Just takin’ the piss, Slayer.”
“What does that even mean? Is that another perverted sex thing? Should I be calling you a ‘pig’ again?” she wondered as he reached past her and opened the door.
The dog rushed out immediately, tail wagging his hips from side to side in delight, begging scratches from each person in turn, who all obliged him.
The vampire chuckled, letting Buffy precede him into the house. “Reckon about anything I say would warrant that,” Spike admitted as the girl stopped and turned to face him.
“Probably,” she agreed. “But you avoided the question,” she reminded him.
“What was the question?”
“Am I going to regret trusting you?” she repeated, as her mom came in behind them, ushering the dog back inside, and closed the door.
Joyce stopped, the dog leaning against her legs as she rubbed his ears, and looked at the vampire as well, waiting for the answer.
Spike took a step back so he could see both of the Summers women, and looked from one to the other, his lips pursed. “I’ll abide by the truce, not kill the wankers if I can help it—” he began.
Buffy opened her mouth to object, but Spike held up a finger to stop her. “I won’t kill ‘em just because they deserve it – which they do – but I’ll not stand by and let them hurt either o’ you. Sometimes killing’s the only way to stop a monster, even if they’re human. You gotta understand that, Slayer.”
Buffy drew her mouth into a hard, thin line, but then nodded. “We need to come up with a plan—” she started.
“You need to get some kip,” Spike interrupted. “Dead on your feet, you are. Whatever plan you cook up in this state’ll be worse than one of mine.”
Objections whirled around Buffy’s mind, but died there, unvoiced. He was right. She was too exhausted to really think clearly. She nodded wearily and turned for the stairs. “You should sleep too,” she suggested.
“That an invitation?” Spike wondered, his eyes glittering with mischief.
Buffy rolled her eyes as she tromped up the stairs. “The couch is your friend.”
“Nonsense!” Joyce objected. “I got the spare room cleaned up for you.”
“Mother,” Buffy drawled, turning to look down at her. “He’s a vampire. The couch is fine… hell, the basement is probably even better.”
“Slayer’s right, basement’ll be fine—” Spike agreed, but Joyce cut him off.
“I’ll not have a guest of mine sleeping on the couch or in the basement when there’s a perfectly good bed available. There are fresh sheets and I put some quilts up over the windows – it’s all set.”
“He’s not a guest,” Buffy argued. “He’s… he’s Spike.”
“Well, he’s my guest and I won’t hear another word about it,” Joyce insisted stubbornly, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Thanks, pet,” Spike offered Joyce. “Right kind of you. Appreciate it.”
“Think nothing of it,” she dismissed with a wave of a hand. “It’s really the least I can do. And if you’ll leave your dirty clothes in the hamper in the bathroom, I’ll see if I can get that blood out. I’ve gotten pretty good at it,” Joyce offered.
“A bloke could get used to this,” Spike told her, grinning.
“Don’t,” Buffy huffed, turning and starting back up the stairs. Spike was gonna be sleeping in the room right next to hers. Spike. Spike, who sleeps in the nude. Spike with the bottomless blue eyes, and killer abs and the strong arms and sculpted chest, and that tongue that always seems to be peeking out from between his scrumptious lips. Spike, who came when she called. Spike, who protected her mom. Spike, who called her magnificent, glorious, and smart. Spike, who believed in her, who understood her need to face the Council’s trial alone. Spike, whose words helped her keep going when she wanted to give up and just die in that tomb.
Spike, who is a soulless vampire. Reckless. Spike, who has a girlfriend. Homewrecker.
Buffy went into her room and closed the door. She kicked her shoes off, but was just too tired to bother taking off her clothes or even notice the new postcard on her mirror. She crawled into the bed and burrowed under the covers, fatigue pressing down on her like a physical weight.
She needed to stop thinking about Spike. That would lead to nothing but badness. And heaven knew she didn’t need any more of that in her life. Her utter exhaustion won out over visions of the naked vampire in the next room, and soon sleep engulfed her. Her last thought was that she wouldn’t say ‘no’ to a nice dream or two of shower-damp vampires in malfunctioning bath towels.
** X-X-X-X-X **
STORY BOARD
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link.
** X-X-X-X-X **
End Notes:
Just what will Buffy dream about? Who votes for damp, naked vampires... or one particular one, at least? More soon!
If you missed the ‘Miss Daisy’ reference, it’s from the movie, Driving Miss Daisy: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097239/
Although considered an urban myth, Queen Victoria (1837 to 1901) is typically credited as the source of the phrase, “Home, James, and don’t spare the horses.” The story is she would say this to her footman, James Darling, when she needed to go home and time was of the essence. In truth, during the 1600s coachmen in general were commonly referred to as James, leading many to believe the idiom may have had earlier origin.
In the 1930s, Elsie Carlisle recorded “Don’t Spare the Horses,” written by Fred Hillebrand. This entertaining song tells the tale of a cantankerous 1890s date night.
Thank you so much for reading!
Chapter 14: My Vampire
Chapter Text
Chapter Notes:
Sorry I’m so late posting, but I made it on Saturday, so yay!
Thanks to all of you for reading! It means so much to me, like buttery popcorn for my muse! Sending all the sloppy, joyful doggie kisses to everyone who has left a note, a like or a kudo. I’m working on replying to all your lovely comments and enjoying every one of them.
Thanks also my two wonderful Beta readers and friends: Holi117 and Paganbaby, and to TeamEricNSookie for pre-reading. All mistakes are mine because I keep fiddling with stuff. If you see any, PM me and I’ll fix it.
Chapter 14: My Vampire
** X-X-X-X-X **
The loud ‘thump, thump, thump’ of a helicopter hovering over the house rocketed Buffy off the bed and to her feet. She stood at the window and looked out to see the glare of searchlights crisscrossing the yard. They were nearly blinding when they shone into her room, brighter than daylight, making her cover her eyes and take a step back. “They’re here,” she muttered to herself, realization dawning, then louder, “They’re here!” as she turned and ran from her room.
“Spike! Mom! They’re here! The Council! Spike!” she cried, opening the door to the spare bedroom, only to find it empty. Buffy spun on her heel, checked the bathroom on the way by, and flew down the stairs. “Spike! Mom!” she continued to call as the blinding cylinders of light flashed against the windows. The house was alternatively illuminated and then cast into utter darkness as they swept back and forth, like those old Hollywood movie premier spotlights, creating a disorienting strobe effect.
Buffy lost her footing, missing the last step in her haste and confusion. She crashed into someone at the bottom of the stairs and they rolled around a moment, each trying to disentangle from the other.
“Who are you!?” the Slayer demanded, finally scrambling back to her feet.
The man was illuminated briefly as he lay on his back on the floor of the foyer, propped up on his elbows. Older. Balding.
“Are you with the Council?” Buffy continued, wishing she’d brought a weapon with her. She picked up a cut-glass vase from the coffee table and held it up, ready to strike. “Answer me!”
“I wear the cheese, it does not wear me,” he replied, picking up a slice of American cheese from the floor and placing it back atop his bald head. He looked up at her and smiled. “Do you enjoy tobogganing in the creamy Camembert mountains?”
“I’ve never been,” Buffy replied.
“You should try it!” the small, bald man encouraged as he got to his feet and brushed himself off.
“I have to stop the Council first,” Buffy told him. “Do you know where Spike and Mom are?”
The man produced two more slices of cheese and handed them to her. “These will lead you to them. Respect the cheese,” he admonished before turning and heading up the stairs.
The slices tugged Buffy through the dining room, leading her into the kitchen where she found the other three inhabitants of the house. Spike was sitting at the breakfast bar, Joyce standing on the other side, and the Guardian was laying nearby, his chin on his oversized paws, watching the scene.
Buffy tossed the cheese slices to the dog and he gulped them down hungrily. “Where’z da burger?” he asked, his brows furrowed in disappointment.
“I’ll get you one tomorrow,” she promised, turning to the other two people. “I have to stop the Council first.”
“Hmph,” the dog grunted, settling back down. “Two then.”
“Okay, two,” the Slayer agreed, turning to the vampire and her mother. On the counter between Spike and Joyce, there were several mugs of blood in a neat row. Next to the mugs were dozens of jars and bottles of flavorings and toppings. Crowding the counter was everything from Ghost Pepper hot sauce to Hershey’s dark chocolate syrup to Hazelnut coffee creamer to Heinz Ketchup.
“Guys! What are you doing!?” Buffy demanded as Spike took a sip from one of the mugs and carefully swirled it around in his mouth, his face a study in concentration, before swallowing.
“Taste testing,” Joyce explained, waiting for Spike’s decision.
“Another splash of the Pineapple and Habanero,” he suggested, holding the mug out to the woman. Joyce picked up a bottle with yellow sauce in it and shook a few drops into the blood.
“GUYS! The Council’s here!” Buffy exclaimed coming up to the counter. “Can’t you hear them? Don’t you see the lights?”
Spike tilted his head as he stirred the blood, listening. “Just a whirlybird, pet. Fly over all the time,” he assured her.
“No, no, no! It’s them! The Council! It’s hovering over the house! Look at the searchlights outside!” Buffy demanded, going over to the window and pulling the curtains back. The backyard was flooded with light as one of the helicopters scoured the area, then suddenly went dark again as the light moved to the side yard.
“It’s probably just the police looking for a bad person,” Joyce suggested. “It’s about time the law enforcement of this town put down their jelly donuts and started doing their jobs.”
“What is wrong with you guys!?” Buffy screamed, her heart beating out of her chest with adrenaline and fear. “They’re here!”
“It’s fine, honey,” Joyce assured her. “Why don’t you sit down, and I’ll make you a grilled cheese sandwich? You do have the cheese, don’t you?”
“No! I gave it to Spike! Oh my God!” she exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air as she whirled and headed back for the stairs. Weapons. She needed weapons. When she reached the foyer, she saw Spike, the vampire, sitting on the couch watching TV, a bowl of popcorn in his lap.
“Spike! What are you doing?” she demanded, stomping up to him.
“Watchin’ the telly. What’s it look like?” he answered flippantly.
Buffy looked at the screen. ‘Romeo + Juliet’ was playing; the Claire Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio one. She turned back to him. “Are you even serious right now? That’s a tragedy, you know that, right?”
Spike shrugged and popped a handful of popcorn in his mouth. “Yeah, bloody hilarious, it is.”
Buffy furrowed her brow and looked at the bowl in his lap. “Is that… blood on your popcorn?”
Spike nodded, giving her a cheeky smile, and held it out to her. “Want some?”
“Ewwww, no!” Buffy shook her head, refocusing. “Spike, the Council’s here. We don’t have a plan.”
“No worries, pet. I’ve got a plan,” he informed her, setting the popcorn bowl down on the coffee table.
“You have a plan? Why am I not filled with confidence right now?” she mocked, crossing her arms over her chest. “It better not include cheese!”
“No, cheese is for later.” Spike picked up a rifle from the seat next to him and held it up. It was one of those huge military, machine-gun thingies like Rambo would use, with a string of shiny, brass ammo dangling from one side.
“You can’t shoot them, Spike! We agreed – no killing.”
“Didn’t forget,” he assured her. “Just gonna shoot ‘em in the leg, yeah?”
“Spike! Those bullets are huge! They’ll still die, even if you shoot them in the legs.”
“Tosh!” he dismissed, standing up with the gun. He turned and faced the big picture window, aimed beneath it, and began firing, making the ‘Buh-huh-huh-uh-uh-uh’ sound of the rapidly-firing gun himself. The muzzle flashed and brass shells flew all over the room, but neither the window, wall, nor couch had any damage from bullets.
Buffy ran to the front door and flung it open. There were dozens of commandos on the front lawn, all screaming and reaching for their bloody and broken legs.
“See?” Spike asked smugly, walking up next to her, the smoking gun pointed toward the ceiling. “Told ya, didn’t I?”
“Woof!” the dog agreed, slipping between the blondes to gaze out at the carnage.
But before Buffy could say anything else, paratroopers began falling from the sky like rain. Their white parachutes bright against the dark night, filling the air, dropping with ‘thuds’ of impact onto the lawn and the roof above. “You were saying?” she drawled, her mouth twisted into a scowl.
“No worries,” Spike assured her, leveling the gun at the newcomers, aiming at their legs. He slid the bolt back and pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. He shook the gun and tried again. Still nothing.
“Make the noise!” Buffy instructed.
“Can’t,” Spike replied flatly.
“What? Why? Like this, bah-huh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh,” Buffy tried.
“I’ve got the gun. You can’t make the sodding noise,” Spike informed her, rolling his eyes.
“Then make the noise!”
“Can’t make the noise, appears I’m outta ammo,” he informed her, showing her the empty clip.
“You didn’t get extra bullets!? This is your brilliant plan?” she demanded as dozens more men dressed in black military gear started for the house. She could hear glass breaking upstairs where the ones that had landed on the roof were breaking in.
From upstairs they heard the cheese man scream at them to, “Obey the cheese!” just before he tumbled off the porch roof and onto the front lawn. He lay there, unmoving, covered in creamy-smooth melted Velveeta.
“That’s not Camembert,” Buffy observed.
“Not hardly.” Spike shrugged, still unruffled, and took the huge gun in hand like a bat. “You take the upstairs, I’ll get these,” he instructed the dog.
“Woof!” his namesake agreed, turning, ready to take on anyone coming down the stairs.
The vampire stepped out of the house, rifle drawn back like a Louisville Slugger, ready to swing, when a barrage of gunfire slammed into him. He was hit with hundreds of rounds within seconds. Blood sprayed over the front of the house and coated Buffy in a thin mist of red as his body jerked and jolted with each new onslaught. He fell into a heap of shredded, oozing flesh just outside the door, his makeshift bat clattering down the steps uselessly.
“Spike!” the Slayer screamed, scrambling out to grab him, to pull what was left back in the house. The Council’s wet works team was coming closer, heavy boots stomping up the porch steps or just hurdling over the railings. Her hand closed over the vampire’s blood-soaked wrist, and she began to tug him back in, but before she’d even gotten his elbow across the threshold, his arm fell away into dust beneath her grip.
“Spike! NOOO!” she howled in shock as the vampire simply disappeared, dusted. She looked up at the grisly man standing over her with wide, unbelieving eyes. He was just pulling back a wooden bayonet from the spot where the vampire’s chest had been only a moment before. He grinned at her, evil delight glittering in his dark eyes. Buffy had never seen a more sinister grin on anyone, not even Angelus.
The Slayer scrabbled back on her butt, out of the doorway, kicking at the door to slam it in the man’s disgusting face, but he was already inside, with more of his compatriots right on his heels.
Behind her, her dog had turned away from the stairs to face the intruder. The Guardian’s eyes flashed with blue-white lightning as he bared his teeth in a fierce snarl. Spike crouched down then leapt at the man who had dusted the white rabbit, jaws open, ready to rip and rend, to kill.
A deafening report of a gunshot filled the house. Buffy instinctively ducked, covering her ringing ears as Spike yowled in pain. He was knocked sideways by the blast and fell to the floor with an agonized howl. More blood sprayed over Buffy’s face, nearly blinding her, as his spasming body was riddled with more and more shots.
“NOOOOOOOO!” she shouted, diving atop her dog, her friend, the healer of her heart. She could feel his blood seeping from too many wounds, matting his thick fur, his life pooling on the floor beneath them. His chest heaved in slow, wet, rattling breaths as he lifted his head and tried to get up, still intent on protecting his hooman. But then his big head dropped, the light in his eyes faded, and his breath slowed to stillness as his heart gave out. “SPIKE! NOOOO! PLEASE NO!” the girl cried, trying to staunch the worst of the bleeding, but it was too late, there was just too much damage.
“Buffy Summers,” the man in the doorway announced almost gleefully. “By order of the Watcher's Council, you are being taken into custody until such time as your re-education is deemed complete and you are no longer a disgrace to the cause.”
“No! No, no, no!” she screeched, turning on him, her chest heaving, her eyes wild with rage. She dove at the man, punching, scratching, and kicking. A vicious, feral shriek tore from her with the effort as she tried to rip his throat out with her bare hands.
One of the other men struck her in the head with the butt of his gun, knocking the Slayer back onto the blood-soaked floor. Stars flashed across her vision as the world tilted and twisted. Bile rose in her throat and must’ve come out – she could smell it, taste it. She blinked. Tried to push to her hands and knees, but slipped in the still-warm blood, falling again. Hard, bruising hands gripped her, shackling her feet and hands, trussing her up like a Christmas goose. Then she was being dragged out of the house, through her dog’s blood and her vampire’s dust.
Her dog. Her vampire.
Not her vampire. Dru’s vampire.
Her friend. “Spike…” Buffy breathed.
“Didn’t keep your vow, golden goblin,” Dru tsked, shaking her head as Buffy was hauled past her, out into the bright lights and deafening roar of the helicopters.
“I tried… I tried… I’m sorry, I tried,” she cried back to the vampiress, tears streaming down her blood and dust-stained face. “I’m sorry… I tried.”
** X-X-X-X-X **
Buffy woke with a jerk. She sat up and looked around, her heart racing, her skin damp with perspiration and tears. The house was dark. It was quiet. There were no helicopters. No lights. No guns. No commandos from the Council.
“Spike,” Buffy whispered into the stillness, the horrible grief and terror of seeing not only her best friend, but her sworn frenemy torn to shreds with bullets still fresh in her heart. Still dressed in the clothes she went to sleep in, she threw the covers off and jumped up to go check on them… both of them. She began with her dog, coming around the end of her bed to see if he was in his spot in the corner.
He was. The Guardian lifted his chin from the cushion of his doggie-bed, his head tilting as he looked up at her in the dim glow of the clock. “Spike. Thank God,” she sighed in relief, hurrying to him, dropping to her knees, and wrapping his thick neck in a tight hug. “You’re okay… I didn’t fail… you’re okay.”
The dog licked at her face and arms, reassuring her that he was fine, his tail wagging, thumping against the wall.
“Oi,” a deep voice muttered from the dark beneath the window. “Let off, Fido, ‘fore I rip that bloody tail off.”
“Spike?” Buffy gasped, blinking to get her eyes to adjust to the shadow between the bed and the wall. “God, Spike!” she exclaimed. She lunged forward, intent on pulling her vampire into a hug as well, but jerked to a stop. Not her vampire… Dru’s. The girl settled for touching his arm, assuring herself he was real and whole, unharmed. The memory of how it felt to have him turn to dust, to slip through her fingers, washed over her, digging into her like a knife to the gut. A cold shiver of misery rippled down her spine and she squeezed his bare arm harder, trying to allay the nightmare. ‘Not real, not real, not real.’
As many times as she’d tried to stake him in the past, suddenly the idea of him not being in the world was unbearable. This was bad. Buffy knew this was bad. One day they’d meet again with no truce. One day they’d have to face the fact that they were mortal enemies and end this… this frenemy thing they had. One day her reckless feelings would get her killed by his hand. That was all true and logical. But she couldn’t help how she felt, it wouldn’t listen to reason or logic. She’d tried, hadn’t she? No matter what she did, no matter how she tried to distract herself with shiny objects like Percy (not that he ended up being all that shiny) and speed-dating, her thoughts always circled back to Spike. It wasn’t anything she could control, it just kept happening. And, right now, she didn’t care. He was here. He was fine. Solid and strong beneath her grip.
“Slayer… uhhh…” the vampire stuttered. “No need for violence. Not what it looks like,” he defended, sitting up from where he’d been sprawled beneath the window.
Buffy furrowed her brows and reluctantly pulled her hand away. “It looks like you’re guarding the window… guarding us,” she said.
“Oh.” Spike cleared his throat. “Well, yeah, I reckon it is what it looks like then,” he admitted, scrubbing a hand over his face and back through his disheveled curls.
“Why?” she wondered, reaching back to pet the dog, needing to be touching someone, assuring herself that they were both here, both fine.
“Heard ya say the Council was coming… that they were here,” Spike replied, leaning back against the wall and stretching his legs out in front of him. Jean-clad legs, Buffy was partly-relieved and partly-disappointed to see. In fact, he was fully dressed in his trademark black t-shirt and boots to go along with the jeans. “Knocked… but ya didn’t answer. Heard ya saying something else… couldn’t quite make out. Finally, just came in. Realized you were dreamin’. Wasn’t sure if I should wake you or not… if it was one of those… prophetic dreams?” He tilted his head to the side, looking up at her questioningly, brows raised.
Buffy’s head moved in a jerky negative motion. “I don’t think so. I hope not,” she whispered almost to herself. A shiver went down her spine. It didn’t feel like a Slayer dream or even like the dream with Dru. Yes, Dru was in it, but she wasn’t really talking like she had in the other dream when the vampiress tried to warn Buffy about the Council. And Buffy hadn’t been able to consciously direct anything, or question anything in this one. It was more like just a regular dream. ‘Please just be a regular, non-meaningful dream!’
“Right, well, checked around a bit outside, yeah? But didn’t see anything. Figured… just in case…” He shrugged and began to stand up.
Buffy’s hand shot out, grabbing his arm again, and stopped him. “Don’t go,” she said quickly.
Spike dropped back down to the floor, his brows drawn together, studying her.
“I – I mean… can you… would you mind staying?” she stuttered out.
His expression softened. “Bad one, eh?” he asked gently.
Buffy nodded, biting her bottom lip. “The worst,” she murmured.
Spike gave her a curt nod and looked back at the floor where he’d been laying. “Had a few o’ those m’self. No worries. Slept in worse places.”
“Umm,” she stammered, looking at the bed, then back at him. “I… meant… what I mean is…” It was Buffy’s turn to clear her throat nervously, looking around the room for some excuse that would sound reasonable. “My mom!” she blurted out, turning back to the vampire. “She wouldn’t want a guest sleeping on the floor.”
Spike arched a brow at her. “Wouldn’t she, then?”
“N-no… you heard her, right? S-so… ummm…” Buffy swallowed hard, meeting his inquisitive gaze in the dim light. “Could you just… hold me? Would… do you think Dru would mind if…”
“Dru!?” Spike barked out, on the verge of bitter laughter. “What’s she…?” He stopped, remembering that Buffy didn’t know. Joyce didn’t know. Joyce would kick is not-exactly-lying ass out if she found out. “Uh, right, Dru. No, I don’t reckon she’d mind. Friends, eh?”
Buffy nodded, giving him a tentative smile. “Friends.”
Spike began unlacing his boots as Buffy gave the dog another tight hug. “I love you, Spike,” she murmured against the pup’s furry ear. “Love you so much. Won’t let them hurt you, I promise.”
When she released him and stood up, the vampire was looking at her with the strangest expression on his face. Was it confusion? Wonder? Alarm? For once she couldn’t tell. “I—I’m sorry, that must sound… uber-freaky.”
“Uh, yeah, a bit,” Spike agreed, his uncomfortable gaze darting away from her as he got to his feet.
“Sorry, just forget it,” she said again as she went around to the other side of the bed.
“No worries,” the vampire assured her, ducking his head and rubbing a hand on the back of his neck. “Vampire, yeah? Freaky comes with the territory. Uber-freaky’s every other Tuesday.”
Buffy fretted her lip as she watched him, a jolt of panic rushing through her. He wasn’t going to get undressed, was he? Had he misunderstood her intentions? This was bad! This was so, so bad! Then that horrible feeling of him turning to dust beneath her hand returned, catapulting her emotions back to inexplicable fear and horror, making her heart pound painfully in her chest.
“You okay, luv?” Spike asked, not making any move to remove any more of his clothing.
The Slayer gave him a tremulous smile and cleared her throat. “Just… the dream… they… the Council, they killed… Spike,” she explained, looking at the dog.
The big dog whined softly and pushed up to his feet. He padded over to her and pressed his big head beneath her hand. She scratched his ears, getting herself back under control, though that frisson of icy fear continued to ricochet up and down her spine – it had all felt so real.
And it wasn’t just fear of losing her best friend that was trembling through Buffy, but of losing the vampire who was standing across the bed from her, clearly waiting for her to do something. Was it wrong for her to feel just as upset by losing the vampire as her faithful dog? Probably. But she couldn’t help how she felt. “I’ll be alright… just… aloneness right now is… hard,” she admitted.
Spike nodded. “Not alone. Got a friend, yeah?”
Buffy returned the nod and took a deep breath. She patted her dog on the head one more time, and climbed into bed, settling on her side. Spike followed her lead, fearing his heart would explode at any moment and he’d fall to dust on the cotton sheets. She was trusting him! Trusting him not only in the same house or same room, but in her bed. Trusting him to hold her; asking him for comfort.
His weight creaked down on the springs as he laid back on the soft mattress, his throat suddenly dry as the Sahara, his skin tingling with the closeness of his Slayer… of Buffy.
Buffy moved with nervous, wary motions as she pulled the coverlet over them both and slowly slid nearer. Spike was afraid to move, afraid to scare her away, so he just let her inch gradually closer and closer.
They were mere inches apart when Buffy stopped, thoughts and emotions leaping and bouncing around inside her like Wham-o SuperBalls. She could sense his power, his strength, his… demon. The tingling danger warnings of ‘powerful vampire’ were prickling her skin. Reckless! This was exactly the thing she shouldn’t be doing! She should tell him to leave. Why was she doing this? She wasn’t a damsel, she didn’t need—
His arm slipped around her shoulders, slowly, gently, almost timidly.
Her body closed the small distance between them as if it hadn’t heard the warning sirens blaring and her better sense urging her to put a halt to this, to just… deal. Deal like she always did. Alone. O-or with her dog. Yeah, the dog… that’s who should be here with her, who she should’ve turned to, her best friend, the healer of her heart—
But the vampire was holding her with his strong arm, and he smelled so good and felt soooo good against her. Buffy remembered that deep, purring rumble he’d been doing on the sofa and hoped he’d do that again. It was so relaxing, so soothing. But she didn’t dare say that or ask for more. This was bad enough. More… more would’ve been too much. Too reckless. Were there levels of reckless? What level was she on? Five? Nine? Eleven? Three-hundred and fifty-three?
When Buffy stopped moving, her warm body was pressed against Spike’s side, her head pillowed on his shoulder. It was his bad shoulder. It was better than it had been before the human blood infusion, but it still hurt. It didn’t matter. She trusted him. She needed him. She asked him for comfort.
“Be alright, pet,” he assured her, basking in the trust she was showing him, in the vulnerability she was allowing him to see. Spike knew her trust wasn’t easily given – especially with what had just happened with the Watcher – and could be shattered with a single thoughtless blow. He vowed to not be the one to strike that blow, not take her trust and misuse it, betray it. Spike knew how hard this must be for her. Had she let anyone else see her like this before? This exposed? This fragile?
As her soft, warm body melded against his side, Spike felt his heart swell with devotion, with something he knew was much more than friendship. This was bad. He knew it was bad, but in this moment he had no desire to stop the feelings from growing, even if he could. One day they’d meet – the Slayer and the vampire – with no truce, and this feeling would get him dusted at her hand. And that would be okay, because he would trade all the rest of his days for just this. For her friendship. For her trust.
She nodded against him, her hair tickling his neck and arm where the soft cotton didn’t cover. “It has to be,” she answered in a whisper. “But we need a real plan, not you making machine gun noises and running out of bullets.”
“Beg pardon?”
She shook her head, waving a hand in the air in dismissal before casually settling it down atop his stomach, sending a jolt of electricity down south of the border. Spike shifted subtly, making sure nothing hard and needy would press against her and get him tossed to the floor, or worse.
“We’ll have a proper plan. Promise,” Spike swore. “Not letting anything happen to you. You’re my Slayer, after all. Got dibs, don’t I?”
Buffy snorted a soft laugh, which made his heart, and other parts, just swell more. “Does that make you… my vampire?”
Spike smiled. “Yeah, pet, I reckon it does.”
“Good,” she sighed, her body relaxing against him as exhaustion began creeping over her again. “No one can dust you but me.”
“Only you,” he agreed, smoothing a hand through her soft, golden hair, letting it run through his fingers like a silken waterfall. Before he knew what he was doing, his lips touched down on her forehead, leaving a soft kiss on her overheated skin. ‘Bloody hell! What are you doing? Stupid git!’ he chastised himself, waiting for her to bolt, but to his relief, she didn’t move.
Spike lips! Lips of Spike! Buffy’s forehead tingled with the cool softness of those lips. Other parts of her quivered in jealousy of that small patch of skin. Oh God! Reckless level at critical mass! This was so very bad.
“You okay, Slayer? Heart’s beatin’ like mad,” he asked tentatively, his breath whispering across her cheek.
“Uh, yeah…” Buffy rasped. She bit her lip and swallowed back all the extremely reckless things parts of her wanted to say. “Just... the nightmare, you know… on a loop in my brain.”
Spike tugged her just the slightest bit closer, carefully watching for any reaction, any pulling back from her, but it didn’t come. “Won’t let anything happen to the gigantic burger-beast,” he assured her.
And then the nightmare really was back, the fear, the horror, the image of her dog being riddled by bullets. The sound of it filled her ears with agony, the smell of it brought bile to the back of her throat, the sight of it brought tears to her eyes, the feel of it twisted painfully in her chest. And then the vampire was dusting beneath her fingers. Flesh and bone turned to grit, to ashes. Gone. Both of them gone. Leaving her alone again. Forever alone. ‘Reckless’ could just go to hell for a while. She didn’t want to be alone. Even if he wasn’t really her vampire, he was her friend, and she needed him now more than she needed to not be reckless.
“Can… can you do that… purr thing?” Buffy asked cautiously.
Buffy had no more than gotten the words out than it began, a deep rumbling against her ear that vibrated through her whole body. Spike’s hand was stroking her hair again, gently soothing. His arm was wrapped around her protectively. His body was firm and very un-dusty next to her. Not alone. She wasn’t alone. She’d be un-reckless tomorrow. Tonight she needed to be not-alone.
“Hate you, Spike,” she murmured as her eyes fell closed, her jangled nerves quietening beneath his touch, her fears soothed by his motorboat-purr.
“Hate you too, Buffy.”
** X-X-X-X-X **
STORY BOARDS
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link.
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link.
** X-X-X-X-X **
End Notes:
Thank you so much for reading! More soon!
** X-X-X-X-X **
Chapter 15: Quantum Physics
Chapter Text
** X-X-X-X-X **
Chapter Notes:
It seems like sneaking in just under the wire on posting days is becoming a habit. Hopefully life will chill out soon and I can get back to posting earlier in the day.
Thanks to all of you for reading! It means so much to me, like sugary, creamy coffee for my muse! Sending all the sloppy, joyful doggie kisses to everyone who has left a note, a like or a kudo. I’m working on replying to all your lovely comments and enjoying every one of them.
Thanks also my two wonderful Beta readers and friends: Holi117 and Paganbaby, and to TeamEricNSookie for pre-reading. All mistakes are mine because I keep fiddling with stuff. If you see any, PM me and I’ll fix it.
Chapter 15: Quantum Physics
What the bloody hell was he doing? Spike couldn’t stop running his hands through Buffy’s hair, over her shoulder, and down along her arm. Long after she’d fallen asleep, he’d been awake, watching her, holding her, breathing her in. He’d felt so good when she’d asked him to comfort her, but as the hours ticked on, doubts began surfacing. She may be his Slayer, but she’d never be his girl. She was just exhausted and weakened now. As soon as her strength returned and everything was back to normal, everything would change. He wasn’t worthy of her, he knew that, and she’d remember that soon enough, too. She’d regret showing him this side of her – the soft, vulnerable girl that lived behind the strength of the Slayer. So, what was he doing getting his hopes up here? Why was he letting her string him along?
“Love’s bitch,” he muttered to himself, never taking his eyes off the girl sleeping peacefully in his arms.
He blinked. He didn’t love Buffy. No – absolutely not. Not love. He didn’t love the Slayer. He… he respected her – her strength, her grace, resilience, and resourcefulness – had since he’d first seen her fight. He enjoyed taking the piss and how quick-witted she was, how she could effortlessly throw his snark right back at him, usually with interest. Her view of the world was sometimes charming, often amusing, and frequently infuriating. She was pretty enough, he supposed, in a glowing, firestorm sort of way; shagging her would be a bit of alright. He always respected her, usually hated her, sometimes he even liked her, but he didn’t love her.
Just because so many disparate things brought her to mind when he’d been in Mexico didn’t mean anything. And the postcards, they were just a bit of cheeky fun. And trying to buy her favorite food for Drusilla was just an honest cock-up, could happen to anyone. And, yes, he had been doing mostly ‘catch and release’ feeding, and mostly from the dregs at the bottom of society’s ladder, and had even bagged it at a butcher or two, but that was just to stay below the radar of the townsfolk. And, okay, he had done his damnedest to keep Dru away from the little sweet breads she preferred, but that was just to keep his dark princess safe. And, admittedly, he had melted a bit when Buffy had called to check on him, to ask if he was okay, but he’d really needed a friend just then. And, sure, he had run like a madman to get here when he’d gotten her frantic call for help, but isn’t that what you’d do for a friend?
None of that meant anything! He did not love the Slayer!
“Bugger me,” he cursed softly, rolling his eyes to the dark ceiling. “Bugger me straight to hell.”
** X-X-X-X-X **
Spike’s cold, wet nose nudged Buffy’s arm at ‘way-too-early’ o’clock, as was his habit, needing to go out.
“Mmph,” she muttered, turning over to pat the dog on the head. “Five more minutes?” she rasped, which was also a long-standing ritual.
The dog huffed out a breath and sat down next to the bed, resting his big chin on the mattress next to her.
“Thanks,” the girl croaked out, turning over to find… nothing. Buffy blinked her eyes open and they confirmed that she was alone in the bed. The vampire was gone. She lifted up to look on the floor, but, nope – also void of recent vampire activity.
She sank back down onto her pillow, feeling ashamed and foolish. Of course Spike had only been humoring her. What he saw last night wasn’t the ‘glorious, smart, crafty, sneaky, strong’ Slayer he thought she was – it was a frightened, lonely girl; not anyone a warrior like Spike would have any respect for. He probably left the moment she fell asleep. He probably just felt sorry for her pathetic self, said he was her vampire just to get her to shut up and go to sleep. Spike wasn’t hers in any way, form or fashion. She wasn’t sure he’d even want to be her friend after last night. He wouldn’t break the truce, but when it was over, he’d go back to being just another mortal enemy, and Buffy just another Slayer waiting to be drained, another notch to be won, bragging rights to be earned.
She’d been here stupidly crushing on him all this time and he’d probably never given her a second thought while he’d been with Dru. Why would he? If Buffy was with her ‘destiny’, her ‘eternal love’, she wouldn’t give anyone else a second thought… or a first thought.
But he’d sent her the postcards. Okay, so he’d given her half a thought. Probably got a good laugh when he saw them all up around her mirror, saved like—like treasures. Like fond mementos. Like love letters.
Stupid, stupid Buffy!
The Slayer threw the covers off, making the dog jerk his head away and jump up, eager to go. He was confused and disappointed when she didn’t open the door and start for the stairs. Instead, she began yanking the postcards down from around the mirror angrily. “No more stupid Buffy,” she muttered. “No more reckless. No more weak. No more disappointing,” she snarled under her breath as she gathered them into a stack.
She paused at one she didn’t recognize, her brows furrowed. It was a black background with drawings of brightly-colored flowers all across it. The colors – yellow, orange, blue, red, pink, and green – really ‘popped’, almost coming to life against the black. And, sure enough, down in the bottom corner, the center of one of the flowers had eyes and fangs added to it, just like all of Spike’s postcards.
She flipped it over, still confused, sure she hadn’t seen this before. In the address section, it just said ‘Buffy’, no actual address. There was no stamp. No postmark. On the left, in Spike’s now-familiar hand, he’d written, ‘Thank you for seeing honor in a monster like me, for being my friend. It meant a lot to hear you say it. Won’t forget it.’ Below the message he’d written out, ‘Hate you, your friend, -Spike’.
Tears blurred Buffy’s eyes and she sat down heavily on the edge of the bed, staring at the card. What did that mean? Was he being sarcastic? ‘Taking the piss’ as he would say? Mocking? Poking fun at her?
He couldn’t be serious, could he?
The dog whined and nudged her elbow. Her ‘five more minutes’ were long expired. Buffy swiped at her eyes, shaking her head. If they were friends, if she hadn’t disgusted him with her neediness, then why hadn’t he stayed? Maybe she was just expecting too much, asking too much. Maybe she’d crossed a line and didn’t remember it. Maybe she’d… oh God! Maybe she’d tried something with him in her sleep like a big ho!
“I am such an idiot,” she swore to herself as the antsy dog started dancing in place.
Buffy sighed, more confused than ever about Spike, and about her own heart and mind. She stuffed all the cards into the drawer of her nightstand. As she did, she caught sight of the Patrón card on the floor between the nightstand and the bed, where it had fallen from the covers. She grabbed it and brought it up to her nose. The tequila fumes had nearly evaporated, but still the faint aroma brought a whole new flood of memories and emotions up. Spike had come when she’d called him; he’d fought for her, for her mom, he’d agreed to stay in case the Council goons came. That had to mean something, right? She stood up, slipping that card in with the rest and closing the drawer. Buffy had no idea what any of it meant. The vampire was an enigma wrapped in a mystery stuffed inside a Rubik’s Cube.
There was one Spike in the world that she could absolutely read like a book – and right now, he needed to go out. This she could handle. The other one she needed to stop handling… just forget about last night, pretend it never happened and maybe he’d do the same. Most of all, she needed to stop being stupid Buffy.
** X-X-X-X-X **
“Oh, Buffy! You’re up,” Joyce greeted her as the Slayer led the dog to the back door. “I wasn’t sure if you needed me to call in an excused absence or—”
Buffy let Spike out and walked back over to the counter, where her mom was making herself a cup of coffee. “I guess I should go,” she sighed. “I think I’m nearing Principal Snyder’s ultimate intolerance threshold with my lack of actually attending classes.”
“What about the Council?” Joyce wondered. “Will they… do you think they’d go there?”
Buffy rolled her eyes, coming around the counter to pour herself a cup of coffee. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “But I can’t hide in the house forever. And we need a plan. And more weapons. I need to talk to Gi—” Buffy’s lips compressed over the name and she shook her head. This was the type of thing she really needed to talk to Giles about, and now she couldn’t. Because he was a big, back-stabbing, dog-poisoning lizard! She grabbed the creamer and sugar and began to doctor up the bitter liquid until it was a warm, ‘coffee ice cream’ flavor. “I… I guess I need to talk to Oz and Xander a-and Willow, if she’s been discharged, see if they can come by here after school and we can all figure out a plan.”
“What about Angel? Could he help?” Joyce wondered.
“Angel and Spike – two-legged and four-legged varieties – are unmixy,” Buffy reminded her, going to the door to let one of the Angel-hating Spikes back in. The Slayer opened the supposedly dog-proof canister, which was the size of a garbage can, and scooped a few cups of kibble into his empty bowl. She was pretty sure Spike could actually open it; he just liked to be waited on. “Spike seems to have his appetite back, at least. I think he’s feeling better, don’t you?”
“Yes, I think that IV really helped him. Do you think I should have them do another?” Joyce wondered, watching the big dog dig voraciously into the new food.
Buffy turned around, biting her lip. “Did it hurt him? I don’t want to hurt him any more. He’s been through enough.”
“I don’t think it hurt. I mean, no more than an IV would hurt you,” her mom pointed out. “And you might need him at full strength.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Buffy hedged, running her hand through the thick, soft fur along his back.
“Well, you can decide later. Christina is coming by to pick me up and take me to the gallery. Mike is supposed to come get the Jeep and take it back to the garage this morning some time, see what it needs to be repaired. I’m not sure how to get Spike to the vet until I get the Jeep back, anyway.”
Buffy nodded, looking down at her friend, his coppery mane shining in the morning light that had just started peeking through the windows.
“So, school?” Joyce asked, dropping some bread into the toaster.
“I’ll go. If they come during the day, I’d be just as safe there as here,” Buffy said, picking up her coffee-flavored sweet cream and taking a sip. Delicious!
“Okay, well, if you can get ready before Christina gets here, I’ll have her drop you,” Joyce suggested.
“I can walk,” Buffy assured her mom, going over to the fridge to get out the butter and jam.
“I’d rather you not. You’re…”
“Weak? Vulnerable? Just a girl?” Buffy provided bitterly, flashing back to the night before, her chest tightening in despair.
Joyce sighed, ducking her head apologetically. “I just worry. I’d rather you didn’t walk alone for a while… and Spike can’t go to school with you.”
Buffy swallowed back her over-sensitive emotions as she set the toast toppings on the counter. She didn’t know which Spike her mom meant, but Joyce was right on both counts. Spike-the-vampire in school would be disastrous – God only knew what he’d say or do. Probably take over 3rd period World History, start talking about dating Joan of Arc or how he posed for Leonardo DaVinci, or start telling people about riding in a dirigible, and mooring it to the top of the Empire State Building. Or tell the English teacher she didn’t speak proper English, or start telling stories about Shakespeare’s pet hamsters in World Lit. Spike-the-dog in school was equally problematic. He made half the people fawn over him and want to pet him – which he loved – and the other half run away screaming in terror of the beast in the hallway – which he also loved.
Buffy sighed and nodded, taking the first pieces of toast and buttering them while her mom put more in. “That’s fine. I can be ready,” the girl agreed, vowing again to forget about last night and hope Spike had too.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Spike laid on his back in the guest bed, staring up at the blank ceiling as the sun rose behind the thick quilts on the windows. The fresh sheets beneath him smelled like a fairy garden on ‘roids. Nothing like Buffy’s bed, which had just the faintest hint of the garden, overpowered by the heavenly aroma of Slayer, of warrior, of girl, of woman. He’d reluctantly left the Slayer’s room a little before dawn, not wanting Joyce to find him in her daughter’s bed. Innocent as it had been, no mother would react well to that vision, and Joyce did know how to use a stake.
As he’d lain in the lonely guest bed, he’d listened to the house come to life around him, his hands folded beneath his head on the pillow. First Joyce rising, brushing her teeth, showering, dressing. She moved almost silently – from years of experience not waking her daughter, he supposed. Then the smell of coffee brewing, the front door opening, closing, then opening and closing again a minute later – retrieving the paper? Her muffled voice from downstairs… talking to the dog? On the phone? To herself? He wasn’t sure, he heard no answer.
Then from Buffy’s room, her asking for ‘five more minutes’, though he hadn’t heard an alarm clock. Talking to the mutt, he reckoned. He heard her feet hit the floor, her moving around, then the bedsprings creaked again. Then her voice, too low to make out the words. He turned his head a bit to hear better, but she’d stopped talking. The dog whined.
“I am such an idiot,” came through the walls just before he heard her moving again, her and the dog, toward the door, down the stairs, away from him.
What did that mean? What had happened to make her feel like an idiot? Spike snorted. Of course, she’d invited him into her bed – what else? Showing him her vulnerability, letting the monster give her a spot of cold comfort. She’d regret letting him see that beautiful, tender side of her, regret taking refuge in a monster’s arms.
Being all snuggly with him wasn’t the way of things, was it?
Slayer. Vampire. Vampire kills Slayer. The end. There aren’t any purring cuddles in the game. No allowance for showing weakness to the enemy.
Of course, there weren’t supposed to be truces either. No time outs. No colluding with the other team.
Downstairs, the back door opened and closed, and the muffled voices of the two women in the kitchen drifted up to him.
What the bloody fuck was he doing? He should just call off the truce, drag the bint out into the garden and off her. Show her what a monster he really was. Be done with this bollocks. Get on with his unlife. It was the way of things. The natural order.
That’s exactly what he should do. He’d start any moment. Get up, go downstairs, end the truce, rip her throat out and bathe in her blood. Anytime now.
“Argh!” he groaned, pulling at his hair in frustration. “Sodding Slayer with her scruples and morals and stupid shampoo-commercial hair, trusting you. Declaring you ‘honorable.’ Looking at you like… like you’re somebody, like you matter… like you aren’t a monster. Unfair, is what it is. Dirty pool.”
He stopped talking when he heard footsteps on the stairs again, coming back up. The hall light clicked on, shining beneath the door into his small, dark room. A shadow moved in front of it, feet walking up to his door. Spike closed his eyes, relaxed his features, slowed his breathing to almost nothing.
“Spike?” Buffy’s soft voice was followed by a light knock. “Spike, are you awake?”
He didn’t answer. Didn’t move. The door opened a crack, the heavenly aroma of her overpowered the fresh garden of the sheets. He still didn’t move. Didn’t open his eyes.
“Spike?”
“Mmph,” he finally replied, turning over onto his side so he could get the full force of her scent.
Buffy stepped into the room. He blinked his eyes open, squinting against the light streaming in from the hall. If she came a foot or two closer he could grab her, declare the truce ended and drain her right here. Right now. Get this farce over with.
She gave him a tentative smile, hoping the night before could just be ignored and forgotten, and took another small step closer. “Hi, um, sorry to wake you up,” she started, wringing her hands in front of her. “Mom has to go to work today, and I really need to go to school. Will you be okay here with Spi… with the dog? There’s blood in the fridge – help yourself. I figured we could have a meeting this afternoon, after school – I’ll bring the guys here – and figure out this whole Council thing, make a plan.”
“Thought my plans were rubbish,” he rasped, trying to sound half-asleep. Just one more step and he could end this.
Buffy chuckled nervously, moving closer. “Yeah, well… I was hoping between all of us, we could figure something less crappy than making machine gun sounds at them.”
Spike barked a short laugh. “Setting the bar pretty low there, Slayer.”
Buffy shrugged a shoulder as her eyes landed on his boots, t-shirt, and jeans piled on the floor. Her gaze darted back to him, down over the thin sheet that covered him, then returned to his face. “A-are you naked under there?”
Spike smirked and lifted up on one elbow, letting the sheet fall from his bare torso and gather around his waist. He had fading bruises still mottling his torso, but the human blood had worked wonders on his injuries. “Would ya like a guided tour?” he offered, reaching out, grabbing one of her hands, and pulling it toward his chest.
“No! No tours! There will be no tours of naked vampires!” Buffy exclaimed, yanking her hand away a moment before it touched down on his smooth skin. That had actually surprised her – being able to pull away. He hadn’t been using his full strength, she could tell, but still, she was a little stronger. The drugs were starting to wear off. Plus, not having a dislocated shoulder was helpful.
Spike chuckled. “Your loss,” he claimed, his blue eyes bright and playful in the light from the hall. “Just let me know if ya change your mind, Slayer. Offer still stands on helping you decide which position you’d prefer for your last dance.”
“You’re a pig, Spike,” she declared automatically, backing up into the hallway again.
Her face was flushed and burning with… was that embarrassment or desire? From the sweet heat wafting from her, Spike’s money was on the latter. Hadn’t the poor girl gotten any since the magnificent poof? A year ago? “Yeah, well, bits of you seem pretty keen on bacon-wrapped vampire.”
Buffy rolled her eyes and shook her head, crossing her arms over her chest. “You’re sick. Bacon is for breakfast and BLTs, not wrapping vampires in pigginess! I prefer my vampires unwrapped,” she declared huffily.
“Well, should’a said so, pet. Happy to oblige,” he teased, gripping the edge of the sheet and lifting.
“Gah! Not what I meant!” Buffy shrieked, turning her back on him as she reached back blindly for the doorknob to pull it closed behind her.
Spike laughed and dropped back down onto the pillow. “Oi, Buffy,” he called just before the door closed.
She stopped it with about three inches to spare, still not daring to look back. “Yeah?”
“Be careful today, pet. Keep an eye out. Stay in crowds… safer there. The tossers like to operate in the shadows, don’t want to draw attention. Not good for them t’ be plastered all over the six o’clock news. Don’t be wandering about in dark alleys or stayin’ at the schoolhouse after last bell,” he advised sincerely.
Buffy turned and stuck her head back into the room, she tried to keep her eyes on his face, but she did just accidentally happen to notice the sheet was still covering his nether regions. Darn! I mean, thank goodness! “Because you’ve got dibs on killing me?”
Spike smiled, lifting an arm and casually slipping it behind his head, making all sorts of interesting things happen with the muscles of his chest and abdomen. “Somethin’ like that.”
“I’ll be careful. Getting a ride to school – be back by four or so. Mom found a leather repair shop and she’s taking your duster there to get it fixed – they said they might have it done by this afternoon.”
“Appreciate it. Didn’t have to do that,” Spike replied.
Buffy shrugged. “She said she put the hole in it, she should get it fixed. Also, I closed all the drapes so you can, you know, hopefully not incinerate getting to the kitchen. There are some that aren’t super-sun-proof… more of a SPF 10 than a 100. And you know how to work the microwave, right? Don’t put anything metal in there.”
“No worries. Try not t’ dust on your clean floor, bugger up the microwave, or burn the place down. Reckon me and the mutt can find something else to do to amuse ourselves,” Spike replied, wagging his brows at her.
Buffy rolled her eyes. “Don’t do anything piggy.”
“Do my best, Slayer.”
“That’s what worries me,” she muttered, pulling her head back out of the opening.
Spike snorted as she closed the door with a soft click. Her footsteps took her toward the bathroom, a few moments later Spike could hear the shower going.
“Bloody good thing you don’t love the chit,” he muttered to himself. “Might be reduced to flinging snark and innuendos then thanking her for the privilege, instead’a draining her like a proper vampire.” Spike blew out a long breath. “You are so buggered.”
And yet he couldn’t help feeling a small glow of contentment. Although his initial welcome back in Sunnydale hadn’t been what he’d imagined, he had, ultimately been welcomed. Bloody hell! He was sleeping in the guest bedroom, not his car or even the basement. He knew the previous night was just an aberration, that the Slayer would never love a monster like him, but she trusted him to keep the truce, even needed him, at least until the drugs wore off and her strength returned.
He’d walked out on Dru thinking he hadn’t a friend in the world, but he did. He had two, in fact. Three if you counted the mangy mutt. Maybe that wasn’t a lot in the grand scheme of things, but it was more than he’d had, perhaps ever. And all of them were relatively sane. Though the Slayer had moments that made him wonder at times, he could usually suss her out without consulting star charts, a Ouija board, and a Magic 8-Ball. Usually.
Spike shrugged to himself. This was alright. He could do this – he could be friends with the Summers women and the pooch. He just needed to keep his preposterous thoughts about loving the girl to himself lest he lose what he had, lose their trust, lose his friends.
** X-X-X-X-X **
‘Oh my God, naked, bacon-wrapped Spike,’ Buffy thought as she closed the bathroom door and leaned against it, letting her eyes fall closed. ‘Right there, across the hall… all piggy and naked. Did I mention, naked? Very hotly naked? No, no, no – this is bad… taken. Taken Spike. Reckless. No, no, no. Bad Buffy!’
The Slayer shook her head, took a couple of deep, calming breaths, and pushed off the door. She turned on the shower and began to get undressed. “Get ready for school. Go to school. Don’t think about naked vampires. Or their tongues. Or lips. Or eyes. Or positions. How many positions does Spike know? Hundreds? Thousands? How many positions are there? No – no thinking about positions. Or naked vampires,” she admonished herself.
Buffy reached in and tested the water, adjusted the temperature, then stepped under the warm spray. It tingled all down her body, like a ghostly caress, like Spike’s fingers as they stroked her hair and arm last night. She’d prayed a little for his hand to slip, for him to touch her breast with those long, oddly delicate fingers, but the stupid, honorable vampire never did. Just her arm. Over and over again until she thought she could read his fingerprints on her skin.
Buffy poured a dollop of body wash onto the bath pouf and began to lather her skin with the lavender-scented suds, up and down her arms, over her neck and shoulders, slowly working her way down to her breasts. Shivers of desire fluttered over her skin, prickling her senses, and settling like a simmering fire in her low belly. She closed her eyes, imagining fingers touching her, exploring her body, soft lips brushing against her nipples, firm palms cupping her breasts. She tried to make them Justin Timberlake’s hands and lips, or Brad Pitt’s, or even Leonardo DiCaprio’s, but there was only one face that went with those fingers, those lips, those hands.
“Spike, oh, God,” she moaned, slipping a finger down between her folds to massage her clit, teasing herself to the edge of heaven. “Spike… Spike… God, yes,” Buffy breathed, barely a whisper that was completely swallowed by the cascading shower. The water rained down, warm and tingly, as her body responded to the fantasy and the sensation of her fingers stroking her most sensitive flesh. She felt the edge approaching and increased the pressure, the tempo, slipping two fingers inside her channel and pumping hard. Buffy gasped, leaned her forearm against the cool tile, and bit down on it, stifling her cry of release as the wave of rapture washed over her.
Then she began to cry, hot tears stinging her eyes. This was ridiculous. Spike wasn’t hers. He didn’t want her. He… God, he couldn’t even stand to sleep in the same room with her. He was taken! TA-KEN! As in, not available. And, anyway, he was a vampire and she was the Slayer. She’d been there and done that and, and it would be reckless and disappointing. And what was wrong with her? Why did she want him so much? Why did his innuendos and offers to teach her all the positions make her blood boil and her body thrum? Why did his postcards make her heart sing? Why had she called him, of all people, when she’d been at her most vulnerable? Why had it been his words in her head that kept her fighting when she’d been trapped in that rundown boarding house? Why did she have to trust him so much? Why was he so fucking honorable? He shouldn’t be any of those things – shouldn’t do any of that to her.
This shouldn’t be so complicated. Vampire. Slayer. Slayer dusts vampire. End of story. She should declare the truce over and tell him to leave. O-or dust him. Yeah, she should get a stake and dust him. She felt stronger this morning – the drugs were wearing off. She could dust him… probably. Maybe. Or maybe she should wait. Let him help with the Council, if they came, and then dust him. She’d be even stronger by then. And why hadn’t she let him give her that tour of naked Spike? Why did she have to yank her hand away so damn fast? Why hadn’t she at least let him lift that fucking sheet up and let her have another look at his… curls!? Stupid! God, she was an idiot! Gah!
Buffy washed and conditioned her hair, dried off, brushed her teeth, and got dressed for school in record time, her emotions pinballing between fury, shame, rage, and lust all the while. This whole situation was ridiculous, and it was all Spike’s fault! Why couldn’t he just be a normal vampire like the hundreds of others she’d turned to dust without a second thought? Why did he have to be so goddamned strange!? And sweet? And hot? Why did he have to have those blue eyes and cheekbones and that jaw that can take a punch and stupid hands that can throw one? Oh! And don’t forget those washing-machine-replacing abs!
It was just wrong! And crazy making! And… and reckless!
With just enough makeup to cover her healing bruises and her hair up in a sloppy bun, Buffy stomped out of her bedroom and up to Spike’s door. Her fists were clenched at her sides, her breath coming in panting gasps as she stood there, a rant of epic proportions clamoring to get out. She’d tell him! Tell him how annoying and frustrating and infuriating he was! How he needed to cease and desist with his smirks and tongue curls and innuendos! In fact, all pigginess should be squashed from now on. And the whole honorable and trustworthy thing was driving her mad! What the hell was his problem, being all word-keeping and truce-abiding, anyway? And, most of all, he absolutely must stop sleeping in the nude!
She had just lifted her hand to pound on his door and tell him how much she hated him when she heard a horn blow in front of the house.
“Buffy! Christina’s here! Are you ready?” Joyce called, appearing at the bottom of the stairs.
“Argh!” the Slayer growled, dropping her hand and spinning on her heel. “Strange, stupid, soulless vampire,” she muttered sourly as she headed for the stairs.
** X-X-X-X-X **
“Buffy!” Willow called as the Slayer stormed up the front walk of the school, making the blonde look over, finding her friend sitting on one of the benches outside.
“Will!” she replied, hurrying over to her. “I didn’t know they let you out… should you be here?”
“Me? The questions is, should you be here? What about, you know, wet works and Slayer-napping fiends?” the witch asked.
Buffy sat down next to her. “I’m as safe at school as at home. Plus, I need to call a Scooby meeting for after school, and get some more weapons. But you… your ribs? Your head? Shouldn’t you be recuper-resting?”
“I’m fine,” Willow scoffed, waving a hand in dismissal, then wincing from the motion. “Fine-ish,” she amended. “As long as I don’t breathe too much it’s all good.”
“Oh, well, if that’s all,” Buffy teased, rolling her eyes.
Willow gave her a smile, then turned serious. “Is something wrong?”
“Wrong? What could be wrong?”
“I don’t know… you looked like you were about to pummel something. You aren’t gonna pummel Giles, are you?” Willow asked, looking concerned. “I mean, I know he deserves it, but it’s Giles… he’s kinda breakable.”
“Oh. That. No, not Giles. Spike,” Buffy admitted.
“Vampire Spike? What did he do? Did he bite you?” Willow blurted out, looking at Buffy’s neck.
“No, he didn’t bite me. He’s just so… so damn honorable! It’s infuriating!”
“Oh, yeah, I can see how that would piss someone off…” Willow agreed hesitantly.
“Right? Last night, I had a nightmare, it totally freaked me out. I woke up and found him guarding my window! Guarding me!”
“That’s… terrible?” Willow guessed.
“Yes! Terrible! All heroic and responsible! So, freaky-me asked him to sleep in my bed… with me in it,” Buffy explained. “And you know what he did?”
“Got hands-y? Made a pass at you?”
“No! No hands! No pass-age! No anything but niceness! Gallantry and chivalry and helping me calm down and get back to sleep. He… he kissed my forehead and just held me… and he purred. Did you know that vampires can purr? Angel never purred. It was sweet. And it’s just wrong!”
Willow’s brow was starting to ache from being furrowed so tightly. “So… you’re mad at him for not betraying your trust and being nice and… purring?”
“Exactly! He’s a vampire and he’s soulless and… and he’s…” Tears welled in Buffy’s eyes as she looked at her friend. “And he’s taken and he’s reckless and… he’s not… I can’t and… he won’t let me hate him… and I hate him for that.”
“Uh-huh,” Willow grunted trying to follow along. “You hate him cos… you can’t hate him?”
Buffy nodded and burst into tears. “I’m a terrible person.”
“Buffy, no,” Willow assured her, pulling her friend into a hug.
“I am. I… I like him and he just keeps making me like him more and I can’t like him, Will. I can’t!” Buffy sobbed against her friend.
Willow patted her back, unable to think of anything to say, but luckily, she was saved by the first warning bell sounding for the start of school. “Maybe we should, you know, go to class and try to figure out something simpler now?” she suggested.
Buffy nodded and sniffed, pulling back from her friend, wiping her eyes. “I didn’t know they offered Quantum Physics,” she tried to joke.
The redhead gave her a smile and they both stood up. “I think you’re just under a lot of pressure right now,” Willow said as they started walking toward the main doors. “With the drugging and the Council, and Giles, and that vampire coming after your mom, and your dad being a big jerk and everything. Maybe you just need to give yourself a break and… um, not be mad at Spike for, you know, being nice.”
Buffy huffed out a breath. “That’s your advice? Be reasonable? Be rational?” she demanded.
“Um… yes?”
“That’s terrible advice.”
Willow shrugged. “Well, I’m better at Quantum Physics than Slayer-Vampire Interpersonal Dynamics.”
Buffy snorted as they turned and headed up the stairs to first period. “Me too.”
** X-X-X-X-X **
Spike heard the front door close and the house go still. He thought Buffy was going to stick her head in again before she left, but she never did. She’d stood outside his sodding door forever it seemed, but hadn’t said anything. Well, not to him. About him, yeah. ‘Strange, stupid, soulless vampire.’ What the hell was that about, anyway? Hadn’t done anything to brass her off lately, had he? He couldn’t think of anything. He knew that his sense of right and wrong was a bit spotty, but she’d seemed fine earlier when she’d been telling him about the microwave and all that rubbish. She pretended last night hadn’t happened, and so had he. All was back to what passed for normal between them, he thought.
Sighing, Spike gave up trying to suss her out and tried to get back to sleep, but it just wasn’t working. He finally decided to get up and go downstairs, have a mug or two of blood and watch the telly. He’d forgotten to ask Joyce if she had Passions recorded; he needed to do that shortly. Maybe he could get caught up before Buffy declared the truce over.
Spiked tugged on his jeans and stepped out into the hall barefoot and shirtless. It still smelled of Buffy’s shampoo and soaps and… her. Buffy’s room drew him like a magnet, and in a moment he was standing at the foot of the bed, breathing in the heady scent of her.
Spike’s eyes settled on the wrinkled sheets where he’d held her during the night, where he’d gotten lost in her. He clenched his jaw and shook his head. He couldn’t get lost in her. Couldn’t be that… that ponce again. That fool. Couldn’t follow another woman around like a lost puppy, waiting for her to love him… waiting for what would never come. Friends… he had to be happy with friends. It was more than he’d had before; it would have to be enough.
He dragged his eyes from the bed and they landed on the mirror. The mirror that had photos of Buffy and her mates and her scruffy dog tucked along the edges. The mirror that no longer had his postcards interspersed with them. Spike pursed his lips and sucked his cheeks in, his hands settling on his hips as he stared at it in painful disbelief. His heart twisted in his chest and tears quivered on his lashes, threatening to spill.
She’d taken them down. Binned them, no doubt. Every last one of them. Gone.
Her words earlier from earlier rang in his ears, ‘I am such an idiot.’ And her oath as she was leaving, ‘Strange, stupid, soulless vampire.’
He felt something inside his chest splinter. He was a fool. A fool to think a Slayer and a vampire could be friends. A fool to think she’d not regret letting him in, letting him see what lay behind the curtain of strength and confidence to the heart of the girl. William, the bloody fool.
Spike sniffed and swallowed back the ache that had formed around his dead heart. This had been a mistake. Coming here had been a mistake. Getting lost in her had been a monumental mistake. Should’ve drained her this morning like he’d planned – left her cooling corpse for her mum to find, like a proper monster.
“Fuck it all to hell,” he muttered, turning on his heel and heading to his room to pack his things. Sunnydale was, after all, between places in California and other places. And any other place would be better than this one.
** X-X-X-X-X **
STORY BOARD
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link.
** X-X-X-X-X **
End Notes:
Oh dear! Would it kill these two to TALK!? (Apparently so!) Will Buffy come home to an empty house? Will they have to face the Council's wet works team without any help from ‘her vampire’?
Thank you so much for reading! More soon!
Chapter 16: Brought to You by the Letter 'S'
Chapter Text
Chapter Notes:
Thanks to all of you for reading! It means so much to me, like Nutter Butters for my muse! Sending all the sloppy, joyful doggie kisses to everyone who has left a note, a like or a kudo. I’m working on replying to all your lovely comments and treasure every one of them.
Thanks also my two wonderful Beta readers and friends: Holi117 and Paganbaby, and to TeamEricNSookie for pre-reading. All mistakes are mine because I keep fiddling with stuff. If you see any, PM me and I’ll fix it.
Some dialogue from Lover’s Walk written by Dan Vebber
Chapter 16: Brought to You by the Letter ‘S’
The mayor of Sunnydale was in a quandary. He lined up another golf ball on the carpet of his office, took a practice swing, then stepped up and struck the ball, aiming for the little ‘Putting Partner’ contraption a few feet away. His shot went wide of the mark. Again.
“Oh, look at that! Every time, cuts to the left.” He leaned down and examined the floor, looking for any reasonable excuse for his off-target putts, but finding nothing. “See, and it's not the carpet. It's me. I swear, I would sell my soul for a decent short game,” he declared, standing back up. “Of course, it's a little late for that,” he chuckled.
Mayor Wilkins turned to his Deputy Mayor, Allan Finch. “I don't suppose I could offer your soul, huh? Really help me on the green,” he tempted.
“Uhhh…” Allan stammered, trying to find some way out of this.
Luckily, the mayor saved him. “I'm just funning. So, we have a Spike problem, do we?”
Allan cleared his throat, trying to refocus. “Y-yes, sir,” he confirmed, reading from a report. “He's been spotted back in town. First, at the Slayer’s house,” he began. The mayor looked up at him questioningly. “The Summers girl,” Finch clarified, and the mayor nodded for him to continue as he lined up another putt. “He seems to be staying with the Slayer, from these reports. Then last night at the hospital… there was an altercation near the blood bank between Spike and Angel.”
“Spike was up to all sorts of shenanigans last year. We had a world of fun trying to guess what he'd do next,” the mayor mused, missing another shot wide of the cup.
“I remember,” Allan agreed.
“He’s staying with the Slayer? I know I’m not up with the kids these days, but, gadzooks! That seems inappropriate, doesn’t it? Very unseemly.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I mean, what mother lets a boisterous vampire like Spike stay in the house with her young daughter? That’s what’s wrong with the world these days, no parental control. Children need boundaries.”
“Yes, sir,” Allan agreed.
“And you say Angel’s somehow involved?” the mayor continued.
“Umm, yes, but they don’t seem to be working together now,” the deputy mayor pointed out.
“Well, no, they wouldn’t, would they? Some goody-two-shoes returned Angelus’ soul without as much as a how-do-you-do! I ask you, is that polite?”
“Um, no, sir?” Allan guessed.
“Darn tootin’ it’s not! Manners – where are the manners these days?” Wilkins wondered in exasperation, leaning against his putter and looking at the other man.
“I don’t know, sir.” Finch swallowed nervously. “So, ummm… Spike? Should I have Mr. Trick send a... committee to deal with him?”
“Do you think it would be a good idea to send a committee to Miss Summers’ house, Allan? What kind of message might that send to her?” Wilkins asked.
“Ummm…”
“A very bad message, that’s what,” the mayor answered himself. “The Slayer hasn’t been snooping around in our business, has she? No, she hasn’t. And do you know why she hasn’t been meddling in my plans?”
“Uh… because she doesn’t know about them?” Allan guessed.
“Excellent! You have been paying attention! I couldn’t be prouder,” Wilkin gushed. “Have a lemon drop.”
“Oh, um, thank you, sir,” Finch replied, taking a candy from the dish the Mayor held out to him. “So, um, what do we do?”
The mayor pulled another golf ball into position and turned his attention to lining up his shot. “Nothing,” Wilkins replied. “Fore!” he called, striking the ball sharply and sending it across the carpet. “Hey! It went in!” he exclaimed in triumph.
“Sir, I’m sorry… did you say to do nothing?” Allan questioned.
“Did you see that shot? Now, why can’t I do that every time?” Wilkins wondered, grinning in wonderment.
“Yes… very good, sir… but Spike?”
“Keep an eye on the situation. Angel and Spike are squabbling. The Slayer’s caught in the middle. With any luck, they'll all kill each other. Then everyone's a winner. Everyone, of course, meaning me.”
** X-X-X-X-X **
With Joyce’s last bottle of Maker’s Mark in hand, Spike paced around the quiet house, picking things up and putting them down between sips, making it last, waiting. Waiting wasn’t one of Spike’s best qualities. Not only was he not good at it, he also loathed it. It was, in fact, his second least-favorite thing to do, right behind sunbathing. But, at the moment, he had no choice. So, he drank Joyce’s whiskey, wandered around the house restlessly… and waited.
Spike’s clothes from the previous night had been laundered, as promised. He’d found them in the basement, folded neatly atop the dryer. Joyce had even managed to get the blood out of the blue overshirt, so he’d donned it again and had been all set to go when he’d realized he didn’t have his duster. Joyce had taken it to be repaired. He couldn’t leave without it. So, he waited.
The telly was on, but the vampire was too antsy to watch, so he paced, and drank, and smoked – the latter done outside in the shade of the porch. He wasn’t a complete git, after all. His packed bag was waiting on his bed, keys in his pocket, he just needed his duster, and he could get the hell outta here. Go smoke wherever he bloody pleased. Leave this town that had been nothing but bad luck and heartache for him, and make a fresh start somewhere. Maybe he’d go back to London for old times’ sake, or hop a freighter to China and finally learn to speak the language. He could go anywhere in the world and do anything he wanted. He was free. Completely, utterly, undeniably free.
He should be feeling excited about the prospect. Instead, he felt glum and leaden. Even the whiskey wasn’t helping.
“Bloody town is cursed… feel better when you get outta this sodding place,” he assured himself, looking at the magazines on the table by the front door, sliding one after the other off the stack. ‘Vogue.’ ‘Marie Claire.’ ‘People.’ He picked up the ‘People’, scanning the cover which had pictures of Princess Diana, Prince Charles, their two sons, and Charles’ new old squeeze, Camilla: ‘Diana’s World, One Year Later: Her siblings are feuding, her boys are thriving, and the public is warming to Camilla’.
“Like hell is anyone warming to sodding Camilla. What rubbish,” he proclaimed, dropping the magazine and reaching for the next in the stack. But it wasn’t a magazine, it was a leather-bound book. His brows furrowed as he picked it up, a familiar scent floating up with it, one he hadn’t smelled in the house since he’d arrived: Angel. A flare of scorching jealously burst to life in his belly. Fucking Angel. Always taking anything Spike wanted and ruining it, twisting it, making it his own. At least until it was broken beyond repair. Then the great git tossed it back to Spike like scraps, leaving him to try and live off what little was left.
Spike let out a low growl, angry with himself. “Slayer ain’t yours… don’t even want ‘er to be. Cold hearted bitch is what she is. Should’a drained her when ya first saw her instead of mucking about,” he admonished himself.
He purposely turned his thoughts away from Buffy, and they landed on Drusilla. No longer seeing the book in his hand, he wondered if she was okay. He was sure she wasn’t dust. That loss would burn through his blood like fire, but was she okay? A pang of guilt stabbed him for leaving her, for being selfish and cruel. She couldn’t help how she was, after all. It wasn’t her fault – it was that pillock, Angel’s. Spike had tried so hard to mend her, soothe the ripped and jagged parts of her heart and mind that Angelus had left, but it never worked. She didn’t want to be mended, it seemed. Not by him, at any rate. Maybe he should’ve just stayed, taken her to sodding Brazil like she’d wanted from the start, instead of meandering around Mexico. He’d thought of it often enough – going on south – but something always stopped him from turning the wheel in that direction.
“The sodding Slayer,” he whispered, allowing the truth of it to come out into the light for the first time. “Didn’t want to be so far from the Slayer.” Tethered like a yapping dog to her apron strings, begging for Angel’s scraps.
Except she wasn’t, was she? Buffy had been wounded, broken, but she’d put all the shattered pieces of her heart back into the piñata. Maybe they didn’t all go back in exactly like they’d been, but she’d managed to heal the damage, even if it had left some battle scars. She was fierce and glorious, full of fire and strength. A glimmering ball of sunshine at her core that warmed everyone it touched with its effulgence. Angelus had changed her, but he hadn’t crushed her or dimmed her light – he’d only made her stronger, more brilliant, a shining diamond emerging from the crushing pressure of the world.
This time, Spike was the crumb, the scrap of putrid flesh that Angel had chewed up and spit out. Dru might’ve made him a vampire, but it was Angelus who’d made him a monster. And women like Buffy didn’t love monsters like him.
Not that he cared. He didn’t love the Slayer. That was just bloody ridiculous.
Spike shook his head, clearing his thoughts. He sniffed and forced himself to square his shoulders and stand up straighter. “No matter – leaving. Soon as that dizzy broad gets back here with my sodding duster. Stupid, am I? Well, the Slayer can kiss my soulless arse goodbye.”
He nodded to himself, took another swig of bourbon from the bottle, and looked down at the book, really seeing it for the first time. ‘Sonnets from the Portuguese’ by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Spike set the whiskey down and flipped the book open to the flyleaf. He found Angel’s writing there. ‘Wishing you the best of birthdays, Buffy. Yours always, Angel.’
“What a wanker,” he grumbled, rolling his eyes. “Ya don’t give a girl like Buffy a sodding book like this. Especially not for her eighteenth birthday! ‘How do I love thee? Let me count the ways,’” he mocked, quoting from memory. “What utter rubbish! No wonder she sent you to fucking hell, Angelus… no sodding style.” Spike could show Peaches some proper gifts for the Slayer... ‘cept he wouldn’t be here for her birthday, now would he? No, he bloody well wouldn’t; leaving today.
Lost in his thoughts, Spike didn’t notice the van that had pulled up to the curb in front of the house. He was alerted to the people approaching when the dog came trotting in from the kitchen, and began barking loud enough to wake the dead. The vampire quickly put the book down and covered it with the ‘People’ magazine. As the dog continued barking at the door, the blond grabbed the Maker’s Mark, set it on the floor, and slid it back between the couch and the end table as he plopped down and tried to act like he’d just been watching the telly, not pacing impatiently waiting for his duster.
He looked up as Buffy came in, followed by Willow and Oz. Xander brought up the rear, a few steps back, dragging a weapon’s bag. The big dog nearly knocked the Slayer down in his exuberance, his tail wagging dangerously, threatening to bludgeon anyone who got in its way. Spike groaned to himself. He’d hoped Joyce would be home first, that he could get his duster and be off without having to even see the sodding Slayer again. Like most of his best laid plans, this one had gone to shite. Bloody Slayer, always mucking up everything!
“How’s my sweet baby?” Buffy cooed in a baby-talk voice as she scratched Spike’s ears and petted him all down his wide back. “Did you and the vampire have a good day? Huh? What’d you boys do? Watch the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show and drool all over the floor? Did you? Huh? Did you?” she crooned sweetly.
The Guardian wiggled and waggled and licked at her hands, his mouth open in a doggie-grin, becoming more excited with each ooey-gooey word Buffy spoke. When she finally stopped petting him in order to put her bookbag and purse down, he went to each of the others in turn, bumming pats and rubs and compliments about what a good, handsome boy he was.
“Hey,” Buffy said to Spike as the others fawned over the dog. “Any problems today?”
“House’s still standing, innit?” Spike popped back sharply, not looking at her.
Buffy flinched slightly from the unexpected tone, but tried to keep her words light and conversational. “Well, so far, anyway,” she agreed, looking around at said house. “Did you let Spike out?”
“No. Taught him to use the loo like a proper bounder, didn’t I?”
“You… what?” Buffy asked, confused.
Spike rolled his eyes and started looking for the remote. “Yes, I let the sodding mutt out t’ chase the rotten little squirrels in the back garden.”
“Oh. I don’t usually let him chase…”
Spike paused his search and turned a cold, hard glower on her.
“But, yeah, that’s… fine...” Buffy amended, trying to keep things cordial and remain rational, as Willow had suggested that morning. “Did you find the blood, okay?”
Spike rolled his eyes and went back to searching for the remote. “Well, took a bit t’ figure out the fridge door and all, but eventually the stupid vampire sussed it out.”
Buffy frowned and stepped closer to him. “What’s with all the bad-moodiness?” she hissed in a low voice.
“Vampire, aren’t I? Not a sodding sitter for your ‘sweet baby’,” he snarled, digging his hands in the cushions of the couch, still looking for the clicker.
Buffy scowled at him, trying to figure out what his problem was. Giving up, she resorted to the direct approach. “What is your problem?” the Slayer demanded, moving even closer. She spied the whiskey bottle on the floor. “Are you drunk?” she asked incredulously, reaching down and picking it up. There was barely a swallow left in the bottom.
“God, don’t I wish,” Spike grumbled, giving up his quest for the remote and instead sweeping his hand out and snatching the bottle from Buffy. He upended it over his mouth until the last drops dribbled from it onto his tongue. “Be a pet and fetch me another,” he suggested, handing the bottle back to her. “Must know where yer mum keeps her stash hidden about the house.”
Buffy just goggled at him, not taking the empty bottle, trying to figure out just what the hell was going on with their so-called house guest. He’d seemed fine last she’d spoken to him before leaving this morning, giving her advice, telling her to be careful. And she’d calmed down herself, trying her level best to take Willow’s advice about being reasonable and rational, but the annoying vampire smirking up at her was making that extremely difficult.
The Slayer felt the eyes of her friends on them and knew she’d never get anything out of the surly blond with them watching. “I need a minute with Spike alone. Go on into the kitchen and make yourselves at home,” she told her friends.
“Uh, are you sure that’s a good idea?” Xander asked worriedly. “He’s an evil, blood-sucking fiend and you’re not at full strength.”
“He does seem a little grumpy,” Willow agreed, looking between the two blondes.
“I’m fine. There’re snacks in the cupboard to the left of the sink – help yourself. We’ll be there in a minute,” Buffy assured them.
“You should at least have a stake. A crossbow? …Axe maybe?” Xander suggested, rummaging through the bag of weapons.
“I said I was fine. Please excuse us for a minute,” Buffy practically growled at Xander, never taking her eyes off the vampire. Spike was glaring at her now and she returned it with equal ferocity. She heard Willow admonishing Xander to, “Come on,” and their feet moving away, into the dining room and beyond.
As soon as Buffy thought they were mostly out of earshot, she grabbed Spike’s arm and yanked. She only lifted him a little off the cushions before her strength gave out and he plopped back down. “Get up!” she demanded, pulling on his arm again.
“Don’t want to.”
“Do it anyway! Get up! Come on, I need to talk to you. We’re going outside,” Buffy ordered.
“Hate to tell you this, Summers, but I’m not your sodding lap dog. Don’t take commands, sit, stay, roll over. Done with that rot, I am,” Spike insisted, yanking his arm from her grip. He still held the bottle in his other hand, but since it appeared she wasn’t going to take it, he sat it on the coffee table. Sanctimonious bint probably didn’t even know where her mum kept her stash. Only teenager in the world that wouldn’t know important information like that. Probably never had a sodding drink in her entire holier-than-thou life.
Buffy scowled at him. Since she wasn’t going to get him outside for a private conversation, she instead turned on her heel and went over to the double doors that separated the living room from the foyer and closed them. As she did, she heard the radio come on in the kitchen. ‘Thank you, Willow,’ she thought as she turned around and faced the crabby vampire again. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Not a bloody thing. Sitting here watching the telly, mindin’ my own business, aren’t I? Seems you’re the one with her knickers in a knot.”
Buffy came back over nearer the couch, looking at the television. “You’re watching ‘Sesame Street’,” she pointed out sardonically, turning back to look at him and crossing her arms over her chest.
Spike looked at the TV – actually looked at it – for the first time. She was right. ‘Bugger.’ Spike sniffed and gathered himself. “You got something against Sesame Street? Oscar’s bloody hilarious, though I reckon you fancy that snooty, blond bint, Miss Piggy. Reminds me of someone, she does… who could that be?” he mused, tapping a finger to his lips as he looked at the ceiling, feigning deep thought. “Oh yeah,” he huffed, looking back at her. “You.”
“Ha. Ha,” Buffy drawled. “You’re telling me you were sitting here watching ‘Sesame Street’ before we came in?”
Spike just raised his brows and widened his eyes in reply.
“Okay, what’s the letter of the day, then?” she demanded.
“S,” Spike retorted immediately.
“’S’? Like for ‘Slayer’? The first thing that popped into your mind?” Buffy wondered.
‘’S’ for stupid. ‘S’ for soulless. ‘S’ for strange,’ he thought bitterly. “’S’ for ‘sod off’,” he growled at her, resuming his search in the sofa and the nearby tables for the remote. Where the hell had he put it?
“’S’ for ‘sanity,’” Buffy retorted. “What’s the matter? Do you normally keep a backup supply of it in the pockets of your duster and now you’ve run out?” she snarked.
“Ha, bloody, ha,” Spike returned. “Speaking o’ which, where’s your mum? Thought she’d be back by now.”
“How should I know? You’ve been the one manning the phone today,” Buffy pointed out. “Unless you were too engrossed in children’s daytime TV to notice it ringing.”
“’S’ for ‘shirty’,” Spike retorted.
“’Shirty’? I’m not shirty. What the hell is ‘shirty’? That’s not even a word,” Buffy huffed.
“Clearly, you haven’t watched enough daytime children’s programming – lacking proper basic vocabulary, you are,” he sniffed disdainfully.
Buffy heaved an impatient sigh and rolled her eyes. This was getting them nowhere. Clearly, he wasn’t going to tell her what bee was buzzing up his ass. “Fine. Whatever,” she gave up. “The guys are here for a Scooby meeting on how to handle the Council. If you can tear yourself away from Big Bird, we can get started.”
“Try to remember that I’m not one of your little groupies. Sure you and your chums can handle the Council, Slayer.”
Buffy froze, staring at him in disbelief. He was bailing on her now? Not going to help with the Council? “B-but… you promised,” she breathed, her eyes locked on his face.
He remained determinedly looking at the TV, not meeting her eyes. “Never promised,” he declared, still pointedly not looking at her.
“Yes, you did! Last night. You… you promised to help me, to get a better plan – you literally said, ‘We’ll have a proper plan. I promise,’” she reminded him, doing a poor imitation of his accent, which made him wince. “You… you said I was your Slayer and… and you were my vampire and... we were friends and you would help me and…”
Spike looked up at her finally, his eyes meeting hers. They both froze as all their insecurities about last night flooded back to the fore of their minds. The vulnerability they’d both shown to the other, the emotions that surfaced, emotions they shouldn’t have felt, then the hurt from the other’s actions and words.
‘He left, wouldn’t even stay the whole night with you. What’s wrong with you that no one can stand to face the dawn with you?’
‘Called herself an idiot for letting you see that side of her.’
‘Shouldn’t feel so safe with him. It’s reckless!’
‘Took the postcards down, she did. Couldn’t stand the reminder of letting a ‘strange, soulless, stupid vampire’ in like that.’
‘Why did he have to be so damn sweet and protective? So hard to hate? Of course, he’s making up for it today…’
‘William, the bloody fool. Such a sodding ponce, falling for a Slayer.’
‘God, how did you let yourself crush so hard on a vampire? A soulless vampire. A taken vampire! No more stupid Buffy!’
They both cleared their throats and looked away at the same time. For a several long moments all they could hear was the faint sound of music coming from the kitchen. Her friends must not have changed it from her mom’s station, Buffy thought, as the Beach Boy’s crooned softly,
Why does the rain fall from above?
Why do fools fall in love?
Why do they fall in love?
Love is a losing game
Love can a be shame
I know of a fool
You see
For that fool is me.
“Are you going to keep your promise?” Buffy asked quietly when the silent tension in the room got to be too much for her. “Or is ‘S’ for ‘slimy liar’?”
Spike pursed his lips, his eyes narrowed dangerously as he glared at her. “Always keep my promises,” he asserted darkly.
“Good,” Buffy huffed, going over to the closed doors and pulling them open. “Then, let’s go.”
“Fine,” Spike snapped gruffly, standing up and following her. He’d help with the planning, bide his time waiting for Joyce to get back with his duster, then he’d slip off before dawn. He nodded to himself, a new plan in place.
** X-X-X-X-X **
It was obvious to everyone that something was up with Spike. As the Scoobies and the dog stood in the foyer watching the exchange between Slayer and vampire, Willow could tell that Buffy clearly wanted to talk to him alone. The witch tugged Xander away from the front door and into the dining room. “C’mon, you heard Buffy – kitchen.”
“But we can’t hear them in the kitchen,” he objected, pulling his arm free of the redhead’s weakened grasp.
“I think that’s pretty much the point,” Oz interjected, taking over the dragging duties and pulling Xander through the dining room with the big dog bringing up the rear, making sure Xander didn’t yank free.
“What if she needs help? What if he hurts her?” Xander argued.
“Spike isn’t going to hurt her,” Willow assured him.
“Woof!” the Guardian agreed.
“How do you know? It’s Spike – soulless vampire, Slayer of Slayers,” the brunette continued as they made it to the kitchen.
Oz went over and flipped on the radio, turning it up, letting the Beach Boys mask the words coming from the other room, even from his sensitive ears.
“I know because Buffy told me he wouldn’t… he didn’t… last night, in her room he—”
“He was in her room!? Last night?! Doing what? No! Don’t tell me! I don’t want to know,” Xander squeaked, looking at his friend with wide eyes. “I changed my mind – I do want to know – what happened?”
Willow pursed her lips. “They… slept together.”
“Oh, my God. Not another one! How could she—?!”
“They SLEPT together – as in, sleeping, fully clothed,” Willow clarified. “Buffy had a nightmare and was scared. Spike… helped her get back to sleep.”
“I just bet he did,” the boy snarled nastily as the Supremes came on the radio, insisting that ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’.
“She trusts him,” the witch, pointed out. “And he’s been the perfect gentleman. And if you don’t want to get bitch-slapped again, you should probably get over it before they come in here.”
“I’m not afraid of him,” Xander grumbled, even as his cheek began stinging again with the memory of it.
“I meant by Buffy,” Willow clarified.
“That’s a painfully frightening thought,” Oz pointed out. “Did I hear something about snacks?” he asked, going over to the cupboards and opening doors.
“Snacks are not gonna fix this,” Xander insisted.
“Check it out. Bugles. Cool,” Oz said, pulling the box of corn-snacks down.
“Oh! Are those Nutter Butters back there? I love Nutter Butters,” Xander exclaimed, coming around the counter to help Oz. “And Goldfish! Oh, my God! Charles Chips? I’m in heaven. Mrs. Summers has the best snacks.”
Willow rolled her eyes and got some sodas out of the fridge for them, hoping Buffy and Spike would get done before Xander ate all the food in the house.
** X-X-X-X-X **
When Buffy came into the kitchen followed by a contrite-looking Spike, Willow, Oz, and Xander were counting money on the kitchen island, mainly crumpled ones and a handful of change.
“What’s up?” Buffy asked.
“I ordered pizza… you know, being nutrition procurement officer for all official meetings,” Xander began to explain.
“Except we forgot that Giles usually pays for them,” Willow continued, sorting the change into piles by denomination for easier counting.
“We seem to have an extreme case of shortness,” Oz finished.
Spike rolled his eyes. This is the crack team that foiled his every plan? This is the brain-trust the Slayer keeps around her? It’s a bloody wonder she didn’t get eaten by a fledge her first day. The thought made an angry growl rumble around in his chest – his Slayer. His.
“Oh. Shoot,” Buffy groaned. “I’ll check my purse, but I don’t think I have much either. She turned around to look at the vampire. “Spike, do you have—?”
Spike rolled his eyes. “’S’ is for ‘sodding-moochers’,” he grumbled, interrupting her.
Buffy sighed. “‘S’ is for… ‘s-please’.”
The other three looked at each other in confusion, but before they could question the ‘S’ references, Spike muttered something under his breath, then asked, “How much dosh do ya need?” He stepped up next to Buffy at the counter and pulled a wad of bills out of the front pocket of his jeans, waiting.
Buffy’s brows went up, her eyes wide. The last time Spike had been here, Joyce had to give him her credit card to use – he had zero money. “Where… Mom didn’t give you all that, did she?”
“Don’t be daft,” he scolded. When no one told him how much they needed, he peeled off a couple of twenties and dropped them on the counter. “Earned it, didn’t I?”
“Earned?” Buffy repeated. “Doing what?”
Spike smirked at her and stuffed the bankroll back into his pocket. “Sellin’ my hot, tight little body,” he asserted, curling his tongue against his teeth and running a hand down from his chest to his belt. He tucked both thumbs over his belt buckle and splayed his fingers out, framing his fly.
Buffy’s eyes followed the movement, her gaze drawn unerringly down. ‘S’ is for sexbomb.’ Her heart had somehow come up into her throat and it was beating way too fast, thudding in her ears like a bass drum. She swallowed hard and forcibly tore her eyes away. A moment later, she bristled, his words just then registering. A flare of green fire erupted in her chest at the thought of women paying to touch him, to have him touching them. Her vampire. Hers. Okay, maybe not hers in that sense ... or really any sense, but….
“You did not,” the Slayer contended, crossing her arms over her chest defiantly. ‘Bad Buffy! Spike – friend! Just a friend!’
“Didn’t I, then? Lotsa’ lonely, rich divorcees in Mexico looking for someone with my particular talents. I’d give ya a demonstration, but you clearly can’t afford me,” Spike goaded, tilting his head at the miserably small pile of bills on the counter as his glittering blue eyes met hers in challenge.
“You are such a pig,” Buffy muttered, rolling her eyes. He was lying. He had to be. Doing that piss thing. But then, how did he get all that money? Before she could ask, Xander was talking again.
“Um… you say there are lots of these divorced ladies?” Xander wondered, his eyes having followed the stack of bills out of and back into Spike’s pocket. He looked up and met Spike’s eyes. “Are they taking applications?”
Spike snorted. “Hate t’ break this to ya, Special Ed, but landscape maintenance ain’t one of the talents they’re looking for.”
“Hey! I was only in that remedial class one year!” Xander defended petulantly. “And who told you about that, anyway?”
Spike chortled. “Can tell just looking at you, lack brain. Plus, ya let Angelus use you as bait in the school that time. What a sodding idiot.”
Xander scowled. “That wasn’t Angelus, it was Angel.”
“Yeah, keep tellin’ yourself that,” Spike scoffed, walking around the island to the refrigerator. If he wasn’t leaving anytime soon, he might as well have some blood. “If I’d’a taken the bait that night, you wouldn’t be choosing between the lucrative fields of burger flipper and rubbish collector, be pushing up daisies, you would.”
“I have more prospects than that,” Xander contended obstinately. “There’s also the Pizza ‘Spress. I hear their delivery drivers make good tips.”
“Not if they deliver to the likes of you lot, they don’t,” Spike pointed out as he grabbed a mug from the cabinet and filled it with blood.
“I also hear there are plenty of hot divorcees — or maybe widows — right here in Sunnydale that order pizza… and invite the driver in,” Xander continued. “Lance Brooks was in the locker room telling some of the other jocks the tips get a lot better then,” he revealed conspiratorially.
Spike barked a laugh as he put the mug in the microwave and started it spinning. “Could get Big Bubba the Love Sponge giving you the wink instead,” he pointed out. “Just as likely t’ meet a vampire, for all that. Dru and I’ve been known to order pizza and invite the mook in, too. Right tasty, they are. Blood’s been marinated in all them spices and sauces they’ve been carting around, like eatin’ a proper Sicilian.”
“Vampires ordering pizza? That’s just wrong!” Willow chastised. “And… and unfair.”
Spike stiffened. ‘It’s not fair!’ Lisa from Fairplay’s voice rang in his head, materializing like a malevolent ghost. The microwave ‘dinged’ and he turned around to retrieve his blood. “Yeah, well,” he muttered, “That’s life, innit?”
They were interrupted by the doorbell. “Pizza’s here,” Xander announced, grabbing the money from the counter and heading for the front door. “Let the meeting commence.”
** X-X-X-X-X **
The Scoobies, including both Spikes, sat around the dining room table, coming up with plans on how to best deal with the Council’s wet works team. Joyce had called to say she was delayed at the gallery, that she’d be home as soon as she could, but to not wait up for her. There was a huge mess with the inventory she had to sort out.
So, Spike was resigned – he had no choice but to wait. And, since he’d promised to help with the planning, he helped. Most of the planning consisted of the teens in the room coming up with ideas and Spike shooting them down as harshly and with as many insults as possible. Might as well have fun while waiting, right?
As they brainstormed and snarked at each other, they munched on the pizza and emptied big bottles of Coke like they’d never had either before. Spike would’ve preferred a big splash of whiskey in his Coke, but Buffy had never turned up with any for him. Did she seriously not know where her mother kept the spare bottles hidden? The dog didn’t actually have any pizza, though once in a while a scrap would fall, accidentally on purpose, and he made it his mission in life to keep the carpet beneath the table spotless.
“How much pizza are you gonna eat, blood-breath?” Xander wondered as Spike took another slice from the box and slid it onto his plate.
The vampire arched a brow at the boy sitting across the table from him. “Much as I want. I paid for the sodding thing, didn’t I?”
“I just meant – you’re a vampire,” the brunette continued.
“Got a bloody firm grasp o’ the obvious, you do,” Spike drawled, rolling his eyes. “Reckon you’ll be named ‘Head Boy’ at that school of yours any day now.”
Xander’s eyeroll matched Spike’s. “You don’t actually need food, right?” the brunette finished making his point.
“You don’t actually need fizzy drinks or pizza, either – get by on bread and water, I’d reckon. Doesn’t stop you guzzling it all down like ya just crossed the desert with Lawrence of Arabia,” Spike observed.
“Yeah, but, Angel never—” Xander continued, making Buffy cringe, knowing what reaction that would elicit.
“I’m nothing like Angel,” Spike barked at him. “Can tell by the fact that you’re still breathing.”
“And also the buying of the pizza,” Oz added.
“Guys,” Buffy cajoled. “Can we get back to the planning part of the—” She stopped and turned her head, listening. “What’s that sound?” she asked, looking at Spike.
The vampire shrugged. “Reckoned it was one o’ your gizmos.”
“’Gizmos’? I don’t have ‘gizmos’, Spike, I have stakes and crossbows, and they don’t play songs like that,” Buffy asserted.
“It sounds like a cell phone,” Oz observed, dropping a piece of pepperoni to the dog, who snatched it out of the air before it even got close to the carpet.
“Bloody hell!” Spike exclaimed, jumping up from the table, nearly toppling his chair in the process. The dog was suddenly on high alert, and the others weren’t far behind.
“What? What is it?” Buffy asked, pushing back from the table, preparing to follow him.
“My mobile… never actually heard it ring before,” the vampire admitted as he dashed up the stairs two and three at a time. “Back in a tick,” he called, waving a hand telling them to wait.
In his room, Spike rummaged through the pockets of his packed bag until he found the techno-music-playing device and flipped it open. “Yeah?” he answered, lifting it to his ear as he headed out of the room and back down the stairs. “Was in my bag, didn’t hear it,” he explained to the caller, rolling his eyes. “Yeah, right – keep it with me in the future. Is that all ya wanted, then?” Spike asked as he reached the foyer again. He listened a moment, then began to pace, his eyes darting to Buffy, then away again. “Yeah, I can be there.”
Buffy dropped back into her chair, her heart sinking. Who was calling Spike? Was it Dru? Was he meeting Drusilla somewhere? Was he leaving now? Leaving without helping with the Council and their wet works team? Was he going back to his crazy ho of a girlfriend already? That should be good, right? Because Spike here… it was reckless. Him leaving would take all the reckless butterflies careening around in her tummy away. Her mind knew that, but her heart hurt thinking about him leaving. Buffy chewed her bottom lip, listening to half a conversation, which mostly consisted of Spike agreeing with whatever was being said.
“Yeah…. Yeah… right,” Spike ended, flipping the phone closed, before looking back at Buffy.
“Don’t get brassed off,” he began, coming back into the dining room.
So, it was Dru, then, and he was leaving. He wasn’t going to help with the Council. Buffy’s heart sank even further, deflating like a punctured tire. “That’s never a good way to start a conversation,” she informed him, standing up and crossing her arms over her chest, trying to hold everything in, bracing herself for the worst.
“Your Watcher has some intel on the gits the Council of Wankers is sending,” Spike told everyone, though he was looking at Buffy.
“My… Watcher,” Buffy repeated uncertainly. “That was Giles on the phone?”
“Didn’t I just say that?” Spike wondered. “His mate back in the motherland finally got back to him. The retrieval team’s being… what’d he say? Oh yeah, ‘mobilized’, but they aren’t leaving for a while. Looks like tomorrow night’ll be the earliest they’ll be here.”
“How did Giles get your phone number?” Buffy wondered.
“Gave it to him, didn’t I?” Spike retorted, like she was stupid. “Did ya hear what I said ‘bout the Council?”
“When did you give Giles your phone number?” the Slayer pressed, not answering him.
“Last night at hospital. When d’ya think? He was trying to get info t’ help fight these tossers, figured that would be easiest way to get it passed along, seeing how you aren’t talking to him,” Spike explained.
“Smart,” Oz approved, slipping the dog a bit of sausage. He’d taken a page out of the vampire’s book, using food as a way to build rapport with the Guardian dog, who normally enjoyed killing werewolves rather than sharing pizza with them.
Spike waved a hand in a ‘See?’ gesture at the redhead.
Buffy rolled her eyes. “And you have to meet him somewhere?”
“Just down the block. Got some info on the team that’s comin’,” Spike explained again, stuffing the phone into his front jeans pocket. “He’s a bit touchy ‘bout coming to the door for some reason. I reckon he’s afraid your mum might eviscerate him.”
“Also smart,” Willow agreed.
“Be back in a mo’,” Spike called as he opened the front door.
“Spike! Wait,” Buffy entreated, moving toward him as if drawn by an invisible string. “Take Spike with you.”
The vampire stopped, the door open, and arched his scarred brow at her. “Don’t need a chaperone, Slayer. Not gonna eat the git… unless ya want me to.”
“No, I know… it’s just…” Buffy bit her lip, turning to look at the dog, who was currently guarding Oz eagerly. “Spike! Go with… Spike,” she instructed, waving an arm to illustrate her command.
The dog jumped up and trotted over to the vampire, tongue lolling out, looking eager and happy to go on an outing. The IV and whatever else the vet had done had clearly had an effect on him – he was looking much better.
“Don’t trust me, that it?” Spike snapped at her sharply, his eyes flashing gold with anger.
“No! It’s not that at all!” Buffy defended, taken aback by his vehemence. She thought he’d settled down during the meeting, got that mysterious bee unstuck from his ass, but maybe not.
“No? Cos, from where I’m standing—” he started, his eyes narrowing.
“That’s not what I’m worried about,” she interrupted him, coming up closer. “I… it’s Giles. I don’t trust him. What if… it’s a trick, or a trap? What if this is a way to get you… out of the picture?”
Spike’s brows went up, taken aback. “Can take care of myself,” he pointed out gruffly.
“Yeah, well,” she shrugged, wishing she could trust Giles… wishing she could go with Spike and make sure. But she knew she’d only be a hinderance if anything happened. The dog, on the other hand, could help. “Just take the dog anyway.”
“I’ll go, too,” Oz offered, standing up.
“Thanks,” Buffy said as Oz walked past her to join the vampire.
“Why don’t you go with them, Xander?” Willow prompted, nudging him with her foot under the table.
“They don’t need—” he began to object when she kicked him harder and widened her eyes, motioning with her head for him to go. “Ow! Sure… yeah, whatever,” he grumbled, taking a bite of his pizza and picking up his glass to bring with him before joining the party.
“Bloody hell,” Spike groaned. “Don’t need a sodding parade. All that’s missing is seventy-six bloody trombones.”
“Spike,” Buffy pleaded. “Stop arguing and take them with you. I get that you think you’re immortal, totally invincible, but the piles of vampire dust around this town says otherwise. Can you just be cautious for once in your life… for me?”
Spike sighed heavily, his eyes rolling. “Right, let’s go, then, ‘fore the Watcher dies of old age.”
“Ex-Watcher,” Buffy corrected as he led the dog, the boy, and the werewolf out the door. It was like some kind of bad joke, ‘A vampire, a dog, a werewolf, and a boy walked into a bar…’
** X-X-X-X-X **
Buffy stood in the doorway, watching the unlikely troupe march down the walk toward the street, the dog in the lead followed by a grumbling vampire, the two Scoobies bringing up the rear. She wanted desperately to be going with them – or instead of them. To be the Slayer again. To not be the ‘little woman’ standing in the doorway waving a handkerchief as her man goes off to war. She clenched her jaw. Spike was not ‘her man’. Maybe he was ‘her vampire’, but he wasn’t her man, he was Dru’s. And anyway, that would just be wrong, and so very reckless. She was the Slayer – strength or not – and all this crushing on yet another vampire would lead to nothing but badness. So why did she feel so worried about him going to meet Giles? Why had she sent the whole testosterone brigade with him?
Willow appeared at her side, her warm hand touching down on Buffy’s arm. “So? What’s going on with Spike?” she asked worriedly.
Buffy looked over at her friend and gave a heavy sigh as the boys disappeared behind the neighbor’s hedge. “I have no idea,” the Slayer admitted as they waited in the open doorway. “He was drinking whiskey and watching Sesame Street! Like… what is that even about?”
“Maybe… he… ummm…” Willow stammered, her brows furrowed. She shook her head. “Sorry, I got nothing.”
“’S’ is for Spike, the stupid, surly, stubborn, sarcastic, sanity-stealing vampire,” Buffy grumbled.
“You forgot ‘sexy’ and, uh, ‘sultry’,” Willow added. “That tongue thing he does is, uh, kinda hot.”
Buffy rolled her eyes. “Didn’t forget,” she admitted. “Just trying not to think about it.”
“And ‘sweet’,” Willow continued. “You said he was really sweet last night.”
“Not so much now,” Buffy pointed out.
“Maybe he’s not an evening person. He probably just got up; maybe he hadn’t had his coffee yet,” the redhead suggested. “Lots of people are cranky before coffee. You were pretty grouchy this morning, remember?”
“Hmph,” Buffy grunted, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.
“Also, you said he was all cuddly and comforting last night… umm… ‘S’ is for safety-blanket-y,” Willow continued.
“Snuggly,” Buffy agreed with a sigh.
“Saucy,” Willow proposed.
“Satanic,” Buffy countered darkly.
“Seemly,” Willow suggested.
Buffy frowned and looked at her. “I can assure you, he doesn’t have any seams… he’s seamless.”
“No, seemly… it means handsome or pleasing in appearance.”
“Oh, okay,” Buffy agreed. “Strong,” she added to the list.
“Smug.”
“Soulless.”
“Shapely.”
“Snarky.”
“Svelte.”
“Shirty.”
Willow looked at Buffy, her brows drawn together. “What’s ‘shirty’? That’s not a word.”
Buffy shrugged. “That’s what I said, but Spike said I ‘lacked proper vocabulary,’” she explained, trying to imitate Spike’s accent, though it sounded more like Giles’.
“Smartass,” Willow declared.
Buffy nodded, crossing her arms over her chest. She looked back out at the street as the testosterone parade emerged again from behind Mrs. Kowalski’s privet hedge, striding back toward the house. Her heart gave a little happy skip and she felt the tension in her shoulders relax when she saw the two Spikes in front, clearly unharmed. The blond Spike had a sheaf of papers in his hand, apparently the intel from Giles, which he was flipping through, reading as he walked.
“’S’ is for Spike, the strangest, Sesame-Street-watching, scotch-drinking, surly, snuggly vampire of all time,” Buffy sighed.
** X-X-X-X-X **
STORY BOARDS
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link.
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link.
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link.
End Notes:
Thank goodness Joyce is so thoughtful, taking Spike’s duster with her to be repaired! What will happen when she gets back? We’ll find out next time.
Thank you so much for reading! More soon!
Chapter 17: Friends
Chapter Text
Chapter Notes:
I know it feels like Spike left Dru and has been back in Sunnydale a long time, and that it’s been a good while since Kralik and the blow of Buffy finding out that Giles had betrayed her, but it hasn’t been that long, just about three or four days. They’re both still hurting and emotional from all that turmoil; it’s still quite fresh for them both, which is adding to their natural insecurities, so just keep that in mind.
Thanks to my two wonderful Beta readers and friends: Holi117 and Paganbaby, and to TeamEricNSookie for pre-reading. All mistakes are mine because I keep fiddling with stuff. If you see any, PM me and I’ll fix it.
Chapter 17: Friends
Buffy had gone up to get her shower with barely a word after her chums had left, taking the dog with her, and leaving Spike alone downstairs. The girl was gonna drive him as batty as Drusilla with all her mixed signals, letting him in, then pushing him away, acting like she cared, like they were friends, but then binning all the postcards he’d sent her. Then she’d sent all her little groupies along with him to meet the librarian. Was she really concerned about the Watcher setting a trap, or more concerned about Spike not keeping his word to not drain the git? Or a little of both?
Sometimes Spike felt like he could read her like an open book, other times she was closed as Windsor Castle on Christmas. One minute she was accusing him of killing her mum, the next she was falling asleep in his arms. One minute he was ‘honorable’, the next he was ‘stupid’. One minute she was crying on his shoulder, the next she was scrabbling away from him like he was on fire.
Spike shook his thoughts off and looked back down at the papers the Watcher had given him as he sat at the kitchen island, drinking blood and wishing it was bourbon. He had pictures and dossiers on three men, the Council’s retrieval team. They’d gone over them, him, Buffy, and the Slayerettes, finalizing the plan to take the gits out and keep them away from the Slayer. Spike made sure their plan didn’t include him in any vital role – he wouldn’t be here. Soon as Joyce got in with his duster, he’d be gone. The Slayer didn’t need him, and he bloody well wasn’t staying where he wasn’t needed or wanted. Not anymore.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Joyce sighed in relief as she stepped into the quiet house and closed the door behind her. The gallery had been a nightmare today. She usually enjoyed her time there, but today had been all about fixing things that had been bungled in her numerous absences over the last few days. Inventory had been mislabeled or misplaced. African artifacts had been labeled as Aztec, Ming Dynasty porcelain had been cataloged in as Delftware, and a whole crate of French Gothic Altar candlesticks was missing.
It had taken turning the storeroom upside down to find the missing items, and even longer to get everything properly cataloged. But it was done – thank goodness. Joyce dropped her purse on the table next to the door and kicked off her shoes. She draped Spike’s repaired and cleaned duster over the balustrade at the foot of the stairs and headed for the liquor cabinet in the sitting room. She needed a drink and a long, hot bath. Her brows furrowed when she couldn’t find her bourbon, but remained undeterred as she headed for the kitchen, reaching back beneath her shirt to unhook her bra on the way.
‘Shit!’ She stopped short. She’d just got her bra unhooked and was in the process of pulling the straps off from under her top when she saw Spike at the counter in the kitchen.
Spike looked up at her, arching a brow, her bra half out of her shirt. He smirked and looked back down at the papers on the counter. “Nothing I haven’t seen before, luv… if you recall,” he reminded her with a shrug.
Joyce swallowed. “I try not to… recall, that is,” she said with a hot blush coloring her face. She hurriedly pulled the bra free of her shirt and hid it behind her back. “I-I didn’t know anyone was still up.”
“Creature o’ the night,” he reminded her, looking up again as she came into the kitchen. “Look a bit knackered. Bad day in the salt mines?”
“You could say that.” Joyce gave him a weak smile, her face still burning. She moved carefully over to the cabinet by the stove and grabbed the first glasses she could reach without much stretching. They turned out to be a pair of Yogi Bear and Boo-Boo jelly jars. She tossed her bra into the back of the cupboard and closed the door on it.
“I could use a drink, how about you?” Joyce asked, opening a lower cabinet and pulling a bottle of Maker’s Mark Kentucky bourbon from behind the food processor.
Spike raised his brows. Well, there’s one hiding spot discovered. “Wouldn’t say no to a nip.”
Joyce set the two glasses on the counter and splashed a generous helping of fire water into each of them. “Are those the men?” she asked, as she took a deep swallow of the amber liquid, letting it burn down her throat and warm her belly.
“The Council wankers, yeah,” Spike confirmed, eyeing the jelly jar dubiously a moment before deciding to pick it up. Bad for the image, that… but he was already screwed beyond redemption, helping the Slayer and all, so, what the hell? “Coming t’morrow night at the earliest.”
Joyce slid the photos from in front of Spike over to her side of the bar and looked at them. “How do you know? Where did you get these?”
“The Watcher got ‘em. Passed the info along,” Spike explained, as they both took another drink from their cartoon glasses.
“Mmmm,” she hummed noncommittally, studying the photos one by one. “They look… like normal people. Well, maybe not this one… he looks very unpleasant,” she amended, pointing to a photo of a dark-haired man with a receding hairline, a long, horse-face, a scowl, and a five o’clock shadow.
“Weatherby,” Spike provided. “Make a helluva vamp, that one,” he mused, reading over the man’s credentials. “Could give Angelus a run, I’d reckon.”
Joyce poured them both more bourbon. “Are you going to kill them?” she asked shakily before taking another long swallow of her drug of choice.
Spike snorted. “Slayer won’t have it… says she wants ‘em alive. Bargaining chips and what-all.”
“B-but you don’t have to do what she says…” Joyce suggested nervously.
Spike furrowed his brow and looked at the woman, who was taking another sip of her drink, not meeting his eyes. “The Slayer’s not a killer… neither are you, luv. Don’t want that on your conscience, trust me,” he advised as dead, accusing, green eyes stared up at him from that alley in Puerta Vallarta. Lisa from Fairplay, Colorado. Out of all his victims – all the green eyes, blue eyes, and brown eyes, all the old eyes and young eyes, all the terrified, pleading eyes – why did those eyes keep haunting him?
“I don’t want… I just want Buffy safe,” Joyce explained. “If that means these men need to die, then…” she shrugged and took another drink.
“The Slayer’s got a plan – need to trust her.”
“How did this become our life?” Joyce wondered tiredly, emptying her jelly jar and reaching for the bottle. Spike grabbed it first and dispensed a smaller ration into both their glasses.
“Not gonna do the Slayer any good getting pissed and being hungover,” he explained when she eyed the small portion disdainfully. “If things go pear-shaped, the Slayer’ll need ya clear-headed.”
Joyce took a deep breath and sighed, nodding, holding the jelly jar between her hands, but not drinking it. “Will you keep her safe? She’s… she’s my little girl.”
A knot of snakes squirmed and writhed in Spike’s belly. He wanted to assure her that he would help her, that he’d do everything in his power to keep her daughter safe, but he couldn’t tell a direct lie to Joyce. He was packed. Ready to go. He couldn’t stay here. His pride and his heart had taken too many blows already; it couldn’t handle getting batted around by the Slayer’s ever-changing moods any longer. He’d hoped to find friends here, but it was clear Buffy only saw the monster, not the man. The enemy, not the friend.
Spike cleared his throat and looked away from the woman, swirling the liquid around in his glass, making Yogi and Boo-Boo drunk and dizzy. “Sure she’ll be fine. Got a plan, she does. All her chums are pitching in and Cujo’s feeling better.”
“Thank you for helping… for coming. I can’t tell you—” Joyce began, but Spike stood up suddenly.
“Were ya able t’ get my duster mended?” he asked, seemingly from nowhere.
“Um, yes – it’s on the staircase.”
“Ta,” Spike muttered, downing the last of his drink and heading for the stairs, leaving Joyce alone in the kitchen, looking confused.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Spike hurried up the stairs, cleaned and repaired duster in hand, his mind made up. He’d grab his bag and be long gone before anyone in the house even had time to miss him. Not that they would. The scent of Buffy’s shampoo and soap drifted down to him, warm and thick in the air. She was out of the shower, probably in her own room now. He’d just leave the hall light off and slip past, get his bag, and sneak back out.
Buffy’s door was half-open and light spilled out into the dark hallway. He could hear her moving around, opening drawers, muttering to herself. Spike moved as stealthily as his demon knew how, careful not to draw her attention, but when he got even with her door, he stopped, frozen. His brows furrowed as he watched her at her dresser mirror. What was she doing? Spike slid to the side a bit more so he could see. His heart did a strange lurch in his chest. His throat tightened with emotion.
Spike couldn’t stop himself. He stepped forward and pushed the door all the way open. Buffy squeaked in surprise and jumped, turning around to face him. “Christ, Spike! Ever heard of knocking? Or clearing your throat? Or… or not being so vampire-like?”
“Ever tried being more Slayer-like? Shouldn’t let a vamp sneak up on ya like that,” he retorted, but Spike wasn’t really paying that much attention to her scolding, his entire focus was on what was in her hands. “What’re ya doing? A little late-night tidying?”
“What does it look like I’m doing? I thought vampires had super-vision to go with their creepy-smelling,” Buffy shot back, turning away from him and back to the mirror.
“Noticed ‘em gone when I grabbed my boots earlier. Figured you’d binned them,” he remarked casually, though he didn’t take his eyes off the postcards she was holding.
“What does that even mean?” Buffy demanded, turning back to him. “Stop being shirty and speak English!”
“Shirty? I’m not sodding shirty! And that is bloody English,” he asserted coming in closer, his duster still gripped in one hand.
“Well, it’s no English I’ve ever heard,” Buffy asserted. “You should come with some kind of interpreter or… or those subtitles like on foreign films.”
“You’re one to talk. You just make up words like you’re the bloody love child of Merriam and Webster.”
“Did you just come in here to start another fight?” she wondered, glowering at him.
“Me? You’re the one with your knickers all in a knot!”
“Why don’t you just keep your nose out of my knickers!” Buffy huffed, spinning back around and continuing her task.
Spike smirked. “Hard t’ do when they smell so—”
Buffy whirled back around, her face flushed, realizing what she’d said. “Finish that sentence and die,” she threatened, cutting him off.
Spike was still smirking, but he did stop talking. He stepped a little further into the room. “Never answered the question… putting the postcards back up?”
“Why? Are you working for ‘Better Homes and Gardens’ now? Here to critique my decorating choices?” Buffy challenged, turning away from him again and back to the mirror.
“Start with the boy-band posters if I was gonna do that,” Spike pointed out, coming up behind her, watching as she slipped each card back in along the edges of the mirror, the photos of her with her friends, her mum, and her dog interspersed between them.
“There’s no accounting for some people’s taste,” Buffy muttered sourly.
“Can say that again,” Spike agreed snidely. “Could get ya some posters of proper bands… The Clash, the Sex Pistols, the Dead Kennedys, the Ramones…” he offered.
“Don’t do me any favors,” Buffy grumbled, rolling her eyes as she moved some of the cards around to different spots.
“Suit yourself, then.” Spike shrugged and they both grew silent for a moment as Buffy fiddled with the postcards. Finally, he asked the thing he really wanted to know, doing his best to sound only mildly interested in the answer, “So, why’d ya take ‘em down?”
Buffy shrugged, her back still to him. He could see her in the mirror, but she couldn’t see him. “Just felt like a change.”
“And now you feel like another change?”
“Maybe,” she said defensively.
“Not that I should be surprised, blow hot and cold like a half-dead dragon with asthma, you do.”
Buffy whirled back around to face him, looking annoyed. “I thought we established there are no dragons!”
Spike shrugged. “So says you… I say otherwise. And, not the point, is it? What’s with the…” he waved a hand at the mirror, “…rethink?”
Buffy rolled her eyes and turned around again, away from those penetrating blue eyes that could see right through her. She couldn’t let him see through her; it gave him too much power. She’d let him in last night, let herself take comfort in his strength, in his arms and that purr. It had made her heart feel full – which was bad; very, very bad – because clearly it meant nothing to him. He’d run off as soon as she’d fallen asleep, probably laughing at the stupid Slayer the whole while. “It was a bad night,” she excused.
“I was there, if you recall.”
“I recall,” she admitted, moving the postcard of Chichén Itzá to a different spot. “This morning… I was… upset.”
Spike snorted derisively, his plan of not giving away anything to her flying out the window as his ire rose along with the hurtful memory. “Yeah, can see how turning to a soulless, stupid, strange vampire for comfort would have that effect,” he sneered.
“What?” Buffy asked, whirling around to face him again, her long hair flying out like a golden curtain when she moved, her green eyes blazing.
“Vampire hearing goes with the creepy smelling. Heard ya,” he revealed harshly, his eyes no less intense as he met her gaze. “Idiot for lettin’ me in, eh?”
“What?” she repeated, looking at him like he’d grown a second head.
“Heard ya talkin’, this morning,” he said again, exasperated. “Calling yerself an idiot… idiot for letting the monster have a look behind the curtain.”
Buffy’s brow furrowed and she shook her head, as if trying to make his words make sense. When they finally did, she shifted her eyes from his, still shaking her head slowly. “No, it wasn’t like that at all. That’s not… I…” Buffy stammered, looking both guilty and perplexed. Stupid vampire hearing! God, what else had he heard? Her face flushed with the memory of her morning shower, but if he’d heard that, no way he wouldn’t have found some lewd and lascivious way to taunt her about it by now.
“Then what was it like, Slayer? Why don’t you explain it to me?” Spike demanded, his hands going to his hips, his duster still clutched in his left. His eyes were burning with anger, little flashes of gold flickering through the blue.
“How ‘bout I don’t!” she shot back, her own eyes sparking with annoyance, remembering how it had felt that morning, waking up alone. She’d been stupid, thinking it might’ve meant something – him comforting her last night. But clearly it didn’t mean anything to him. She wasn’t about to give him any more ammo to use against her, to tease and taunt her about. He seemed to come up with plenty all on his own.
Spike pursed his lips and narrowed his gaze. It was clear she wasn’t going to explain anything, but she didn’t need to, did she? Just like the horror he’d seen in her eyes when she found herself sprawled on the couch with him the previous morning, she’d had the same regrets in the light of day today. It was fine to take a little cold comfort from a monster in the dark of night, but the dawn changed everything. “Fine, then… why are ya putting ‘em back?” he asked, changing tactics.
“What is with your sudden interest in my décor?” Buffy demanded crossly.
“What’s with you not wanting t’ answer a simple question?” he barked back. “What’re you afraid of, Slayer?”
“I’m not afraid of anything,” she declared hotly, turning back to the mirror. Though all the cards were up, she kept moving them around, changing their positions.
“Then answer the bloody question!”
“Fine! They brighten the room up,” Buffy asserted, turning briefly around to face him before looking back at the mirror. “There, are you happy now?”
“That so? And that’s the only reason?” he demanded, a ball of disappointment forming in his belly, despite knowing that it likely was. His foolish heart prayed that it wasn’t the only reason, no matter what his mind told him.
Buffy shrugged again as she tinkered with them, tilting them at different angles behind the frame. “The dog likes them.”
“Just the dog?” he pressed, a small spark of hope growing brighter. He looked over at said dog, who was curled up in his bed in the corner. His namesake snorted and shook his head, his tags rattling in the intervening silence.
Buffy rolled her eyes before she turned back around to face him with a defeated sigh. “Okay, fine. I like the stupid cards, okay? They were…”
“What?” Spike prompted when she paused, tilting his head, studying her. There it was again – that glimpse of vulnerability. She was wringing her hands, chewing her lip, unable to meet his eyes. Her weight was shifting from foot to foot as if she was getting ready to flee. “Buffy?” he asked, taking another step nearer, putting himself between her and the door in case she tried to scarper.
Buffy looked up at him finally, meeting his gaze, and shrugged nonchalantly. “They were nice… and funny and, I don’t know, they cheered me up… well, all of us really. Spike and mom liked them too. Well, most of them were cheery,” she admitted, pulling out the one from Puerta Vallarta. “This one was a little… confusing.” She arched a brow at the vampire and asked, “’Fuck me and my fucking cheese? You hope I choke on it and die?’ Is there a story behind that I should know?”
“Errr,” Spike hedged, rubbing a hand along the back of his neck as he began pacing from the door to the wall and back again along the foot of her bed. Lisa from Fairplay. ‘It’s not fair!’ Green eyes. Dead. Accusing. He couldn’t tell the Slayer any of that! She’d sodding dust him where he stood. “Thing is,” he began carefully. “They’ve got some brilliant food in Mexico, yeah?”
“Probably with cheese on it?” Buffy prompted.
“Yeah, exactly. Lotsa street vendors selling it along the ocean walk there, and, well, offered to buy some for Dru, didn’t I?” he explained as he continued walking back and forth.
“Okaaay…” Buffy agreed, not seeing the problem. “And?”
“And,” Spike continued. “She can’t abide cheese. Says it makes her insides go weebly-wobbly.”
“A lactose-intolerant vampire?” Buffy scoffed, crossing her arms and giving him a disbelieving look. “Now I’ve heard everything.”
Spike rolled his eyes. “Dru’s off the bloody map with her sodding pixies and… anyway, not the point,” he huffed, stopping and facing her. “Just forgot, is all, forgot she didn’t fancy cheese, but she took it wrong… got brassed off about it. Had a bit of a row.”
“So you blamed me?” Buffy huffed, flinging her arms out in exasperation. “I wasn’t even there! How could any of that have been my fault?”
“I dunno,” he growled back. “Just because you and the mutt had cheese piled a mile high on every sodding thing you ate for four days! Got me in the habit of it, didn’t it? So, yeah, blamed you – you and your fucking cheese fetish,” Spike asserted.
“I don’t have a cheese fetish! I don’t have any fetishes at all,” Buffy insisted, re-crossing her arms across her chest.
“Well, more’s the pity, that. Ought to get some, Slayer, ‘fore you’re too old or too dead to appreciate them,” Spike snarked back. “Could make a few suggestions… help ya explore a few options, if you’d like,” he offered with a leer.
“Don’t be a pig,” Buffy said reprovingly, starting to turn back around and put the card back up.
“Why don’t ya just chuck that one… forget it,” Spike suggested reaching for the postcard.
Buffy snatched it away, out of his reach. “No! It’s mine now and I’m keeping it. See, it fits right here,” she argued, slipping the card back into its place before turning back to face him.
Spike furrowed his brows. “Why would ya keep one that says…”
“The same reason I keep this one,” Buffy revealed, pulling out the ‘Keep Calm and Drink Patrón’ card and showing him. “It’s part of the collection. You can’t take one out and throw it away, or nothing makes sense… like a… a story or a history or something,” she admitted sheepishly.
“What story?” Spike wondered, taking the unfamiliar card from her.
“I don’t know… just… like the pictures,” Buffy explained, gesturing to the pictures of her with Willow and Xander and Spike T. Dog. “They remind me of… friends… of our friendship.”
“Friendship…” Spike murmured, turning the card, which, to him, still reeked of tequila, over and looking at the writing. Confusion was replaced with a dawning comprehension as he rotated the card in order to try and make out all the words. Images, vague and blurry flashed in his mind. The dark, little bar. The short man with the bushy mustache, Panchito. He turned the card back over to the picture. The little bottles of tequila. They weren’t bottles… they were pictures of bottles. “Bloody hell.”
“Between both cards, I… I mean, we got worried,” Buffy explained. “It was nice to have a friend who… who thought of me… of us, who sent us postcards, and you seemed so sad... so... angry... but we didn’t know why.”
Spike turned the card back over to the writing. “That’s how ya got my number,” he muttered, walking over and plopping down in the chair next to the bed. His duster fell from his hand to the floor as he stared at the card in horrified comprehension.
“Oh,” Buffy breathed, understanding rolling over her like ice water. “You… you were drunk. You don’t remember. You… didn’t mean to send it to me. You never meant for me to have it,” she rasped, tears prickling her eyes. “Oh…” she said again as her heart twisted. ‘Stupid Buffy! When will you learn?!’ She turned back to the mirror and began yanking the postcards down. “I’m such an idiot…”
Spike’s head jerked up and he was on his feet and at her side a moment later. He clamped one hand down on hers, stopping her from taking the next card down. “It’s true, don’t remember sending it,” he admitted. “But I’d thought of calling you more than once. I… I just…”
Buffy turned her shimmering eyes up to meet his. Spike seemed to deflate with a sigh.
“You just what?” she urged in a small voice, blinking back her emotions before any slipped from her eyes.
“Just didn’t reckon… I dunno…” Spike swallowed and released her hand, dropping his gaze to the cards now on the dresser top. “Didn’t know if… if you… if we were friends. If you thought we were friends or if you… Stupid, soulless, strange vampire, eh? Not a fit friend for a Slayer, am I?”
Buffy stiffened. Clearly, Spike wasn’t letting that go. “Is that what got you all bad-moody today? Have you been brooding all day over that?” she demanded.
“Not sodding Angel, am I? I don’t brood!” Spike shot back testily.
Buffy arched a disbelieving brow at him. Spike pursed his lips, sucking his cheeks in, and rolled his eyes. “Maybe… a bit,” he admitted. “But I don’t brood… I just… stew.”
“Oh, well… totally different things,” Buffy taunted with an eye roll.
“Too right, they are,” he insisted with a sniff, squaring of his shoulders.
“Spike, for heaven’s sake,” Buffy sighed. “I didn’t mean that this morning. I mean, you are soulless, and you are strange for a vampire – which isn’t a bad thing – but you aren’t stupid. I call lots of things stupid… it’s just a thing I say. Like I said, I was just… upset and… I’m sorry I said it. I didn’t mean it the way you took it.”
Spike huffed out a breath and began fiddling with the cards on the dresser, sliding them back and forth, putting them in order. She was doing it again – push him away then pull him back in, brass him off, then apologize and make him feel like a git, treat him like a monster one minute and like a man the next. He was starting to feel like one of those Bounce Back Paddle Balls, getting batted away then snapped back with a rubber band.
Buffy sighed. Giving up on him accepting her apology, she went back to what he’d said about not knowing if they were friends. “You could’ve called me… can call me anytime… if you need a friend. Sometimes I… I need a friend, too.”
“Got your mates,” Spike pointed out, still not looking at her, his eyes focused on the postcards laying on the dresser top.
“Yeah, but, sometimes I need a friend who… who knows. Who won’t pretend that everything is going to be fine, who doesn’t think getting into a good college and going to frat parties is the most important thing in life. I’m the Slayer. Everything isn’t going to be fine, but my friends don’t want to hear that. You don’t treat me like a little girl, like a normal girl. You get it… you understand. You don’t tell me to turn my frown upside-down. You aren’t afraid of the truth. You aren’t afraid to… to just be with me, even when I’m in pain.”
Spike finally looked up to meet her eyes. So alive. So bright with emotion. He wanted to kiss the dampness from her lashes. He wanted to pull her against him and hold her forever, keep her safe from all the monsters. Except he was one of those monsters. ‘It’s not fair!’
Spike swallowed, forcing his hands to stillness, not reaching for her. “I suppose that works out nicely then,” he said in a deep, quiet voice. “’Cos I could use a friend like that m’self now and again.”
“Pretty sure no one has ever treated you like a little girl,” Buffy teased, a small smile curving her lips.
Although some of Angelus’ harsher lessons came to Spike’s mind which might disprove that statement, Spike wasn’t going into any of that with the Slayer. Instead, he smirked back at her. “Don’t reckon so,” he agreed, before his expression darkened. “But there’re more ways to be… misused. May not have remembered sending you this.” He waved the Patrón postcard with his phone number on it, which he still held in one hand. “But am glad of it. Your message… the first one… it… it made me think I did have a friend.”
Buffy looked down at the postcard. “You do,” she assured him, before looking back up to meet his eyes. “What happened? Why did you send that?”
Spike sighed heavily. He turned and went back over to the chair by the bed and slumped down into it. He looked at the words and drawings on the card which he didn’t remember writing. ‘MONSTER’, ‘not monster enough,’ ‘savage’, ‘sweet’, ‘blood’, ‘ripe plum’, ‘darkness,’ ‘never enough’, ‘TRYING!’ All the hurt came flooding back to him. Dru’s unfaithfulness. Her bitter accusations about Spike going soft. Her outrage over Spike sending the postcards even as she fucked half of Mexico right under Spike’s nose. Lisa, from Fairplay. Dead eyes. Dead green eyes. ‘It’s not fair!’
“Spike?” Buffy prompted, sitting down on the bed across from him. She reached out and touched a hand down on his arm. “Tell me. I’m here, I’m strong, and I’m not afraid. I can be your friend.”
Spike shook his head, still looking at the card. He couldn’t tell Buffy the whole truth of it. She’d never understand. She was the Slayer… how could he tell her about that night? About dead, green eyes? About the monster he truly was? She’d not be his friend for long once she heard that from his own lips. She might know he was a monster, that he’d killed and worse, but to hear that from him here and now – in her room with her looking at him like that? He knew it’d be the end of any friendly feelings she thought she had for him. His heart had been on a rollercoaster for days now. He couldn’t bear another stomach-churning fall from the graces of yet another woman he lo—he cared about.
“Spike?” she nudged again, squeezing his arm.
Spike sighed, his mind made up. “Was Dru… had a row, didn’t we? Her and her cheating, nearly getting us killed – was just like Prague all over again. Wouldn’t listen to reason, accused me o’ going soft if I did anything to try and keep her safe. Said her heart was with Angelus… always with her sodding daddy,” he explained, his voice getting more agitated the longer he spoke. “Bloody bitch,” Spike growled under his breath.
Buffy furrowed her brows, watching him. Spike was calling Dru a bitch? Satisfied, smug little butterflies began dancing in her tummy.
Spike suddenly jumped up and strode over to the dresser, plucking the postcard of the ballet up and waving it at Buffy. “This night? Nearly got us killed, she did. Just like in Prague and a dozen cities before that. Bloody dizzy bint, taking the lead dancer right behind the sodding building. Fucked him and drained him right there in front o’ God and everybody,” he revealed, turning the card over to read what he’d written. He snorted derisively. “Danced… she danced with every ham-handed bugger in the square. Not with me. And the shag beneath the stars? Her and the sodding ballerino… not me. And the town painted red? That was the policia combing the streets for us, their lights flashing. Had to run for our bloody lives! Barely escaped.”
Buffy watched him carefully, taking all this in, but not saying anything. That magical night she’d been so jealous of hadn’t been magical at all? The butterflies were tickled pink with haughty satisfaction, though there was a tingle of fear mixed in, thinking about Dru putting Spike in danger. Of course, admitting that would just give the snarky vampire more needles to poke her with, so she didn’t mention it.
“I guess you made it,” Buffy observed when he didn’t say anything for a few long moments.
Spike snorted. “The whole lot of you have a bloody firm grasp of the obvious, don’cha?” he asked, looking up from the Ballet Folklórico de México postcard to meet her eyes.
Buffy shrugged. “It’s a gift,” she quipped. “Sooo… where’s Dru now?” she asked hesitantly.
“How the bloody fuck should I know? Off with the fairies, I reckon. Could be with her sodding daddy for all I know, couldn’t she? Something you two seem t’ have in common, innit? Angel,” he shot back, spitting his grandsire’s name. “Dunno what the bloody hell you dozy bints see in the great git. Does he have your heart in a box ‘neath his pillow, too?”
“Um, one – gross, and two – I don’t know what ‘dozy bint’ means, but if you think Dru and I have anything in common, then you’ve taken a long walk around a very short bend,” Buffy asserted, purposely ignoring the fact that she and the crazy vamp were some sort of blood sisters now. The Slayer stood up and took the postcard out of his hand before he crumpled it.
“Thought he was the love o’ your life star crossed lovers and all that rot,” Spike shot back, planting his hands on his hips as he turned and watched her put the postcard back in its place on the mirror.
“Did you get hit on the head and lose your memory? Pretty sure we’ve covered all this already,” Buffy pointed out. “You’re just trying to change the subject,” she realized. “That’s not happening. You started this, so spill. What happened with your ho of a girlfriend?”
Spike pursed his lips and glowered at her, his hands still on his hips. “None o’ your sodding business,” he barked, turning and heading for the door.
Buffy grabbed his arm, expecting to stop him, but ended up getting dragged in his wake, instead. “Stop, you stubborn vampire!” she demanded. “You said you needed a friend. Well, here I am! Having a friend doesn’t work if you get all avoid-y and run away like a big, ole peroxided chicken! Tell me what happened with Dru!”
Spike stopped and spun around, nearly knocking Buffy down as he swung the arm she’d been clinging to. She caught herself on the bed and turned back to face him.
“Fine, then! But just remember, you asked for this! Wasn’t my idea!” he warned, jabbing a finger at her.
“I am not a little girl,” she ground out. “I’m the Slayer. I’m not afraid.”
Spike shook his head, but he began talking as he paced back and forth between the bed and the dresser. “Those sodding pixies… always giving Dru daft ideas. Decided she wanted a ‘family’. Came in to find she’d nabbed a bitty chica… young. Dunno… ten or eleven?” he confessed as he ran a hand through his hair, still pacing the length of the room.
Buffy sat down heavily on the bed and held her breath, watching him. She was strong, but was she strong enough to hear this? How could she think he could really be a friend? He’s a vampire! A soulless, evil vampire! Reckless!
“She wanted me to... and... bloody hell, it was just too much. Even for me... Done a lot o’ vile, unholy things for my princess, but this...” He shook his head, not looking at Buffy. “Was the last straw. I just couldn’t do it anymore.”
Buffy swallowed the knot of apprehension that was making it hard to breathe. “Wanted… what?” she croaked, though she was horribly sure she didn’t want to know.
“Know it’s not her fault… the pixies… got voices in her head, she does. Insane, of course.” Spike stopped and shook his head. “Dunno exactly what Angelus did t’ Dru before he turned her…”
Buffy gasped, then covered her mouth, her eyes wide as she stared at the vampire standing before her. Angel’s vile and horrifying tale of what he’d done to Drusilla before he’d turned her gurgled in the Slayer’s stomach, threatening to explode. She clamped her hand even harder over her mouth to keep the bile back. It seemed like her heart stopped beating, that everything stopped in the few moments of silence that followed her gasp. ‘No, no, no… Spike, please no…’
Spike looked up at her, the sound of her sharp intake of breath drawing his attention, suddenly looking much older than he had just a couple of hours ago. “Didn’t do it,” he declared, though he sounded downtrodden, not triumphant. “Didn’t do what Dru wanted… Got the little bit from her and tossed the girl outta the room – wasn’t hurt, just a couple scrapes, mostly scared – told ‘er to scram. Kept Dru from following. Right brassed off about that, she was.” Spike touched his nose gingerly, remembering.
Buffy’s heart began to beat again, racing now in a painful tattoo. The writhing knot in her belly slowly uncurled and settled. “You… didn’t do it?” she asked in a small voice.
Spike shook his head, dropping his gaze to the floor. “Dunno what Angelus did to Drusilla, but… got an idea that night,” he said dully, looking utterly defeated.
Buffy nodded, chewing her lip. “You… don’t know?”
Spike shook his head again. “Never talks about it, but I can guess,” he admitted.
Buffy hoped he couldn’t guess. Not all of it, anyway. She stood up and crossed over to her bookbag which was on the floor by the closet. She pulled out her journal where she’d been making notes from her meetings with Angel and flipped through it until she found the page. Buffy walked back over to Spike and offered it to him. “You might not want to know,” she warned as he reached for it.
“Pro’ly not,” he agreed, as he dropped his eyes to the page and began to read anyway.
There was no sound in the room as Spike read. Buffy could hear and feel her heart thudding in her chest, her blood whooshing loudly past her ears. The overhead light suddenly seemed too bright in there, but she didn’t dare move to turn it off.
“Spike? Are you okay?” Buffy asked after a few minutes – more than enough time for him to have read the page a dozen times. She’d taken her seat on the bed, trying to give him space.
He shook his head again, not looking up at Buffy. “Not her fault… how she is. Knew that, o’ course, but… bloody sick bastard.”
“He… he said he was going to do that to me,” Buffy admitted. “You know, last year.”
Spike nodded blankly, looking back down at the book. That was Angelus’ art. Spike had seen some of it before, seen his grandsire arrange bodies for the most impact on the living, seen him play with his food for days or weeks, but what he’d done to Dru… Spike had never seen anything approaching that in the years he had traveled with the Scourge of Europe.
He looked back up at Buffy, his face set in stone. “Wouldn’t have let him. Would’a killed you first. Dunno how, but would’a found a way to give you a proper death, fit for a Slayer.”
“You wouldn’t have… turned me?” Buffy asked in a small voice.
Spike shook his head. “Not a proper death for a Slayer, that.”
Buffy nodded, blinking back tears. This was the kind of thing only Spike would understand. Her friends, her mom… they wouldn’t get it. They wouldn’t know how comforting that was to hear. “Thank you,” she rasped as she took the book back from him. He gave her a curt nod in acknowledgment.
A thick pall hung in the air between them for several moments as she turned and put the journal back in her bag. Neither broke the silence for another minute or two as Buffy took her seat on the bed again, both lost in dour thoughts.
After a relative eternity, Spike sighed heavily into the thick shroud that surrounded them, shredding it. “Knew it was something like that… didn’t really imagine…” He let his voice trail off.
Buffy took some comfort in Spike not being able to imagine the tortures Angelus had subjected Drusilla to, how horribly and cruelly he’d broken her. “Are you all right?” she asked sincerely.
Spike snorted, shaking his head uncertainly. What happened to Dru was some 140 years in the past; twenty years before William had literally run into her in that alley, but he couldn’t help but feel a jumbled mix of emotions, from fury to loathing to guilt to bone-deep sorrow.
Buffy waited, letting him process everything. She’d had weeks to come to grips with the horrors of Angelus, and she didn’t even like Dru, let alone love and worship her. When Spike finally sniffed and squared his shoulders again, Buffy knew he’d found some solid footing. “Are you all right?” she asked again.
Spike took a deep breath and let it out, finally nodding. “Nothing to be done for it now,” he asserted gravely, though a few images of giving Angel a taste of his own medicine flashed in his mind.
“No,” Buffy agreed. “So… what happened then?” the Slayer took up their previous conversation. “After the girl ran?”
Spike blinked up at her, trying to refocus. “I left Dru.” There it was. The truth of it. The horrible truth. Angelus had broken her, but Spike had left her alone. Who was the bigger monster?
“You mean you left her to come here… to help me, and you’re going back to her when… when you’re done here,” Buffy posited.
“Noooo, mean I left her. Told her to sod off… told her it was my turn.”
Buffy looked at him, gobsmacked for several moments before asking, “Y-Your turn for what?”
Spike lifted a shoulder in a nano-shrug, turned away from her and took up the task of returning the postcards to the frame around the mirror. “My turn to decide… to be free, do as I like with no insane anchor around my neck,” he explained somberly. “Told her I was done with her bollocks. Done being treated like dirt. Done being the one doing all the giving.” Spike couldn’t help feeling an even deeper pang of guilt for leaving his sire after reading that account of Angelus’ tortures. Dru really couldn’t help how she was… couldn’t help not understanding his love or being able to return it.
“She was… you always said… eternity,” Buffy reminded him as she wrapped her head around what he was saying.
Spiked nodded and dropped his chin to his chest, still not facing her. “Know I did. Turns out an eternity with someone who can’t love you is something even a git like me can’t suffer.”
Buffy nodded, her mind whirling. He wasn’t with Dru. He was… single! Her heart surged for a moment – Spike was not taken! But then her spirits fell as she realized how he must feel about it. “I’m sorry… I… know you really tried. You really loved her.”
“Tried…” he repeated glumly. “Gave her everything… tried to be what…” He stopped, then whirled around to face her, his eyes going wide, realizing what he’d just done. “Oh, bloody hell!” he exclaimed suddenly, looking up at her. “Don’t tell your mum ‘bout me and Dru being quits.”
“Um… okay, but why?” Buffy asked, standing up from her seat on the bed at his outburst.
“Can’t you just do a bloke a favor without asking sodding questions?” Spike challenged.
Buffy crossed her arms over her chest and widened her eyes in response.
Spike rolled his eyes. “Only trusts me around her precious daughter cos I’m with Dru. Thinks I’d become some sort o’ deviant like Angel if I weren’t with Drusilla, trying to trap a Slayer in some devious plot and take advantage.”
Buffy frowned, all the old hurt surrounding Angel bubbling just below the surface. She did her best to push it back down, but had to clear her throat before she could observe, “You don’t have a curse to break… why would you want me?”
Spike blinked, momentarily stunned, but then agreed, “Exactly!” a bit too vehemently, but Buffy didn’t seem to catch Spike’s desperate clutch at that straw. “Angel’s the one following Slayers about, trying to capture their hearts and keep ‘em in gilded boxes to break that curse o’ his, not me. Just keen on fighting ‘em… killing ‘em. Got no use for their hearts in boxes.”
“Which is so much better,” Buffy grumbled, as his words twisted like knives in her heart, a heart he didn’t want, that he had no use for. ‘Of course he doesn’t! Stop being so naive!’ she chastised herself silently. ‘Even if he did, you aren’t that Slayer anymore! Stop thinking like reckless-Buffy!’
Spike rolled his eyes and gathered his cloak of smug confidence around himself even tighter, using it like a shield. “Fairly sure what she’s really worried about is you falling for my hot, tight little body,” he confided, curling his tongue against his teeth.
“Wow, ego much?” Buffy scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Why would my mom think anything so ridiculous?” she asked incredulously, the high walls around her emotions rebuilding in record time. “We’re friends! Truce friends, un-truce enemies. We’re… frenemies,” she insisted.
“Dunno… why would she think that, Slayer?” Spike taunted, happy to get the focus off him and onto her.
Buffy stuffed all the memories of her heart leaping and lurching giddily with the arrival of each of his postcards down as deep as she could, lest he read it on her face. She’d insisted to her mom that Spike was just a friend, agreed he was just like Xander, but she’d absolutely never used the word ‘steamy’ to describe Xander. Had her mom seen through her? If so, why had Joyce invited Spike to stay in the house, not just in the house, but in the guest room? ‘Because she thinks he’s unavailable. He’s devoted to Dru. He’d never look at you twice.’ She snorted to herself. Clearly, Spike didn’t need to be devoted to Dru to not look at her, Buffy, twice – he’d just said as much. The walls got higher, thicker, stronger, which was good – Spike was still a vampire. Thinking about him beyond anything other than a frenemy – a truce-y friend – was reckless, and she wasn’t that Slayer anymore. Maybe if she said that enough her heart would get the message.
“She must think I’m a punishment glutton!” Buffy declared, putting as much indignant heat in as she could muster. “You’re sarcastic and smug, surly and stubborn and… and satanic…”
“Satanic?” Spike questioned, arching a brow, but Buffy kept talking, “…and a sanity-stealing smartass. Also… shirty.” She very pointedly left off, ‘sweet, sexy, snuggly, seemly, steamy, shapely, saucy, and svelte.’
“I’m not sodding shirty, you’re shirty,” Spike argued.
“I can’t be shirty; I don’t know what it means,” Buffy pointed out.
“Means… querulous,” Spike offered.
“I don’t know what that means either,” Buffy huffed. “Speak English!”
“That is sodding English!” Spike insisted, throwing his hands out in exasperation. “And what you are right now is shirty!”
“Well, see? Not only don’t you like my décor or my music, you think I’m querulous and shirty, and, to top it off, we don’t even speak the same language! I can’t understand what you’re saying half the time! How does that add up to you wanting my heart?” Buffy questioned defiantly.
“I dunno, do I? Didn’t say it was my daft idea… was your mum. Told you before, I’m not sodding Angel. Got no desire to box up your heart and stuff it in the cupboard, do I? So, just shut up about Dru and keep your mum off my back, alright? She knows how to use a stake!”
“Not very well,” Buffy pointed out.
“Don’t want t’ give her a reason to try again. Just do me a sodding favor, will you?”
“Fine, but you’ll owe me one,” Buffy agreed curtly.
“Fine,” Spike barked back.
They both stood in tense silence for a long moment before Spike declared, “Having a conversation with you is like being in the Army.”
Buffy arched a brow at him. “You can be all you can be while getting grenades launched at you?” she guessed.
Spike chuckled, but shook his head. “Was thinking more of it being not just a job, but an adventure.” ‘An exhilarating, terrifying, bloody brilliant adventure. Never a dull moment,’ he added to himself.
Buffy snorted. “That’s the Navy,” she corrected.
Spike shrugged. “Can’t expect me t’ keep all that rubbish straight. Gonna get some kip now.”
“Whatever that means.” Buffy sighed and rolled her eyes. “Maybe Willow can magic up some subtitles tomorrow.”
“Know you’re not that thick, Slayer.”
“Then you don’t know me as well as you might think,” Buffy snapped back, lifting her chin haughtily.
Spike barked out a genuine laugh.
Buffy frowned, realizing what she’d said. “Shut up.”
Spike shook his head, amused, a smile curving his lips. “G’night, Slayer,” he said, turning for the door.
“Spike?” she called, making him stop and look back at her. “Umm… thank you for, you know… offering to kill me and all. Very… friend-like.” ‘Even if you don’t want my heart.’
“Anytime, Slayer,” he replied, the smile turning into a bit of a smirk. “Thank you for…” His eyes tracked to the bookbag and then to the postcards before settling back on her. “Thanks for listening… even if you don’t understand a word I say.” ‘And thinking falling for the likes o’ me is ridiculous.’
Buffy gave him a nod. “So… I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” she said hesitantly. Even with her heart stinging from his earlier declaration, she still wished she could find some reason for him to stay longer.
“T’morrow,” he agreed, heading for the door.
“Oh! Your coat,” Buffy called, remembering it. She turned and retrieved it from the floor near the chair.
Spike turned back. “You keep it for me,” he said, stepping into the hall and pulling the door closed. “G’night, Slayer.”
“Woof!” the dog interjected from his bed in the corner of Buffy’s room.
“You too, Cujo,” the vampire added through the door.
“Good night, Spike,” Buffy replied to the closed door before his footsteps moved away. She hugged his duster to her chest, slightly perplexed by him leaving it, but somehow comforted by the supple weight of the old garment.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Spike closed the door of his room and leaned back against it, closing his eyes. What the hell had he just done? Spilling his sodding… well, not his soul, obviously, but his heart out to the Slayer? Telling her he’d left Dru. What must she think of him? He’d always defended Dru, always believed they were literally eternal. He’d broken his word on that. After claiming that he always kept his promises, he’d just admitted to Buffy that he didn’t. As a boy, his father always told him that a man was only as good as his word. What did that make Spike, then? Certainly not a man… just a monster.
And yet, Buffy hadn’t pounced on that like she might’ve. She seemed to understand, to even be concerned about him, sincerely asked if he was all right. Who else had asked him if he was all right in the last century? No one that he could recall. And now Buffy’d done it twice. And she’d apologized to him for calling him stupid and had put the postcards back up. Admitted that she liked them and, by extension, liked him – at least as a friend – even if she didn’t speak bloody English.
He knew his heart had been rash and sodding stupid to start falling for the girl. To hope she’d return the affection was, as she said, ridiculous. She was the Slayer. He was a vampire, soulless and strange, perhaps, but still a monster. But she’d declared herself his friend. He’d just have to be happy with what he had. A friend. And that’s what he’d be. Her friend. Not a bleedin’ pillock like Angel. He’d be the best bloody friend a Slayer could have for as long as she’d let him. It was more than he’d ever had before. It was enough.
Even with the horrors Buffy had revealed about Angelus and Dru, Spike’s heart felt lighter than it had all day. Talking with Buffy was exhilarating, often frustrating, but never dull. She gave as good as she got from him. She got his sarcasm and his quips, even his dark humor didn’t go unappreciated, and she didn’t actually mind his innuendos as much as she liked to pretend. Talking with her versus with Dru was as different as night and day – literally and figuratively.
He had a friend. He’d try his damnedest to live up to that… to be a man, not a monster.
Spike pushed off the door and began unpacking his bag. Looks like he’d get a chance t’ have a go at those Council wankers after all.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Buffy flipped the light off and climbed into bed, still holding the duster, turning everything over and over. Spike had left Dru. That still boggled her mind. Spike had left Dru. He deserved so much better than an insane, cheating, ungrateful ho. Of course, that someone he deserved wasn’t Buffy; he had no use for a Slayer’s heart. That shouldn’t make her feel as disappointed and sad as it did. When was she going to convince her heart how reckless it would be to get involved with a vampire?! Her heart was stupid and thick and needed to get a grip on itself!
Buffy breathed in the scent of the duster, but was disappointed to find it smelled only of clean leather, not of Spike. She remembered how he’d smelled last night as she’d curled against him. Tobacco and whiskey mingled with the hint of leather from his duster, even though he hadn’t had it on. He smelled like no other man she’d known, but the only name she could give the scent was ‘man’.
“No,” she whispered into the duster. “Not ‘man’… friend. Not steamy, not sexy, not… not seemly. Just friend.” No more reckless Buffy. Slayer and vampire were unmixy. Badness ensued. Anything more than friends was not going to happen. She wasn’t that Slayer anymore. And, anyway, Spike didn’t want her heart in a gilded box, so it just needed to stop fluttering in her chest like a drunken bluebird whenever he said or did anything piggy or sweet or thoughtful or kind, or, you know, looked at her like he might say something piggy, sweet, thoughtful, or kind.
“Friends,” Buffy admonished herself, closing her eyes and curling around the rich, soft leather duster. “Just friends.”
** X-X-X-X-X **
STORY BOARDS
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link.
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link.
** X-X-X-X-X **
End Notes:
Credit Dragon drawing: http://www.cartoonaday.com/let-sleeping-dragons-lie/
Credit Pig cartoon: https://all-free-download.com/free-vector/pig.html
Thanks to all of you for reading! It means so much to me, like deep fried Snickers for my muse! Sending all the sloppy, joyful doggie kisses to everyone who has left a note, a like or a kudo. I’m working on replying to all your lovely comments and treasure every one of them.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Chapter 18: Science
Chapter Text
Chapter Notes:
Thanks to all of you for reading! It means so much to me, like Donut Holes for my muse! Sending all the sloppy, joyful doggie kisses to everyone who has left a note, a like or a kudo. I’m working on replying to all your lovely comments and treasure every one of them.
Thanks also my two wonderful Beta readers and friends: Holi117 and Paganbaby, and to TeamEricNSookie for pre-reading. All mistakes are mine because I keep fiddling with stuff. If you see any, PM me and I’ll fix it.
Chapter 18: Science
The next morning Buffy was, as usual, woken way too early by her dog. As she lay there during the ‘five more minutes’ that he always allowed her, she felt an odd mingling of hope and dread. On one hand, Spike had broken up with Dru! Her heart, which seemed to not have a single cell of reason or logic to it, was overjoyed. Her brain, however, which apparently had sprouted more reason and logic over the last year, was not so thrilled. Friends. That’s all that could happen between her and Spike. Anything more would be reckless and… and just wrong. On that terrible night when she had been sure the monsters were coming for her, Buffy had promised herself and the universe that, if she lived, she wouldn’t be that Slayer anymore. She’d be better. She’d be responsible, and not make rash, foolish, disappointing decisions.
And, anyway, Spike had concurred, hadn’t he? He had no desire for her heart – he’d said so in no uncertain terms – and for once she agreed with him 100%. Well, parts of her agreed; other parts weren’t quite on the bandwagon yet. But they would be, she assured herself. She’d just hit them over the head with tubas or clarinets until the whole band was in step with logic and reason, and on the friends wagon.
A light knock came on Buffy’s door, and her heart skittered, derailing her bandwagon thoughts. She smoothed her hair and rose up onto her elbows as the dog turned to face the sound. “Come in,” she called, her voice hoarse with sleep but her eyes bright with hope that Spike would be on the other side.
Joyce stuck her head in, and Buffy tried not to visibly deflate. “Happy—” the woman began, but Buffy cut her off.
“Don’t even go there!” the girl demanded, tossing the covers, and Spike’s duster, to the side as she jumped up. “Don’t say it, don’t even think it,” Buffy continued as Joyce stepped into the room.
Joyce gave her daughter a doleful half-smile. “But, honey—”
“Nope!” the girl insisted. “We’re not going there this year. Just forget it. Nothing good ever comes from acknowledging this day. I don’t want to hear another word on the subject. It’s just another Tuesday,” she asserted, slipping past her mom to head for the bathroom.
Joyce sighed, stepping aside. “Well, I’ll take Spike out, anyway. Happy Tuesday,” she called through the closed bathroom door as she headed for the stairs, the furball dancing around her legs happily.
“Okay! Thanks!”
** X-X-X-X-X **
In the guest bedroom, Spike sighed, hearing the whole conversation. Well, that was bloody annoying. He knew he could run rings around Angel and his pathetic birthday gift, but not if Buffy wouldn’t let him. And getting her brassed off about it wouldn’t win Spike any points. Frowning, he slipped the unwrapped present back into his bag. He’d just have to think of another way to give it to her when things settled down.
** X-X-X-X-X **
The Jeep was still at the shop, so Christina would be picking Joyce and Buffy up again today. All ready to go with plenty of time to spare, Buffy stood in the upstairs hall and stared fixedly at Spike’s closed door, his coat in hand. She kept wondering if she should knock and return his duster to him, or say goodbye, or good morning or… something! But she didn’t want to wake the sleeping vampire and make him all bad-moody again. And none of those reasons for waking him were really that important. It wasn’t like yesterday having to tell him how to work the microwave and stuff. He clearly had that mastered and hadn’t burned down the house. The only things she found to really complain about from his day alone with the dog were some dirty dishes and blood-stained mugs in the sink, wet towels on the bathroom floor, and that empty bottle of scotch.
Buffy chewed her bottom lip another few moments, trying to think of something vital that would justify going into his room and talking to him, but couldn’t come up with anything. She could tell him what time she’d be home, but he already knew that from yesterday – during Sesame Street. She could reconfirm parts of the plan for fighting the Council, but they’d done that plenty last night during the meeting. She could tell him that she was feeling a bit stronger today, but that was to be expected, wasn’t it? She could tell him to not drink any more of her mom’s booze, but he’d already downed the whole bottle, so no sense telling him that. The Slayer sighed dejectedly, giving up, and went back to her room. She laid his duster neatly over the foot of her bed, sure he’d find it later when he got up.
Buffy squeaked when she turned around to find a shirtless Spike, his platinum hair disheveled from sleep, standing in the door of her room. ‘Shirtless Spike! Holy shit! Shirtless Spike! Gah! No! Bad! Very bad! Friends! Do not ‘gah’ at shirtless Spike!’ “What is wrong with you!?” she demanded curtly, trying to get her heart and adrenaline back under control, possibly for more than just being startled. “If you can’t learn to knock, I’m gonna get you a collar with a bell!”
Spike smirked at her. “Prefer leather. Black with sliver studs’d be right nice,” he teased. “Getting yourself one, too?” he wondered, wagging his brows at her and tucking his thumbs into the front pockets of his jeans, which tugged them down his slim hips just the tiniest bit more. “I hear you can get a better deal if ya get the cuffs to go with ‘em.”
“Don’t be a pig,” Buffy chastised, huffing out an indignant breath even as she watched, waiting for the denim to slip down further. After a moment, she mentally slapped herself and pulled her eyes away from the smooth skin and hard muscles they’d locked onto, like magnets drawn to steel. Most of the bruising and swelling that had covered his torso had healed, but there were still a few places where his alabaster skin was marred with splotches of purple and yellow. Buffy was still covering up her bruises with makeup. She’d forgotten how long it took to heal without her Slayer powers. “Did you want something or were you just trying to make sure my heart can stand vampires suddenly appearing behind me?”
Spike snorted at Buffy’s comment and began to speak, but was interrupted by his namesake knocking him aside as he pushed into the bedroom. Apparently hearing Buffy’s alarmed squeak, the dog had come to investigate.
‘Good, something else to look at! Furry Spike instead of smooth, hard, yummy Spike,’ Buffy thought as the Guardian sniffed all around the floor, checking around for threats, though he would’ve settled for a dropped snack of some sort.
Spike resumed his spot in the doorway, continuing their conversation, “Thought you’d be able t’ sense me, if I’m honest.”
After doing a thorough inspection and not finding anything to eat, bark at, or pee on, the dog padded over to Buffy for an ear-scratch. Buffy continued her conversation with the vampire as she petted and kept her eyes trained on her dog. “Yeah, well, that’s the problem, isn’t it? You’re in the house… I can sense you all the time.”
“Makes you tingly all over, does it?” Spike wondered, leaning casually against the door jamb as the dog headed over to his bed in the corner, turned around three times, then flopped down on it with a hearty sigh.
Buffy rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest, finally looking at the vampire, but keeping her eyes firmly focused on his face. His blue eyes danced with innuendo behind the healing bruises, and his full lips were curved into a lascivious smirk. A smirk that she could imagine kissing right off him. Bad Buffy! “Makes me grumpy all over. What do you want, Spike?”
Spike pushed off the door frame and held a hand out, palm up. His cell phone was atop it. “Fully charged. Thought you ought to have it in case the Watcher calls with an update. Know you don’t fancy talking to him, but me having the info won’t do you a lick of good. You can call here and let me know if anything changes with the Council of Wankers, yeah?”
“Oh.” Buffy faltered a moment, suddenly switching from her impertinent guise to genuinely appreciative as she took the phone. “Good idea… I mean, yeah, thanks.”
“Don’t sound so surprised. I do have them now and again,” Spike pointed out. “Know how to use it?”
“Of course I know how to use a phone! Unlike you, I’m not as old as God’s dog. I’ve been using them my whole life,” she asserted, flipping it open and holding it to her ear to listen for a dial tone. There was none. Her brows drew together as she pulled the phone back to look at it. She confidently hit the green button and lifted it to her ear again. Still no dial tone. “Um,” she muttered, lifting her gaze to Spike’s smirking face. Now she wanted to slap that smirk off those damnable lips.
“You were sayin’?” he asked, arching a brow at her.
“Fine… how do you use it?” Buffy groaned, holding it out.
Spike grinned in triumph as he stepped up next to her. Buffy pretended not to notice his smug smile, but couldn’t stop her eyes from rolling. Jerk! She also couldn’t help noticing the scent of tobacco and whiskey that was drifting enticingly on the air around him. She took a deep inhalation as he came near, noticing that those manly aromas were combined with the familiar, sweet tang of her own soap and shampoo that he’d been using. It was at once alarming and comforting to have those fragrances mingled together so intimately. Buffy swallowed and tried to concentrate on what he was saying, but didn’t step away from the beguiling fragrance that drifted from his bare skin.
“First, ya need to make sure you got a signal. See these bars here?” he asked, pointing to the top of the small screen. “If ya don’t have any bars, call won’t go through.”
Buffy nodded. “Bars good,” she summarized.
“Right. Then ya dial the number and hit this green button… ‘send’,” he instructed. “You’re in the contact list in case ya forget the number. When yer done talking, hit the red one, ‘end’.”
Buffy scowled as he started going through the menu – a vampire showing her how to use new technology? What the heck was wrong with this picture? Finally, he got to the contact list. Hers was the only name in it. “’Buffy Summers, the Slayer, from Sunnydale’?” she asked, arching a brow up at him. “Just how many Buffy Summers’ do you know?”
Spike chuckled. “Was how you introduced yourself when ya called the first time,” he reminded her.
“I so did not!” Buffy objected, trying to recall that first message she’d left. She’d been a little flustered and nervous, so it was a bit of a blur, but she wouldn’t introduce herself as ‘Buffy Summers, the Slayer, from Sunnydale’! Would she?
“Want to make a small wager on that?” he wondered, brows raised.
“I don’t have any money,” she grumbled.
“Somethin’ else, then,” he suggested.
“Like what?” Buffy wondered with trepidation.
“Well...” he drawled, letting his eyes roam down her slender form, his tongue curled wantonly against his teeth.
She felt heat rise to her cheeks and folded her arms over her chest self-consciously... angrily. I meant angrily. “You need to rethink that. My mom isn’t the only one who knows how to use a stake in this family.”
Spike chuckled, the sound of it vibrating enticingly off Buffy’s flushed skin, making her shiver. “Right then,” the vampire agreed, shifting gears easily. “Wouldn’t say ‘no’ to a bit more human blood,” he suggested as a second option.
“Strike two,” Buffy replied immediately. “That was… that was a one-off. Humans need that blood.”
“Can’t use it if it’s expired, can they? I still can. Not as potent as ‘on tap’, but still better ‘an the pig’s blood,” Spike argued.
Buffy’s brows furrowed at that. “I guess I can check on it. I’m not sure what they do with expired blood,” she acquiesced after a moment. “I’ll see if I can get it for you.”
“Can tell you what they do with it,” Spike informed her. “Your ex takes it off their hands. Sells some, keeps the rest for himself. Why do ya reckon he’s so keen on making sure the fresh stuff gets in there all safe and sound, eh? His magnanimous, generous nature?”
Buffy opened her mouth to answer, but Spike cut her off, “No, cos they load him up with the expiring bags on his way out.”
Buffy closed her mouth and looked at him, dumbfounded. “How… what… when?”
“Lived in this town for nearly a year, didn’t I? Hard to keep something like that quiet when ya see minions sucking it down like your boy Harris with a fizzy drink. Not t’ mention that I lived with the git for the better part of four months. Not that Angelus wanted any part of that rubbish then. ‘Course, I could’ve used it, but would he even allow that? Send a minion to fetch me some? ‘Course not! Would’a gotten me outta that wheelchair faster. No, he left my feeding to Dru… bringing me sodding puppies—” he muttered bitterly.
“Puppies!? You ate puppies?” Buffy asked in horror, finally stepping away from him, her eyes wide and shocked.
“Errr… ‘course not,” Spike denied unconvincingly, ducking his head and rubbing a hand along the nape of his neck.
The dog looked up at him, just as horror-struck as Buffy, his lips lifting away from his fangs in a snarl.
“You ate puppies!” she exclaimed, shaking her head. “I can’t believe you ate puppies! How could you?”
“Didn’t have a choice, did I? Someone put me in a sodding wheelchair! Would’a rather had a nice, fresh girl, if I’m honest, but you didn’t come t’ visit! Didn’t even send a card or a tasteful fruit basket,” Spike retorted sourly. The vampire turned and looked at the dog, pointing a threatening finger at him. “Don’t need any lip from you about it, either, Cujo. How many sodding vampires have you eaten, eh? Reckon you’re well ahead on that count.”
The dog huffed out a disgusted breath, but settled his chin back down on the cushion of his bed, though his eyes stayed locked on the white rabbit warily.
Buffy had closed her eyes and was massaging her forehead, trying to clear the vision of little puppies being drained by a ravenous vampire. What the hell was she doing being friends with Spike? Why was she ‘gahing’ over him? He ate puppies! That probably shouldn’t horrify her as much as it did. Afterall, he ate humans, but… puppies!
“I was sodding starving,” Spike entreated. “Couldn’t walk, couldn’t hunt or even dress m’self. Couldn’t do anything below the waist – can tell you, that was bloody disturbing! Was turning into one o’ those adverts for ‘Feed the Children’ or whatnot. Reckon you’d eat some unpleasant things if it was your only choice,” he insisted with a sniff. How the hell had they gotten on this subject, anyway? Oh, yeah, Angel and the blood supply. “Point is,” Spike continued. “Angel is a right prat. Takes all the expired blood from the hospital, so you might want t’ look into that.”
Buffy was still shaking her head, her eyes covered with a hand, but she sighed. She had to admit to herself that maybe she would sink low enough to eat something horrid if she was starving… though broccoli and tofu was hardly on the same level as puppies. “Fine,” Buffy said after a few moments, finally clearing the visions of broccoli and puppies from her mind and looking back at Spike. “I’ll see about getting you some of it, if you promise to not eat any more puppies.”
Spike snorted. That was a no-brainer. “Got my solemn promise on that,” he agreed immediately.
“But I still say that I didn’t say that on the message,” Buffy insisted. Just then, a horn sounded from out front and Joyce called up that Christina was there. “I have to go. We’ll have to settle this later.”
“And suss out a proper wager, seein’s as you’re gonna get the blood anyway.”
“I said I’d try to get some blood… expired blood,” Buffy corrected, grabbing her bookbag and heading for the door.
“If Angel doesn’t want t’ give it up, we can kick is arse next week, eh? When you’re feeling yourself again,” Spike suggested hopefully, rubbing his hands together gleefully as he followed her with a happy bounce to his step at the prospect.
Buffy rolled her eyes, but her heart lurched a bit in her chest. Spike was planning on still being here next week!? He would stay even when she was feeling herself again? “We’ll see,” she muttered, ignoring her silly, leaping heart. She headed for the stairs as she slipped Spike’s phone into the bag, feeling suddenly lighter.
“Oi, Slayer,” he called after her when she’d made it about halfway down. She paused and looked back up at him. “Look nice t’day. Very fetching.”
Buffy looked down at her clothes. It was the same outfit she’d worn on her date with Percy: kicky black boots, cute red skater’s skirt, lacy, sleeveless white top and a red jacket that matched the skirt. She couldn’t help but grin. She knew Spike would like it.
“Thanks. See you later,” she called, skipping down the last few steps. “Don’t burn the house down.”
“Do my best,” Spike assured her as she disappeared with her mother out the front door. Spike waited a few minutes to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything, then turned and went back into her bedroom. He picked up his duster, lifting it to his nose and inhaling deeply, his eyes closing in ecstasy as he took in the scent.
The soft aroma of ‘Buffy’ had muted the sharp odor of newly cleaned leather. Had she put it on? Slept in it or under it? Wrapped up in the supple leather? Nuzzled into the silken lining? Spike smiled as he pulled the duster from his face and opened his eyes. The dog was watching him suspiciously, his chin resting on his paws, his big brown eyes tracking the vampire.
“Give it a rest, Cujo. Didn’t eat the bleedin’ bitty things by choice,” Spike carped, rolling his eyes. “Gonna get some kip. You’re in charge. Don’t burn the sodding house down.”
“RRRwarf!” Spike replied indignantly, as if he would ever do such thing, but the vampire didn’t seem to notice. He slipped the duster on and climbed into Buffy’s bed, burrowing beneath the covers, ready to get some sleep completely wrapped up in what he knew would be the closest he’d ever come to actually being wrapped up in Buffy.
** X-X-X-X-X **
“I have to tell you something,” Buffy said to Willow in confidential tones as soon as she’d found her that morning before school.
“What?” Willow wondered as Buffy grabbed her friend’s hand and pulled her toward an empty classroom. “What happened? Is it the Council? Are they here?” the witch asked worriedly as Buffy closed the door behind them.
The Slayer waved a dismissive hand as if that was of no consequence. “No, I don’t know… Never mind that. Spike left Dru! He told me last night!”
“What do you mean by ‘left’?” Willow asked suspiciously.
“Left! Broke up. Vamoosed. Skedaddled. Told her to do something with sod,” Buffy explained, pacing in a small circle, looking agitated.
“Sod?” the redhead questioned in confusion.
Buffy waved a hand again, brushing it away, as she stopped pacing and looked at Willow. “He’s single,” she announced with wide, terrified eyes.
“Yay?” Willow guessed hopefully, her brows raised in question.
“No! No ‘yay’,” Buffy contradicted, beginning her pacing again.
“Why no ‘yay’?” the redhead asked, still confused. “You can date him without the whole ‘homewrecker’ problem. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know,” Buffy admitted with a deep sigh as she kept walking to and fro. “But it’s all moot-y, cos he’s not interested.”
Willow’s confusion grew deeper, puckering her whole face now. “Why would you think that?”
“He said so – he told me,” the Slayer explained, wringing her hands as she strode back and forth in front of her friend. “He said all he wanted from Slayers was to fight them or kill them that he didn’t have any use for their hearts in boxes.”
“Uh… hearts in boxes?”
“It was a thing… something about Angel wanting Slayer hearts in boxes and he wasn’t like Angel and all he wanted was to kill Slayers.”
“So, why hasn’t he killed you?” Willow wondered. “Not like he didn’t have any chances with you all weak and kitteny.”
Buffy stopped and looked at her friend. “We… we’re doing the truce thing.”
“He’s had like, two months of non-truce time he could’ve come back to try and kill you,” the witch pointed out. “Also, when he first got here you weren’t truce-y. He could’ve killed your mom and you right off. You’d told him you were non-Slayer-y on the phone, right? That you’d lost your power?”
Now it was Buffy’s turn to look confused. She’d been afraid that was exactly what Spike would do – even thought he had killed her mom and her dog when she first found him in the house. But he hadn’t done any of that. Why hadn’t he done any of that? Oh… friends. “He… said we’re friends – just friends.”
Willow arched a brow. “But… that’s not how he acts. He flirts with you all the time and does that tongue thing and…”
Buffy rolled her eyes, and threw her hands out in exasperation. “That’s just Spike. He’s a total pig. I think he’d flirt with a toad,” she revealed dismissively.
Willow’s brows went up. “I guess I’m not toady enough,” she grumbled. “He’s never flirted with me.”
Buffy flushed. “Well, probably he, uh, knows you’re with Oz and…” she began splutteringly.
“Never mind,” the redhead muttered with a resigned sigh. “I’m not the flirt-able type. So, there’s no sparkage?”
“Yeah, but it’s all one-way, Buffy sparkage,” the Slayer insisted, plopping down in one of the desks. “There’s no Spike sparkage, which is good, right? Cos I need to extinguish all the sparks, like ‘drown them in the ocean’ extinguish. But not a blue ocean, it needs to be one of those green oceans… o-or a lake! A lake would be better – no blueness-of-Spike-eyes to distract the drowning.” Buffy nodded confidently. “Slayers and vampires just aren’t mixy. It’s good that he isn’t interested. I’m happy… this is happy-Buffy.”
“Maybe I forgot what happy-Buffy looks like,” Willow admitted. “Cos you’re looking more with the unhappiness.”
“Ergh,” Buffy grunted, propping her elbows on the desk dropping her head into her hands. “I should be happy! Where’s the happy? I hate feeling like this! I’m all tug-o-warry inside. I want Spike to be more than my friend, to really mean all those piggy things he says, but I know that way lies badness. Been there, done that with Angel and look how that turned out.”
“Spike isn’t like Angel – you said so yourself,” the witch reminded her, coming over and sitting down in the desk next to her friend. “You like him, right?”
“Yeah,” the Slayer admitted morosely. “But he doesn’t like me… at least not that way.”
“What if Spike stopped flirting with every toad in the pond, and just got piggy with the pretty, blonde, Slayer-toad?” Willow wondered.
Buffy rolled her eyes and looked up at her friend. “It still wouldn’t matter,” she admitted dejectedly. “That’s the other part of the problem. I don’t want to just be a cautionary tale for future Slayers. The horrible Slayer who slept with Angel and released Angelus and then went on to date William the Bloody before my untimely, and likely gory, demise. I… I kinda made some promises to be a better Slayer – you know, if I got my power back? I promised myself I wouldn’t be so reckless and disappointing.”
“Buffy,” Willow cajoled. “Who thinks you’re reckless and disappointing? The dummies in the Council? The same ones who think drugging you and setting vampires loose is a great eighteenth birthday present? Color me unimpressed.”
“Not the Council.” Buffy compressed her lips, her heart constricting as she crossed her arms over her chest defensively.
A frown creased Willow’s features. “Then who?” When Buffy still didn’t answer, Willow reminded her, “Non-judge-y forever, remember? Tell me.”
Buffy swallowed and looked down at the desktop. She began tracing the whirls of faux grain idly with a finger. “Giles, for one… my dad, for another,” she admitted.
“Giles and your dad are poop-heads,” Willow insisted vehemently. “You’re the one who should be disappointed in them! They’re supposed to be, you know, the adults. Dads are supposed to love you no matter what, and Watchers… well, they’re supposed to help protect you from the bad guys, even if they work for them.”
“I know! I hate them! But I can’t help how it feels,” Buffy confessed, wiping at her shimmering eyes. God, where did these tears keep coming from? Though she knew all too well. They left. They all betrayed her and left. Because she was a disappointment… she wasn’t good enough. Not a good enough daughter or a good enough Slayer or a good enough person. But she wasn’t ready to admit all that to Willow. Buffy knew Willow would disagree, try to placate her with logic and reason, but she knew the truth of it deep inside where logic and reason couldn’t reach.
“What about your mom? She’s super-proud of you… and she likes Spike – you know, the guy who saved her from the Council’s insane vampire?” Willow tried.
Buffy swallowed and pushed all her betrayal thoughts aside, refocusing on this whole Spike problem. “She likes Spike, but I’m not sure how much she’d like him if she knew he’d broken up with Dru,” Buffy revealed. “So, don’t tell her… or Xander, cos he’s got a big mouth. According to Spike, she thinks I’d go all gooey for him if he wasn’t with Dru, and the prospect didn’t fill her with joy.”
“Oh, well, that’s just overprotective-mom stuff, the whole ‘no guy is good enough’ spiel. Forget that. She’d still be proud of you, even if you got date-y with Spike,” Willow assured her. “And for good reason! You’ve done tons to be proud of. Lots of people owe their lives to you, including me and Xander and Oz, even Giles, for that matter. You… you killed the Master… twice if you count the grinding of his bones. And you totally creamed The Judge – which was so cool with the rocket launcher – and saved the kids from the creepy demon at the hospital, and saved the world from being sucked into hell by Acathla…”
“Which wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t slept with Angel in the first place,” Buffy pointed out morosely.
“Yeah, but, you didn’t know that would happen,” the witch argued.
“But now I do. Now I know that bad Slayer decisions bring on badness in Buffy’s life – maybe world-ending badness. I can’t… I can’t be reckless-Buffy anymore… I can’t be… disappointing.”
“You’re never disappointing, Buffy. And you aren’t reckless. Just because you don’t follow all those stupid rules made up by stuffy old British guys doesn’t mean your way is wrong,” Willow insisted. “Also, they owe you bigtime. You’re the Slayer! Like, how stressful and dangerous is that? You never even had a choice about it. Don’t you think you should get something you want for a change? Like maybe Spike date-age?”
Buffy shook her head, shifting her gaze away, unable to meet her friend’s eyes. “I don’t think it works that way… and maybe it shouldn’t.”
“It totally should,” Willow insisted, leaning forward so Buffy would look at her. “I… I don’t really know Spike, but if you like him, then I like him.”
“He’s a vampire.”
“Yeah, well, Oz is a werewolf and he plays guitar in a band. I think that trumps plain ole vampire on the bad-boy scale,” the witch proclaimed haughtily, a smile curving her lips.
Buffy let her own small smile emerge, shaking her head. “Mine’s evil and soulless,” she pointed out.
“Well, true. But maybe he doesn’t have to be? I mean… we do have the soul restoration spell. I could—”
“No… no, no, no,” Buffy interrupted her. “We aren’t cursing Spike with that. It’s… just no.” Buffy couldn’t imagine how Spike would change if his soul was suddenly shoved back into him. And, anyway, if the ‘loophole’ was getting happy with a Slayer, then what good would that do her? She’d have two broody vampires moping around town and she wouldn’t be able to touch either one of them. Not that she should be touching Spike. Spike-touching was bad! Damn it! Try to remember that!
“Okay, well,” Willow agreed, thinking. “Remember what you said about how he can control the demon? Maybe he can, you know, just be truce-Spike all the time, all on his own?” Willow suggested. “Not even Oz can do that. Three nights a month he’s totally out of control. That way, Spike could stay in town longer and maybe realize he should be kissing the Slayer-toad instead of killing her.”
“I don’t know,” Buffy moaned, her lips pursed doubtfully. “He said he left Dru cos he was tired of being the one doing all the giving. It seems like a lot of ‘giving’ to ask from him, ya know? He’s a vampire. It’s like… their thing.” ‘And there should be no Slayer-toad kissing, anyway.’
“Okay, sure… but he’s a strange vampire – you said it yourself. And he came when you called him, knowing what the rules would be,” Willow pointed out. “He came to help you, not to kill you – which also not normal vampire behavior. I just… you deserve to be happy, Buffy, and you seem to really like him and maybe if he sticks around a while, maybe he’ll like you, too.”
“I don’t know about that,” Buffy breathed, shaking her head. “Anyway, you’re missing the whole reckless-Buffy thing. When Buffy breaks the rules, badness ensues. People die. The world gets all apocalypse-y. The problem is, I don’t know what the rules are!” she admitted, standing up and beginning to pace again. “I mean, is being friends with a vampire enough to bring on the world-end-age? Travers seems to think so.”
“Travers is a poop-head, too,” Willow pointed out, watching Buffy stride back and forth in front of her.
“Like, maybe long distance, pen-pal type friends is okay,” Buffy continued, ignoring Willow, “But maybe ‘staying in the guest bedroom’ friends isn’t? Or maybe short truces are okay, but long truces aren’t? But what’s short and what’s long? Who decides? What are the rules!?” she demanded desperately, stopping her pacing to look at her friend.
“Buffy…” Willow said sympathetically, wishing she had some answer to give her.
“I feel all twisty inside,” Buffy admitted. “How do I get it un-twisty?”
The witch sighed and stood up, coming up to stand in front of her friend. “Okay, here’s an idea. Maybe we experiment and see what happens, like testing a theory and then proving or disproving it, all scientific-like.”
Buffy furrowed her brows. “How do we do that?”
“First test is to be ‘guest-bedroom’ friends with Spike for a while and see what happens. Then, if nothing bad happens, try… I don’t know, flirting back with him and see what happens,” Willow suggested.
Buffy chewed her lip, considering this. “He’d… he’d have to stay around to try that.” Her heart gave a happy skip at the idea. He’d already said he’d be here next week. Could she persuade him to stay longer? For the sake of science? The newly-sprouted logic and reason weeds in her mind didn’t object because it was for science. If she could find out what the rules were, she could do something to warn future Slayers. For a moment, the big struggle within her paused.
“Well, yeah, ideally,” Willow agreed.
Then Buffy’s hopes fell. “What if he can’t be truce-y long enough to be scientific guinea-pig guy? What if he says he will but ends up not being able to? What if I get… attached and then have to dust him? I don’t know if I can do that again, Wills. I don’t think I’m strong enough,” Buffy admitted, the war inside her starting up again.
“I hate to be the pointer-outer of obviousness, but you’re already attached, Buffy. You called him when you thought you were gonna die; you wanted to talk to him, hear his voice,” Willow countered.
Buffy sighed and rubbed her tired eyes. “I’m attached. That’s… that’s bad. That’s so bad.”
“Why don’t you give him a chance? Just do the friend test and see what happens, you know, one step at a time?” Willow wondered. “He might surprise you.”
Buffy snorted. “He’s never done anything but surprise me,” the Slayer muttered under her breath, looking back at Willow.
“So? Are we doing science?” the witch wondered as the first warning bell rang for the start of class.
Buffy took a deep breath and let it out, straightening up and squaring her shoulders. She gathered her courage as her heart won the war with her brain. All her fears and doubts got squashed into a tiny, dark corner of her mind and were bound and gagged with duct tape. “We’re doing science. Friend with soulless, strange, guest-bedroom vampire test to commence immediately.”
Willow grinned. “I love science!”
Buffy beamed back at her as they headed for the door. “By the way, do you know any spells that will show me subtitles in actual English when Spike talks?”
** X-X-X-X-X **
An electronic melody began to issue from Buffy’s bag during sixth period American History. All the half-dozing students looked up, trying to find the source of the odd sound. The teacher, a thin, dour old woman named Mrs. Skagg, who everyone just called ‘the hag’, stopped her droning lecture. For a moment, Buffy looked around also, then remembered Spike’s phone. She scrabbled in her bag and dug the phone out, making the tinkling song even louder for a few moments before she flipped it open and accepted the call.
“Miss Summers,” the teacher scolded. “What exactly do you think you’re doing?”
Buffy pressed the phone against her chest as she stood up, hastily slipped her history book into her bag, and slung the bookbag over her shoulder. “Sorry, Mrs. Ha—Skagg, I’ve got to take this. It’s… it’s my dying uncle. He said he’d call before he walked into the light,” the Slayer excused, heading for the door. As she hurried out of the room, Buffy lifted the phone to her ear and spoke into it, “Hello? Uncle Joe? Hang on, please.. don’t go into the light.”
She was met with silence as the classroom door clicked closed behind Buffy and she stood alone in the deserted corridor. “Giles?” she tried as she automatically headed for the library.
“Err, I… hello, Buffy. I was… I thought I’d called—”
“Spike. Yeah, I know. He gave me the phone in case you had an update,” she finished for him.
“Oh, y-yes, I see. Very good…” he stammered, clearly taken aback. “Who is Uncle Joe?”
“No one, never mind.” Buffy came to a halt as the library doors came into sight. Pain and anger boiled up inside her, each fighting for dominance as she stared at the doors. Doors she’d gone through so many times. Doors behind which she’d found support and guidance and even comfort in the past. Doors that she’d never be able to pass through again because all that remained behind them now was betrayal. She wanted to kill Giles. She wanted to pummel him until he hurt as badly as she did. She wanted to scream, to break down and sob and ask him why. Why would he do that to her. Why couldn’t he have chosen her over the Council. Why… what was wrong with her?
But she couldn’t do any of that because there was a mission, a threat to be dealt with, and she needed whatever information he had. There was a mission, and she was the Slayer. She didn’t have the luxury of being Buffy right now. The mission always came first, though this one was perhaps the most personal of any she’d ever had. Not that Angelus didn’t make things personal, she supposed, and the Master killing her was pretty personal. Maybe this just felt more personal, cut more deeply, because the threat was coming from people who were supposed to be her allies.
Buffy swallowed hard and swiped at her suddenly damp eyes before demanding in a strong voice, “So, do you have one? An update, that is… not an Uncle Joe.”
“Buffy,” Giles began, his voice pleading. “I wish you’d allow me—”
“Do you have an update or not?” Buffy cut in, now glaring daggers at the library doors.
Giles cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Yes, yes… they… the team will be arriving this evening around seven. I’m told there may be a fourth member joining them, though none of my contacts were certain about that or knew who it might be. Do you… that is to say, may I be of assistance—”
“We have a plan. I’ll be fine,” Buffy informed him curtly. “We can take out four as easily as three.”
“Yes, yes… of course. I will do everything I can to—”
“I think you’ve done enough,” Buffy snapped peevishly. “Don’t do me any more favors.”
“Buffy, I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am—”
Buff snapped the phone closed, cutting off the words. She couldn’t hear it again. Her heart just couldn’t bear it. She turned on her heel and headed for Willow’s locker to wait for the final bell. The Council was for sure coming. They’d need to get everything in place this afternoon before they arrived.
Just another Tuesday.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Buffy entered the house ready to begin the first stage of the ‘friends with vampire’ experiment in earnest. She dropped her bookbag on the table by the front door as her dog danced happily around her legs in greeting. She gave him the baby-talk, hugs, and scratches he loved before turning her attention to the vampire on the couch. His booted feet were propped up on the coffee table, the TV was on – tuned to ‘Oprah’, Buffy noted, not ‘Sesame Street’. But Spike wasn’t watching it, or at least not fully, he was flipping through one of the college brochures her mom had sent off for, the other dozen or so on the coffee table next to his feet.
“Any news?” Spike wondered, looking up at her.
Buffy sighed as she finished taking her jacket off and hanging it on the coat rack by the door. “Giles says they’ll be here around seven tonight. Maybe four instead of three, but he’s not sure. Oz, Willow, and Xan went to get the stuff we talked about last night. They’ll be here later,” she related, pulling his phone out of her bag.
“Right,” Spike acknowledged. “D’ ya reckon the gits are daft enough to attack after dark?”
Buffy shrugged as she came over and handed him the phone. “So far I haven’t seen a lot of brainwave activity involved with any of the Council’s schemes. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see if they’re as stupid as they look.”
Spike smirked at her, taking the phone. “Can’t expect everyone to be brilliant like me, can ya?” he pointed out, setting the phone down on the end table.
Buffy rolled her eyes as she plopped down heavily on the couch next to him. “It’s really sad how lacking in self-confidence you are,” she observed. “You should really try to work on that. Maybe there’s a book, ‘A Vampire’s Guide to Arrogance and Just Being Generally Annoying.’”
Spike gave her a cheeky grin. “Wrote that book, if ya must know. Just the modest type,” he asserted. “Wouldn’t want you lot t’ start feeling inferior… even if you are.”
“And so thoughtful, too,” she groaned with another eye roll.
“It’s a gift,” he sniffed haughtily. “So, learn heaps o’ useless information at school, then?” he wondered, glancing back at the college brochure in his hand.
“Oh, loads,” Buffy sighed, leaning her head back and relaxing. “Did you know that whole ‘I before E except after C’ rule is totally bogus? They give you these rules then, when you spell ‘foreign’ F-O-R-I-E-G-N, following the stupid rule they gave you and made you memorize, they mark you off?”
Spike snorted. “Rules are made to be broken,” he claimed.
“Oh, sure, if it’s them breaking the rules! But if we break the rules, then it’s ‘Going on your permanent record, Miss Summers!’ along with mad cackling and threats of expulsion,” Buffy complained, pouting.
“Welcome t’ formal education. Just factories, they are, spewing out mindless little automatons who dunno how to break the rules properly.”
“I know how to break rules,” Buffy insisted. “Just ask anyone. Snyder, Travers… they’ll tell you. Look in my permanent file. It’s five inches thick with all the rules I’ve left battered and broken in my wake. I’m a natural.”
Spike waved the Northwestern University brochure he was holding at her. “So, you’re gonna totter off to uni and teach ‘em how it’s done, are you?”
Buffy shrugged. “It’s what Mom wants…” she admitted morosely.
Spike picked up the other brochures. “Carnegie Mellon?” he asked, arching a brow. “Sounds like one of those new-fangled food processors. Didn’t know you could cook, Slayer.”
“It’s not a cooking school!” Buffy informed him, grabbing the book from his hand. “It’s… they have a wonderful design curriculum… or so says my mother.”
“Brown?” Spike continued, picking out another. “That sounds like a barrel o’ laughs. Is there any color more boring than brown?”
Buffy scowled and snatched it out of his hand. “They... they do history.”
Spike barked out a laugh. “History, is it? What year did California join the colonies?” he asked.
“How should I know?”
“You live in the soddin’ place. So interested in history, reckoned you’d know a bit.”
“It was before my time,” Buffy pouted as Spike picked up another of the colorful booklets.
“That’s generally when history happens, Slayer,” he pointed out. “Now this one sounds promising. Ball State, eh? Reckon I could teach you all ya need to know on that subject and wouldn’t need four years to do it,” he suggested, wagging his brows at her.
“Don’t be a pig,” Buffy retorted, grabbing the Ball State brochure from his hand. “It’s all my mom’s idea. Thinks I need to leave, go ‘back east’ to a ‘real college’, let Faith take over slaying… and give her my dog.”
Spike the vampire raised his brows. Spike the dog lifted his head up from where he’d flopped down by the door and gave a small whine of protest.
“Faith… that’s the other one yer mum was yammering about,” Spike said unsurely.
“Yeah. She got Called after Kendra… you remember, your ho of a girl—” Buffy stopped, clamping her teeth down on her bottom lip. “Sorry…”
Spike shrugged, dropping his gaze back to the stack of pamphlets and brochures on the table. He leaned forward and picked them up, fanning them like playing cards in his hands. “Thinks she can keep ya safe if she sends you away t’ Purdue or Tulane or Duke.” ‘Got a brother, Jake, he goes to Duke. It’s not fair!’ Spike swallowed hard and willed the ghost of Lisa from Fairplay away. Why wouldn’t she just bugger off?!
“Yeah,” Buffy whispered, looking at the three catalogs in her hands.
“Doesn’t work that way,” Spike told her, still looking down at the colorful pictures which showed laughing, carefree students walking across quads or studying under huge oaks or attending lectures, apparently inspired and eager to learn. “Most Slayers don’t live atop Hellmouths… they still die.”
“I know,” Buffy admitted in a small voice. And she did know. She and Willow had poured through Watcher’s diaries tracking where the Slayers were over the last two centuries, and most weren’t on Hellmouths. And they all died. Sooner or later, usually sooner, they all died.
“What’s your dad say?” Spike wondered, tilting his head and looking at her askance.
“My dad says nothing. A gigantic black hole of nothingness. As far as he’s concerned, I’m already dead… or maybe he wishes I was,” Buffy revealed, fretting her bottom lip with her teeth.
“Doubt that can be true, pet,” Spike objected. “He’s your dad. Parents don’t wish their bits dead.”
Buffy snorted mirthlessly. “Maybe not dead then. Maybe just… gone, forgotten, never born.”
Spike was looking at her fully now, but Buffy’s gaze remained glued to the books in her hand. “Why do ya reckon that?”
Buffy drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly before finally raising her eyes to Spike’s again. “We had a tradition. Since I was a little girl, we’d go to the Ice Capades for my birthday. Just him and me. I loved the ice skating and seeing the stars I’d watched on TV, but I loved being with him even more. It was… it was my day to be…”
“Be what?” Spike prompted.
“It’s silly.”
“It’s not if it’s how you feel,” he urged. “Tell me.” Spike could see it again – the glimpse of vulnerability from her. His foolish heart leapt with affection and tenderness. Whatever it was that had her hurting, he wanted to shield her from it, rip and rend it from her life and mend the broken bits it left behind. He held his breath and waited, hoping she’d let him in that much further, trust him that much more. Let him at least be her friend… a true friend.
Buffy blinked back sudden moisture that had pooled in her eyes and gave him a grim smile. “It made me feel like a princess. I was with my dad, ya know?” She paused and looked down at her hands, unable to look Spike in the eye as she confessed her feelings. “My dad… he was… well, he was perfect. In my young, naive eyes, he was perfect. And every year on this one day, on my birthday, there was nothing else, no one else. No work. No going golfing with his buddies. No football on TV. Not even mom. It was just me… his princess. Like I was his whole world. It made me feel so… loved, I guess… special.”
Spike dared reach over and lay a hand on Buffy’s shoulder, at once urging her to continue and providing support and comfort. To his immense pleasure, she didn’t flinch or pull away, but continued speaking.
“But since… since being the Chosen One, I’m not… I’m just a disappointment. I’m something he wants to forget, that he doesn’t have time for. He doesn’t come around anymore. Cancelled our date this year by sending flowers and a note. He couldn’t even be bothered to pick up the phone and call. Everything else is more important… I don’t matter.” Buffy shrugged and swiped at the tears that had trickled down her cheeks, before looking up at Spike. “So, yeah, Dad doesn’t even know I could get into college, let alone have any opinion on where I should go.”
“Well, your dad’s a proper pillock,” Spike declared.
Buffy snorted. “Is that like a ‘poop-head’, cos that’s what Willow calls him.”
Spike held back his smile by pursing his lips. “Yeah, something like that,” he agreed, pleased that her best friend was of the same mind about the wanker as he was. He gave Buffy’s shoulder a comforting squeeze, but didn’t remove his hand and she didn’t pull away.
Buffy nodded, meeting his eyes. “What would you do, if you were me?”
Spike turned and looked at the TV. Oprah was giving something away, everyone was excited, but he wasn’t really seeing it. He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, thinking, before finally turning back to Buffy. “Reckon, if I were you, I’d trade these in…” He lifted the college catalogs, “…for travel brochures. I’d give the rules a two-fingered salute and tell the automatons to sod off. I’d find a way to live before I died. Take the college fund and travel the world with your mates and your bloody big dog. Go watch the monarchs migrate in Mexico. Go see the sodding pyramids and the Eiffel Tower. Stroll under the cherry trees in full bloom in Japan and explore the Great Barrier Reef. Go watch the leaves change in the fall in Romania and see the Northern Lights in Sweden. You’re the Slayer… you… you…” he stuttered to a stop, his expression grave.
“I have a short expiration date,” Buffy filled in, nodding and looking back down at the books, riffling the glossy pages with her thumb absently.
Spike swallowed and shifted his gaze downward also. “Yeah. Longer than some, I’d reckon – you’re bloody good – smart and resourceful. But all it takes is one slip, one… one bad day.” Spike finally looked back over at Buffy, who nodded solemnly, still not looking at him.
Buffy reached up and took his hand from her shoulder, but didn’t press it away, instead she held it in both of hers. Her eyes shifted over and took in Spike’s short nails, the dark polish chipped and scratched from the fights he’d been in, his knuckles still showing signs of bruising. His hand was cool between her warm palms, but strong and somehow comforting – a hand that could definitely throw a punch. It was a hand she could get used to holding.
Buffy swallowed and pushed that thought away, refocusing. They weren’t to that part of the experiment yet. “I thought all it would take is one arrogant, stubborn, peroxided, annoying vampire,” she teased, squeezing his hand before letting it go.
Spike drew his hand back, warmed and tingling from her touch. The glimpse was gone. The moment over. But it had been there. She’d shared it. She’d let him in. Spike snorted, shifting back into ‘arrogant, stubborn, peroxided, annoying vampire’ mode. “Well, yeah, ‘cept you keep calling sodding truces. Now that’s bloody annoying!”
“Me? You called the last two. You still owe me one!”
“First one was just as much for your benefit as mine. Helped save the world, didn’t I?” Spike pointed out. “Second one was, too, for all that. Saved your fleabag of a dog just as much as Dru.”
“If it weren’t for Dru, my dog wouldn’t have been in danger in the first place!” Buffy pointed out.
“If not for Dru stealing the mutt, you wouldn’t even have the chow-hound in the first place,” Spike countered. “Still reckon you owe me one.”
“That must be some kind of old-timey math from before there were calculators or, you know, brains, cos it doesn’t add up,” Buffy insisted. “You called those truces… that makes it two to one. And, since I’m your Slayer and you’re the only one that can kill me, I think that makes me safe as a bug in a rug,” Buffy declared triumphantly.
“Bugs in rugs are ‘snug,’” Spike pointed out. “Do ya mean, ‘safe as houses’?”
“Houses? Why are houses safe? Don’t most accidents happen in the home? Isn’t that a thing? So why would anyone want to be ‘safe as houses’? I think maybe safe as a bubble-wrap factory would be a better saying. Also, if bugs in rugs are snug, then logically, they’d also be safe, wouldn’t they?”
Spike goggled at her a moment, then shook his head, his lips twitching up into a smile. “Should go to M.I.T. Be top of your class with logic like that, Slayer.”
“I know, right?” Buffy beamed, making Spike chuckle.
“So, what’re ya gonna do, then?” he wondered, waving the catalogs once more before dropping them back onto the coffee table.
Buffy’s smile faded. “I don’t know,” she admitted with a sigh. “Mom really wants me to go to college and… well… I’ve been a big enough disappointment to her as it is. This is something I might actually have some control over. Anyway, there isn’t any ‘college fund’ that I can blow on frivolous travel – it’d be more of a student loan situation. I doubt anyone would lend me money to go see butterflies and pyramids.”
Spike pursed his lips, taking that in. Her pop was a bigger pillock than he thought, not providing for his daughter’s future properly. “Don’t recommend you going off on your own, pet,” Spike advised seriously. “Thing that makes you really different, makes you better, keeps you alive? Having friends and family… and a big sodding dog who enjoys noshing on vampires. I’d be bloody pissed if you went off t’ Columbia and got yourself killed by a fledge at a bleedin’ frat party.”
“I knew it!” Buffy proclaimed. “Vampires do go to frat parties, don’t they?”
“Well, yeah. Lotsa easy pickin’s and blood that’s fifty-percent alcohol. Thin but still rich. Flows like full-bodied wine, barely takes any effort to suck the former prom queen dry.”
Buffy arched a brow at him.
Spike’s eyes went wide. “Or so I’ve heard. Not that I’d know anything ‘bout that.”
Buffy snorted and rolled her eyes. “You’re a strange vampire,” she declared as she stood up. “I’m going to change. The guys should be here soon with the stuff… we can start getting ready to fight the Council.”
Spike dropped his feet off the coffee table and stood up, too. “You aren’t fighting,” Spike reminded her sternly.
Buffy rolled her eyes. “If they can fight, then I—”
“No, you can’t!” Spike barked, cutting her off. “They’ve never had Slayer strength… they know their sodding limits. You don’t! You think you can throw a punch and knock a bloke out, or duck fast enough to avoid a crossbow, but you can’t.”
“I’m getting stronger,” Buffy pointed out hotly.
“But ya aren’t there yet,” he countered.
“I’m strong enough. I’m not just gonna sit here and—"
“Hit me…” he challenged, lifting his chin. “If you can knock me down, then you can fight. Otherwise, you keep your arse planted in this house with your mum like we fucking planned.”
“You are sooo annoying!”
“Then hit me! Let’s see what ya got, Slayer,” he dared her again, moving away from the couch and coffee table to the open floor between the living room and the foyer. He held his hands in front of him, palms up and curled his fingers in a ‘come on’ motion. “Give it to me good… Afraid I’m right, are you? Should be, cos I soddin’ am. May not be—”
Spike stopped speaking when Buffy’s fist connected with his jaw. His head jerked to the side with the blow, but did little more.
“Ow! Damn it!” Buffy cried, clutching her battered knuckles.
Spike sighed. “Not one to say, ‘I told you so’—”
“Then shut up,” she fumed, cutting him off. “I hate this!”
“I know, pet,” he said gently. “Stronger than you were, but you’re not there, Buffy. You’ll get yourself killed, thinking you can do more than ya can. Help ‘em get ready, but then you’re out of it. Gotta leave it to your mates… and me.”
She looked up at him with a confusing mixture of frustration, fear, and pleading in her eyes. “I’m counting on you to keep them safe. They’re my friends. You’re…”
Spike felt a knot form in his stomach. What was he? Not her friend? Just another vampire? Expendable?
“You’re the strongest. You know how to fight and you’re my… my least-breakable friend.” Even as she said it, the ghost of her dream returned to Buffy: Spike riddled with bullets and then staked, his strong, solid flesh turning to dust in her grip, slipping through her fingers. Her stomach clenched. She wished she didn’t have to ask this of him, but she had no choice. She wasn’t strong enough. “They’re just human,” she murmured, her pleading eyes never leaving his. “I can’t do it… I need you to watch out for them, protect them.”
The lump of trepidation melted into liquid sunshine inside Spike, suffusing him with warmth. He nodded. “I’ll do everything in my power t’ keep you all safe.”
“And not kill the Council guys,” Buffy reminded him, mistaking his suddenly elated expression as bloodlust.
Spike rolled his eyes, planting his fists on his hips. “And not kill the wankers,” he grumbled.
Buffy gave him a grateful smile. “Thank you,” she said, turning for the stairs as she shook out her aching hand. “Anyone ever tell you you’ve got a really hard head?”
“More than once.” ‘Anyone tell you you’ve got a really fine arse?’ he thought silently as he watched her head up the steps, her curved backside swaying and swelling temptingly. “Other parts o’ me are equally hard.”
Buffy rolled her eyes and a flush rose up her cheeks, though he couldn’t see her at the top of the stairs. “Don’t be such a pig,” she called back, before turning into her bedroom and closing the door.
Spike ran his tongue over his teeth and made an adjustment to the other hard part of him that lived in his jeans. Then he let out a frustrated breath and closed his eyes. “Friends, you blighter. Friends,” he muttered to himself in admonishment, trying to shake off the effect of being so close to her for the last hour and the vision of that firm, perfect arse.
“Sodding friends,” he growled again.
** X-X-X-X-X **
STORY BOARDS
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link.
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link.
End Notes:
If you don’t understand the ‘Jeremy Bearimy’/Tuesday reference in the story board, then go immediately to your TV and watch The Good Place. Like, seriously. But, barring that, here is a quick scene that sort of explains it: https://youtu.be/RFm9ClqlGuo
What might Spike have in his bag that he was gonna give Buffy? Hmmm....
Chapter 19: Rambo vs. Robinhood
Chapter Text
Chapter Notes:
Sorry this is so late! I was doing pretty good until in the middle of the last story board Photoshop decided to close down. I thought I’d saved it, but apparently, it didn’t save, so I had to start that one all over. I despise staring things over, but I managed after quite a few curse words that would’ve made Spike blush.
Thanks to all of you for reading! It means so much to me, like Peeps for my muse! Sending all the sloppy, joyful doggie kisses to everyone who has left a note, a like or a kudo. I’m working on replying to all your lovely comments and treasure every one of them.
Thanks also my two wonderful Beta readers and friends: Holi117 and Paganbaby, and to TeamEricNSookie for pre-reading. All mistakes are mine because I keep fiddling with stuff. If you see any, PM me and I’ll fix it.
Chapter 19: Rambo vs. Robinhood
Giles tossed the final ingredient into the heavy, stone mortar on the research table in the school library, and used the matching pestle to grind it to dust in a widdershins direction, as the spell book next to him indicated. “Alliges duplicia inimicum perdere,” he read from the old tome, completing three circuits with the pestle and removing it from the thick, granite bowl.
With one more glance at the book, he commanded, “A viribus meis!” The dry mixture of dark, potent ingredients burst into unnaturally red and black flames with a ‘whoosh’ and a ‘pop’ of magical power.
He stood back, watching the fire dance a moment before sliding the book away and double-checking the directions for the binding dust. It would burn for a few minutes, or, as the spell said, ‘time enough for the darkest raven to cross the Yanal Bog of Avon.’
Giles had faith in Buffy. He knew she was smart and capable, but she was also still weakened from the drugs he’d given her. They hadn’t had enough time to wear off yet – the information he had about them said ‘approximately one week’ – and the Council would be here tonight. He’d never felt more wretched and ashamed in his entire life, and he’d done plenty in his younger years to feel wretched and ashamed about. He had to do something to protect his Slayer, whether she wanted his help or not. He’d failed to protect her from the Council once; he wouldn’t fail again.
After the requisite time for that raven to have crossed the bog, the flames snuffed as quickly as they’d sparked to life, leaving the binding ash in the mortar cool to the touch – though Giles was careful NOT to touch it. He retrieved four fragile glass orbs from the supplies he’d purchased at the magic shop and gently set them atop the raven-black dust in the bowl. “Farcio!” he ordered, waving a hand over the concoction, and, with a whirl of power, the dark magic ash filled the glass orbs, making them sparkle like gothic Christmas ornaments.
With his magical weapons complete, Giles dug through the more traditional weapons in the book cage of the library. Xander and Oz had taken many of them the previous day, and he’d let them, knowing they were taking them for Buffy, but now he cursed his dwindled choices. He slid a sheathed dagger into his waistband and strapped a small stiletto blade to his lower leg beneath his trousers. He considered the sword, picking it up and putting it down a couple of times before finally taking it. He was about to turn away, but at the last second decided to grab the crossbow with a quiver of bolts, as well. It was too bad they hadn’t stolen more than one rocket launcher last year; he’d feel a lot better about his odds with one of those. Oh well, no matter how poor his odds were, he had to do something. Even if he could only take out one of them, it would be one less that Buffy and her friends would have to deal with.
His mind made up, the ex-Watcher strode from the school, magic dust, sword, and crossbow in hand, determined to help his Slayer.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Giles would’ve liked to have confronted the wet works team before they’d left the airport, preferably on the tarmac as they disembarked, but even small airports like Sunnydale’s had metal detectors. He’d never get in with any of his non-magical weapons. So, he waited at the main entrance, his car parked in the ‘no parking’ zone, watching for them. They were right on time, perhaps a little earlier than expected, but he’d been early, too, just in case.
He watched surreptitiously as all four – three men and a woman, all dressed in black – approached a family-sized, minivan taxi that had been waiting at the curb, and stowed their gear in the back behind the last bench seat. The three men were the ones from the fax his friend in the Council had sent him the previous night: Weatherby, Collins, and Smith. Giles didn’t know the woman. She was tall and carried herself with an air of supreme confidence. Her skin was like polished ebony, her build slim and elegant. That elegance was diminished somewhat by her severe features, however – a beakish nose, stark cheekbones, thin lips, and a sharp jaw that narrowed to a pointed chin. The harshness of her features was enhanced by the shocking contrast of her peroxided hair, which was cropped short to her dark scalp. She looked to be in her thirties, and was all business. When one of the men said something that clearly amused the others, she remained stone-faced, her large, obsidian eyes scanning the area warily.
In an ideal scenario, Giles would have made his move while most of their weapons were packed out of reach, but ideal was far from view. He’d heard plenty of whispered stories about these guys, and the dossiers he’d gotten had confirmed even the worst of the rumors – they were brutal killers. Innocent bystanders got no special consideration. If the unaware taxi driver got in the way, he’d be injured or killed, and Giles couldn’t allow that to happen. So, logic – and humanity – prevailed, and instead of charging out of his car toward the Council members as he longed to, he remained in place behind the wheel, watching, his heart racing, palms sweating, waiting for his chance.
At the last second, he second-guessed his decision, his fingers reaching for the door handle. But no sooner had his fingers twitched, than the Council members climbed inside the vehicle, and the taxi was pulling away. Gritting his teeth, Giles put his own vehicle into gear and followed close behind, doing his best to keep at least one other car between himself and the taxi.
Once in a while one of the team would look back, making Giles feel the need to duck down beneath the dash of his old Citroen, but as dusk fell, he began to worry less and less about being spotted. Soon enough, the taxi stopped outside what appeared to be an abandoned warehouse, which was surrounded by blocks of equally-vacant buildings in all directions. Giles pulled over in the street halfway down the block and cut his lights, trying to calm his nerves as he waited for his chance. It came soon enough. The four Council members got out of the taxi. Three retrieved their bags as one paid the driver and within a couple of minutes the taxi pulled away, leaving them quite alone in the deserted parking lot.
Giles got out of his car carefully, silently, not letting the door slam or make a sound. The magical orbs he’d created were nestled in the pockets of his jacket, cushioned by handkerchiefs. It would be tricky getting to the ones on the left and hold the crossbow as well, but he dared not leave the bow in the duffel with the sword, just in case the binding dust didn’t work as planned. He’d not had time to test it.
The ex-Watcher took a deep breath and tried to settle his nerves, wiping his damp hands on his trousers. These people were the elite. They were killers. They were ruthless. And he was alone. But he had to stop them, he had to do something to help Buffy. This entire thing was his fault. If he’d only refused to give her the Cruciamentum drugs, or said he had but not actually done it, none of this would be happening. He would’ve been fired, undoubtedly, but at least she, her mother, and her dog would’ve been safe.
But that was water under the bridge now. There was no going back. That bridge had been crushed and washed away in a flood of betrayal. There were no re-dos. Giles had to move forward and do everything he could to keep Buffy safe now. Using all his Council training, along with the field experience and stealth he’d developed on the Hellmouth, he crept forward. Using the cover of bushes, garbage bins, and parked cars to keep from being seen, he made his way up to the opening in the sagging and rusty chain-link fence that surrounded the warehouse.
He could hear the four talking and stopped behind a large, overflowing, smelly skip that sat next to the driveway to the warehouse to see what they were doing. Giles took a quick look, but none of the four were looking in his direction. They had moved up to a wide garage door and one of the men was unlocking it. The sound of the metal door rolling up prompted him to look again. For a moment, he couldn’t see anything inside the building through the gathering dark, but then someone flipped on a light. Inside was an armored truck, like they used to transport money to banks, and it certainly wasn’t shabby like the warehouse. It wasn’t even dusty. Clearly, they’d arranged for this to be here, waiting for them – a truck strong enough to hold and transport a Slayer in.
Giles’ heart gave a panicked lurch. If he let them get into the truck, he’d never be able to stop them. They’d be protected from his pathetic weapons, even from his magic. He had to strike now before he lost his chance. Decision made, he slung the crossbow over his shoulder by the strap and took the four fragile glass orbs from his pockets, two in each hand. If he broke one, he’d be utterly buggered. That didn’t help his nerves one bit. With another deep breath, crouching as low as he could and trying not to make a sound, he began moving forward across the cement, skirting around tall weeds that marked large cracks that might trip him.
The four figures were silhouetted against the light now, each picking up bags of what Giles knew were weapons they were planning on using against his Slayer. His Slayer! Buffy. He’d gotten within six meters of the dark-clad figures when the woman turned around. His heart stopped. The sweat that was pouring from his skin turned to ice, freezing the breath in his lungs. The writhing nerves in his belly twisted into a painful knot.
The woman was speaking, alerting the others. She’d heard or sensed him somehow. There was no more time. No more chances. This was it. The magic had to work!
Everything seemed to happen in slow-motion to Giles’ senses, though it was anything but.
Giles straightened, drawing back his left arm, preparing to hurl the dark magic toward the small group.
The three men reached for weapons.
The woman took a step toward Giles. Her eyes were alert, even eager, and startlingly black.
The Watcher’s arm snapped forward and he released the glass bulbs. They sailed toward the Special Ops team like red and black snowballs, glittering in the light from the warehouse.
The men lifted their handguns almost simultaneously, but the tall, thin woman stood between them and Giles, blocking their target.
Giles shifted the other two orbs to his left hand.
The woman spoke a single word in a calm, lilting voice, “Murus.” She waved her left hand in an arc in front of her, palm toward Giles and, for the first time Giles had seen, she smiled. Her sinister smile sent a cold shiver of fear down the ex-Watcher’s spine and formed a knot of ice in his belly.
He knew what she was then – a witch. If Giles lived to be a hundred, he’d never get the vision of that smug, nasty smile out of his mind. Though he doubted he’d live that long. As the two orbs smashed harmlessly against a solid wall of air in front of the witch, he doubted he’d live another hundred seconds. The shimmering magical ash that had been contained in the orbs wafted into the air, floating weightlessly, glittering red and black with its own inner magical fire.
The men were screaming at the witch, whose name turned out to be Malvina, to move, to get down. There were other names slung at her as well, ‘stupid bint’, and ‘bloody bitch’ being the least offensive, but she paid them no heed as she smiled her predatory smile at the ex-Watcher.
Giles’ mind raced. His magic was no match for hers. Not by a long chalk. Desperate, Giles stuffed the other two orbs back into his jacket pocket and scrabbled for the crossbow. He knew that sometimes protection spells that stopped magic had no effect on physical attacks, and he prayed that was the case now.
Still smiling nastily, the witch lifted her fingers to her lips and mimed blowing Giles a kiss. The binding dust that had been hovering harmlessly in the air between them rushed toward him as if blown by an industrial fan. He turned to run, but only got a couple of steps before sound exploded through the silent air and fire blossomed in his thigh. He fell, turning at the last moment to avoid crushing the other two orbs, hitting on his right side. The crossbow flew from his hands as he tried to break the fall, but that was the least of his worries. The pain in his leg was excruciating. It felt as if he’d been impaled and set on fire at once. He writhed on the pavement, clutching at his thigh, which was hot and slick with blood.
Shot. He’d been bloody shot! One of the berks had shot him! And then the dust settled atop him with little red and black pops of released magic, like small fireworks sparking all over his body. He was suddenly frozen in place, unable to move, both hands pressed against the throbbing, searing wound in his leg.
“’Ello, Rupert,” the man he knew as Weatherby greeted in a rough London accent as he squatted down next to Giles’ head. “Travers said you’d lost the bleedin’ plot. Takin’ up with vampires… bloody vermin.” Weatherby spat on Giles, the gooey glob of salvia sliding down the frozen man’s dust-covered cheek. “The Watcher's Council used to mean something. You perverted it. Should kill you on the spot.”
“Get on with ya!” ordered Collins, pushing Weatherby away from Giles. “No sense wasting a perfectly good bargaining chip. Kill ‘im after we’ve got the package.”
Collins reached for Giles’ necktie, but Malvina warned him before he touched the downed Watcher. “Dat’s Peruvian Paralyzing Triturate, and bring ya down in a beat.” Her accent conjured visions of coconut palms, steel drums, Coppertone lotion, and wide, white beaches. Caribbean perhaps, a bit exotic. Something from an island country Giles couldn’t quite identify.
“Well, what’re ya waiting for? Get rid of the sodding shite,” Collins barked at her, backing up from Giles.
“If you remove it—” Malvina began to warn, but Collins cut her off, “Shut up and do as you’re told! Won’t do me a bit o’ good if he bleeds out ‘ere, now will he?”
The witch turned her feral grin upon him, her eyes hard and angry. “I’m not one t’ take orders from da likes o’ you. What’s da magic word?”
“Sodding witch! I’ll give you a bloody magic word,” he threatened, reaching for his gun again, but the woman was too fast. She reached out, touched the gun just as it cleared the holster, and intoned, “Flexilis.”
Collins’ favorite Beretta turned to rubber in his hand, drooping uselessly from his fingers, the barrel dangling like a dead snake. “Listen here, you fuckin’ bitch,” the man growled. “I’m in charge o’ this operation, not you! Hired help is what you are! You do as I say, when I sodding say it! You hear me?”
“Not one of your buffoons. Here at Quent’s request t’ handle da magic. Don’ take orders. Respond t’ polite requests,” she informed him coolly, though her large, ebony eyes seemed to spark darkly as she spoke.
“Quent, is it?”
The tall, lean witch crossed her arms and arched an elegant brow at him, the smile turning into a smirk.
Collins ground his teeth, but finally snarled, “Please get rid of the sodding powder.”
“Be m’ pleasure,” Malvina replied, blowing another kiss at Giles, who lay fully awake, but completely paralyzed on the pavement. The wind lashed at the ex-Watcher’s clothes and skin. He tried to close his eyes against it, but couldn’t even manage that, as dirt was whipped up from the parking lot, stinging his face with the force of a small tornado. His eyes watered as grit and sand filled them, but even the automatic reaction to blink and clear them was beyond his capabilities.
“T’ere you go, then,” the witch said casually. “Now, what do we say?”
Collins glared at her, but the rubber-duck of a gun he still held in his hand made him hold back what he really wanted to say, unsure just what the fucking insolent bitch was capable of. Didn’t know why Mr. Travers had sent the woman in the first place. He and his crew had been handling things just fine on their own for years. But it wasn’t his place to question the Council head. He had a mission, and he’d get it done, despite the frustrating baggage he’d been saddled with. His jaw was starting to ache from being ground so tight. “Ta,” Collins forced out through gritted teeth before dropping the useless weapon.
He knelt next to the downed man and roughly removed Giles’ necktie, drawing groans of pain and protest from him. Collins used the cloth to bind the wound in the ex-Watcher’s thigh, trapping Giles’ hands beneath it as well. Giles held back a scream of agony, merely grunting his displeasure, as the tie was yanked tight to stem the bleeding.
Collins began searching Giles for weapons then, finding both blades he had and removing them. “And I’ll have these, too,” Collins sneered, reaching into Giles’ pocket to retrieve the two unbroken orbs. “Might come in handy on that rogue Slayer o’ yours, eh? That’ll make the trip a doodle. Ta, ever so, Rupert.”
Giles felt his stomach churn as the head of the wet works team removed the remaining two orbs of magical paralytics, imagining them being used against his own Slayer. His own Slayer, for God’s sake! Giles tried to curse Collins, but his jaw wouldn’t move, nothing came out but another inarticulate grunt. More tears formed in his eyes, these of frustration and shame. He’d failed. Failed Buffy. Again.
Collins gave Giles a smug smirk as he stood up, carefully placing the orbs in separate pockets. “Grab him and let’s go collect the package,” he ordered the other two men. “Want t’ get home by morning. West Ham’s playing tomorrow, don’t want t’ miss it.”
** X-X-X-X-X **
“How’s it going?”
Willow jumped, her eyes flying open, nearly dropping the large pillar candle she was holding. The flame guttered and flickered, but didn’t go out as she steadied it in her sweaty palms. “Don’t sneak up on witches cowering on roofs doing spells and holding candles!” she hissed at Buffy.
Willow resettled herself in her hiding spot behind the raised planter box that sat front and center on the roof over the front porch of Buffy’s house. The sweet scent of Joyce’s petunias blooming above her drifted down and filled her lungs as she took a deep breath to re-center herself and begin her soft chanting again. “Nebula perplexor, nebula perplexor…”
“I didn’t exactly sneak up,” Buffy pointed out, climbing out of her open window to join the witch. Behind her, her dog let out a whine of protest as his big head appeared in the opening, but she shushed him and he subsided, though didn’t move from the window.
“You aren’t supposed to be out here,” Xander stage-whispered from where he sat, watching the street from atop the guest bedroom’s dormer window. He was dressed in dark fatigues, holding the tranq gun in one hand, looking very soldier-y.
Buffy sighed. “You sound like Spike,” she grumbled in a low voice, looking around the roof for the blond-pest, but he wasn’t in sight.
“Take that back!” Xander insisted a bit more loudly, clearly indignant.
Buffy snorted as she made her way over to Willow. “I thought you were making with the fogginess,” she said to the witch as she looked out over the front yard, through the trees to the street. “Not sure if you’ve noticed, but it’s distinctly unfoggy.”
“It’s one-way fog,” Willow said hurriedly before returning to her low chant a few moments. “Nebula perplexor. People looking in see fog. People looking out don’t. Nebula perplexor.”
“Wow! Really? Coolness,” Buffy complimented her, genuinely impressed. “So, if I go out to the street, I won’t be able to see—”
“You aren’t going out to the street!” Xander insisted from his perch above and slightly behind them. “You’re supposed to be—”
“What the bloody fuck, Slayer!?” Spike barked, prowling silently over the ridge from the back of the house.
“Busted,” Xander chided.
“Thought I told you to stay inside with your mum and Cujo! If ya won’t listen to me, listen to your sodding boy.”
“Boy? I’m not her boy!” Xander objected.
“Nebula perplexor,” Willow continued to chant, closing her eyes and trying to concentrate as the candle flame nearly died as her focus waned.
Oz appeared at the peak of the house as well. “I’m thinking all this noise will make us ducks of the sitting variety, even with the fog.”
“Nebula perplexor.”
“Yeah, well,” Spike growled, scowling down at Buffy with his hands planted on his hips. “Tell that to the Slayer. Seems like none of the Summers women know how to stay in the fucking house like they’re told!”
“Would you all just shut up!?” Willow screeched, her eyes flashing open to glare at her comrades. The candle flame flared bright with her outburst, then settled back down. “Witch working here! Nebula perplexor, nebula perplexor...”
“No one’s even here,” Buffy shot back at Spike, waving a hand at the empty street. “Maybe they aren’t even coming. Maybe they don’t even exist! Maybe Giles was just trying to scare me. Maybe—”
“Maybe you just jinxed it,” Xander interjected. “Unless you won the Publisher’s Clearing House and they’re delivering in cold, hard cash these days.”
“Huh?” Buffy asked, turning away from Spike to look out into the street. A red and white armored truck had just stopped in front of her house and cut the engine.
“Showtime,” Oz whispered, disappearing from view as he returned to his post in the back.
“Nebula perplexor. Oh, goddess, oh goddess, nebula perplexor, please work, Nebula perplexor, please work,” Willow murmured in prayer.
Spike stepped over to Xander’s position, watching the truck through an opening in the branches of the trees. “What’re you waitin’ for? Take the bloody shot,” he urged, waving a hand at the partially-obscured truck.
Xander rolled his eyes and spoke in hushed tones, “One, tranq gun, not a rocket launcher – nothing’s getting through that bullet-proof glass. Two, you might have super-duper night vision, but I don’t. Three, where they’re parked, my line of fire is blocked by the trees. And, four… it won’t shoot that far.”
“What the bloody fuck?” Spike cursed. “The Slayer and her band of merry miscreants can’t afford a proper peashooter?”
“It’s Oz’s gun. Nebula perplexor,” Willow interjected. “We didn’t need… nebula perplexor… to bring down… nebula perplexor… elephants on safari with it…. nebula perplexor.”
Spike ground his teeth. They could’ve mentioned that little tidbit during the sodding planning meeting. “Just how close do they gotta be?” he asked. The armored truck had cut its lights and engine, but no one had gotten out yet.
Xander shrugged and sighted the gun about half-way up the front walk.
“Brilliant,” Spike complained, clenching his jaw and shaking his head. “Well, just hope they’re daft enough t’ just stroll up to the sodding door like the bloody Welcome Wagon. Not holding my breath.”
“Not like you even breathe,” Xander sniped, rolling his eyes, and resettling the gun and scope on the truck.
It was then that Spike noticed that Buffy was still on the roof. He growled and prowled back over to her. “It’s started. Get in the house,” Spike ground out. He grabbed her arm in a bruising grip and dragged her back toward her open window.
“Ow! You’re hurting me,” she complained, though she managed to keep her voice low. She tried to yank her arm from his grasp, but he only tightened his hold more.
Spike stopped and spun her around to face him when they reached the window, their noses practically touching. “If ya think this hurts, then wait ‘til those berks haul you off for re-education. That what you want?”
Buffy wrenched her arm free of his hold, only, she knew, because he released her. “Of course not, but I can—”
“You can get in that fucking house and stay there or I’ll drain ya where you stand. Take your sodding pick,” Spike threatened, shifting into game face. The Guardian began to growl as he lifted his giant paws to the windowsill and stood up on his hind legs so his upper body was out of the window. “And you!” Spike chastised, looking at his namesake. “Thought I told you to keep her in the house. Thought you could handle that bit o’ the mission, but apparently I was wrong, eh?”
The dog’s growl stopped immediately. He sunk down from the window and back into the bedroom, dropping his feet back to the floor, with a small, shameful whine.
“It’s not his fault, I—” Buffy defended.
“Is his fault – told him to keep ya in there. Supposed to sit on ya, bite your sodding leg, if that’s what it took,” Spike insisted, casting a disparaging glance at the pouting Guardian.
They heard the doors of the armored truck open and slam closed. They both looked to see two black-clad men heading purposely to the back of the truck. Spike turned back to her, his golden eyes determined and angry in the low light from Willow’s candle. There were no lights on in the house at all, it was completely dark, per Spike’s orders.
“What’s it gonna be, Slayer?”
Buffy looked back at Willow, who had her eyes clamped tightly closed, still chanting, and Xander who had laid down on his belly and trained the tranq gun on the street like a sniper, waiting for a target to get in range. She hated this! Hated it with a burning passion! Her friends were putting themselves in danger for her. That wasn’t how it was supposed to be. She was supposed to protect them!
“Slayer,” Spike growled, drawing the word out and bringing her attention back to him. “The longer I muck about with you, the more danger your mates are in. Follow the sodding plan. Get inside and stay there.”
With her jaw clenched, her frustration and fear mounting, Buffy gave him a stiff nod. No matter how much she hated it, she knew he was right. Damn it!
“Be careful,” Buffy rasped out through her tight throat, her voice cracking a bit. She squeezed his solid forearm in a gesture of support. In the next moment she was clambering back through the window, not wanting him to see the tears burning her eyes. Tears borne of frustration and fear for her friends. Even her ‘least breakable’ friend wasn’t safe – those people on the street knew how to kill him, dust him. But she’d been backed into a corner by Giles and his ‘organic compound’.
She’d agreed to this plan last night – but last night seemed like forever ago. Now that they were actually here, Buffy wanted desperately to change it somehow, to fight the Council’s henchmen herself and keep her friends out of harm’s way. But she knew that standing on the roof arguing about it now wouldn’t help anyone. And so, she retreated with her dog, and sent up prayers to all the Slayers that had come before her to help her friends through this.
** X-X-X-X-X **
“What’s with this bloody fog?” Weatherby asked as he, Smith, Collins, and Malvina stood at the back of the truck looking toward the Slayer’s house.
Collins looked up and down the street. Everything else was perfectly clear, even where they stood was clear, he could see stars above them. “Blow it away,” he ordered the witch tersely.
Malvina arched a brow at him.
“Please,” he ground out as if the word was made of glass shards.
“Can’t,” she informed him with a negligent shrug.
“Can’t? Can’t?” Collins barked at her. “What the bloody fuck do you mean you can’t? Ya created a tornado not an hour ago!”
“Can move da air… but dat’s not air, tis magic. Could send a hurricane through here and the fog would still be there. Seems dey have a witch of their own,” she informed him. Turning to face the house, she waved a hand in a wide arc up over her head and let her eyes fall closed. “Delicious… young… sweet… strawberries,” she murmured before opening her eyes again. “Have to take out da witch to get rid of the fog.”
“Well, what are you waiting for?” Weatherby demanded.
“Not dat easy,” Malvina told him. “Gotta work out a counter spell, yeah?”
“Get on that then,” Collins ordered, drawing another reproachful glare from the witch. “If it wouldn’t be too much of a bloody inconvenience, your highness,” he added gratingly.
Malvina gave him a saccharine smile that could’ve melted diamonds. “Need a few minutes,” she told him as she turned and began walking toward the front of the truck. “Best if ya stay outta da way, let me work.”
“Don’t forget the dampening spell,” he reminded her. Usually Smith handled that, but Collins figured the witch might as well make herself useful. “Don’t need the bleedin’ locals sticking their noses in.”
“Not one o’ your bafans... Been up, hasn’t it?” the witch threw back over her shoulder.
Collins muttered something rude under his breath as he opened the back of the truck and the three men began retrieving their weapons.
“Smith, you take the back. Make sure no one scarpers. Weatherby – check the front yard, make sure our old friend Rupert hasn’t left any other surprises – magical or otherwise – for us in that pea soup. Use the fog for cover. We can’t see them, but they can’t see us, either.”
Malvina snorted and rolled her ebony eyes at his naivety, but it wasn’t her job to teach these mumus how magic worked. She put the truck between herself and the men, giving herself as much quiet as she was likely to get, and began to study the fog, working on a way to clear it – which was her job.
** X-X-X-X-X **
From the roof, Xander watched as the men began retrieving weapons from the back of the truck. Looking through the scope, he could recognize them now from the dossiers they’d gotten the previous night. He watched through the magnified viewfinder as Smith, Weatherby, and Collins pulled Uzis out and began checking them with military precision.
“They have automatic weapons,” Xander reported in hushed tones back over the rooftop to Oz and Spike.
Spike crept up next to Xander, staying low, still in game-face. Xander was happy to see the vampire wasn’t feeling all that confident about the fog that they couldn’t see, either. It made his sweaty palms and dry mouth seem more reasonable and saner.
“Uzis,” Xander expounded to the vampire in a low voice as he looked back through the lens at the men on the street. “Nine-millimeter ammo, fires six-hundred rounds a minute. Effective firing range: two-hundred meters. Twenty-five round capacity per magazine.”
Spike arched a brow at the brunette as he flattened himself down on the shingles next to the boy. “What’re you, a GI Joe?”
Xander shrugged, lowering the sight from his eye and looking over at the blond. “I was a solider a couple of Halloweens ago, remember?”
“Reckon that makes you an expert, then,” Spike mocked in a whisper, rolling his eyes.
“Kinda does.”
Spike arched a brow. “Not much o’ one. Not expert enough to get a proper, long-range weapon o’ your own,” the vampire pointed out acerbically.
Xander bristled. “Not my job. Giles is in charge of…” The brunette shook his head, letting it go. “Not the point,” he ground out. “It doesn’t take an expert to know we’re outgunned… like Rambo vs. Robin Hood.”
Spike smirked. “Well, Robin Hood was a ponce. Also didn’t have a werewolf, a witch, and a bloody handsome vampire in his troupe o’ merry men, did he?”
Xander rolled his eyes. “What does that make me? Friar Tuck?”
“Was thinking Maid Marian,” Spike replied absently, his eyes narrowing as he watched the men on the street. “What’s that bird doin’?” he continued, cutting off the other man’s rejoinder.
“Bird? What bird? Where?” Xander squeaked, removing his eye from the scope, and looking up in the branches of the large trees in Buffy’s yard, expecting to see a pterodactyl poised and ready to come swooping out at them.
Spike huffed out a breath. “Not a sodding canary – the woman at the front o’ the truck, you plonker.”
Xander frowned and refocused his attention through the gun scope. Huh, it was a woman. He hadn’t noticed that before. “Just… standing there, looking at the house.”
Spike scowled and crouched down more, keeping is attention on the woman, a sick feeling coming over him, though he didn’t voice his concern. “Sure the fog is working, Red?” the vampire asked Willow.
Xander gulped and flattened himself to the roof as much as he could, training his weapon on the street, though the retrieval team was still well out of range of the tranq gun.
“Nebula perplexor. I… think so. Nebula perplexor. In theory. Nebula perplexor. It was working before. Nebula perplexor. When you checked,” Willow reminded him, gasping out her reply between incantations, trying to keep her will and mind focused on fueling the magic. “The candle’s still burning. Nebula perplexor. And I haven’t… nebula perplexor… changed what I’m doing. Nebula perplexor.”
“They’re on the move,” Xander noted, watching as one of the men broke away and began heading south, obviously to circle the block and come in from the back.
“One coming your way,” Xander called in a low voice over the ridge of the roof back to the werewolf. Spike was already gone, back into his position at the peak of the roof where he could see everyone and be ready to jump in wherever needed.
“Got it,” Oz replied in an equally low voice, barely audible over Willow’s constant whispered chant.
Xander kept watching as another member of the retrieval team began slowly and carefully working his way up from the street in a fashion that brought to mind someone sweeping for landmines. He focused on him through the gun’s scope, losing him now and then when a branch or tree trunk came between them, but then picking him back up. ‘Weatherby’, his mind provided helpfully, then unhelpfully continued providing details of the man’s credentials and exploits that had been on the fax.
Xander swallowed hard and pushed all that away. It wouldn’t matter how fast the guy was, how well trained, how many mercenary wars he’d been in, or how good he was with a weapon, if he was sleeping the sleep of the recently tranquilized, he wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone.
“C’mon… just a little closer…” Xander muttered under his breath, focusing on keeping his breathing even and steady as he tracked the man with the barrel of the rifle. “Just a little bit more…”
. ** X-X-X-X-X **
Oz could smell the man before he could see him or even hear him. The undeniable aroma of adrenaline mixed with sweat and the sharp tang of gun oil came to him on the light breeze. There was just enough fear blended in to ping his werewolf instincts for the hunt, the chase, the kill. Stupid prey didn’t even think to stay downwind – deserved to die. Survival of the fittest.
Oz shook those thoughts off – that was the werewolf talking, not him. Thankfully, in his human form, he had a tight rein on the demon within, though it was always there, lurking in the shadows. There would be no killing tonight, but it didn’t mean that part of him, the predator, wouldn’t relish the capture. A chase would be a bonus, but that wasn’t the plan.
The small redhead crouched precariously right on the very edge of the roof over the back porch, ready to spring. The big net was heavy in his hands, but he didn’t dare move or shift as he waited, silent and nearly invisible against the dark of the house. Then he saw him. Dressed all in black, there was nothing but a disembodied, pasty white face moving in the darkness of the backyard. He’d slipped in from the alley, gun at the ready, creeping closer… closer.
Oz shifted, tapping into the predator’s skill to stay silent, moving down along the eave to intercept the bumbling prey… errr, man. Sweat beaded his brow now and his heart skipped and thudded in his chest, every synapse on high alert, but the intruder never even looked up. He was too focused on the back door, on trying to peer into the darkened house.
Just a little closer and he’d have him… just… a… little… closer.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Xander’s finger hovered over the trigger, one eye was pressed into the viewfinder of the scope, the other closed, his body tense in anticipation. His heart hammered heavily in his chest, reverberating against the roof beneath him and echoing through his ears, a steady, if rapid, beat. Somewhere far away he could still hear Willow chanting, but his entire focus was on the black-clad man who was making his slow and methodical way up from the street, scanning the yard from side to side as he went. Xander needed him on the walkway for the best shot, completely clear of any obstruction from the trees, and just a bit closer than he was.
‘Come to the walkway … come out from the trees,’ Xander urged silently, swallowing the lump of nerves in his throat so he could breathe again. Despite the cool night, he could feel sweat roll down his spine and puddle in the small of his back as he lay prone on the still-warm shingles. His damp fingers circled the smooth wood of the tranq gun, and he wished he could wipe them off, but there was no time. The enemy was coming, they were nearly here. Buffy was depending on him.
He swallowed again, took a deep breath, and zeroed in on his target.
‘Come on, you son-of-a-bitch… one more step.’
** X-X-X-X-X **
Every muscle in Oz’s body was singing, taut, ready to spring into motion. When the pale head floated beneath him, he didn’t hesitate. With a determined effort, he flung the net out right over the man’s head. It opened like a flower blooming in midair, spreading wide before falling rapidly. The lead weights around the edges dragged it down faster than the man could react to the ‘whooshing’ sound it had made when it unfurled. Smith gasped in shock, raising his arms to deflect the attack, but his hands and gun just tangled in the strong webbing as it wrapped around him, trapping him in its spidery embrace.
The wolf inside Oz wanted to howl in triumph, but he remained silent as he followed the net to the ground, landing on the man and knocking him, thrashing and twisting, to the damp grass. Smith hadn’t even had time to yell a warning to the others before Oz’s fist connected with the man’s jaw and he went still and silent. There had been just a gasp of surprise and a grunt of pain, not enough to carry out of the backyard. The capture had been flawless.
Spike landed next to the werewolf with a whirl of leather and a soft thud of impact. “Brilliant!” he congratulated the redhead in a hoarse whisper. “Back you go,” he continued, crouching and letting the smaller man use him like a ladder to regain the roof. Spike gave him a final boost at the end, and Oz scrambled back into position, retrieving the other net. He gave Spike a nod and the vampire hoisted the unconscious man onto his shoulder and disappeared into the house with their first captive.
** X-X-X-X-X **
‘Just a little bit to the right… c’mon, one more step…’ Xander prodded mentally as he followed Weatherby’s slow, methodical progress across the front lawn.
And then, there he was, lined up perfectly in the crosshairs, standing in clear view on the walk only ten or fifteen yards away. Xander let the innate soldier training that had been instilled in him at Halloween take over. He took a breath, let it half out, and squeezed the trigger. The gun made a soft sound, no louder than a heavy book being dropped to the floor, and the bright red dart sailed toward its target.
“Gotcha,” Xander whispered in triumph.
It was the last coherent thought Xander had.
A moment after Xander fired, his mind went perfectly blank – every thought covered in a thick layer of bright white cotton. As the light of Willow’s candle danced over his skin, his eyes slid closed and his body slumped. He never noticed that Willow had stopped chanting. He never saw the dart sail wide of its target, Weatherby, who had taken cover the moment the fog cleared. He never saw the projectile fall harmlessly, uselessly in the grass.
The tranq gun slipped from Xander’s numb hands and tumbled down, falling all the way to the front lawn. Xander soon followed, his body limp and his mind lost, cocooned in a haze of magic. He slid from his perch on the dormer, thudding heavily onto the porch roof, then rolling gracelessly off to land next to the gun on the cool grass.
** X-X-X-X-X **
On the street, Malvina’s lips were moving silently, her hands dancing slowly in front of her as if conducting an orchestra. She could feel the power of the spell as it wove its way first through her mind, then out her graceful fingers into the world. She felt the fog part without even opening her eyes, and a satisfied smile curved the witch’s thin lips as she kept up her silent chant.
The counter-spell had worked perfectly, the enchantress could feel it in her bones. She was undeniably pleased with her solution to neutralize the young witch’s hazy veil, since it went one step further, turning the spell back on the caster. Anyone touched by the illumination of the focus candle would find themselves lost in a mental fog, and dragged beneath the mist into darkness. With any luck, that might include not just the witch, but the Slayer herself. The sooner this mission was over, the sooner she could concoct a little curse for her charming traveling companions. Nothing too serious… perhaps a small bout of leprosy. Her smile widened and grew more feral at the thought as she continued sending her magic out, eyes closed in concentration, hands swaying gracefully in front of her.
** X-X-X-X-X **
In Buffy’s kitchen, the sound of the tranq gun firing was followed a moment later by a hollow thud from the front of the house.
“Xander got one,” Buffy whispered, looking at Spike with wide, glinting eyes. They were winning! The plan was working! She and Spike had just finished tying up their first captive – the one Oz had captured – when the sounds drew their attention to the front yard.
“Bloody hell,” Spike swore, clearly surprised that Xander and his pea shooter had actually managed to drop someone. “Stay close,” he instructed Buffy as they both started for the living room.
“Only two more,” Buffy continued as she followed the vampire, her heart not exactly soaring, but feeling more confident. Two down, two to go… the odds were tilting in their favor now. This was actually working!
“Bloody hell!” Spike spat as he crouched behind the door and peered out through the sidelights on either side. The words were the same as only a moment before, but the meaning was completely different.
“What?” Buffy asked, trying to get a look past him into the yard.
“Your boy’s down.”
“Xander? What? How?” she asked anxiously, cursing herself for thinking things were going their way. Hadn’t all this time on the Hellmouth taught her anything!? Jinx rules always applied.
“Dunno… doesn’t seem t’ be moving.”
“Is he hurt? Bleeding?” she asked worriedly, hazarding a look. “I can’t see him.”
“No,” Spike assured her. “Breathing okay. Sounds… knocked out.”
Buffy and Spike’s gazes both darted up at the ceiling at the same time, eyes wide with worry and fear. It was then they both noticed that Willow’s chant, which had been little more than a soft drone in the background, had stopped completely.
“Willow! Oz!” Buffy breathed anxiously, heading for the stairs at a run.
“Slayer!” Spike warned, but Buffy didn’t stop or even slow her steps. Spike growled in frustration and hurried up the stairs after her.
** X-X-X-X-X **
“Did you get one?” Oz called, hearing the shot, but there was no answer from the front of the house. He couldn’t even hear Willow’s low chant any longer. He hurried from the back roof, slipping between the two dormer windows. He noted that Xander was no longer at his post before his eyes settled on Willow. His girlfriend was slumped, apparently unconscious, against the back of the raised planter box, the candle guttering feebly as it lay on its side next to her.
“Willow!” he hissed in a frantic but low voice as he hurried down toward her, jumping the last few feet to land right in front of her. He suddenly couldn’t remember why he was there or what he was doing. His mind clouded and his limbs lost their strength as the flickering candlelight washed over him. The werewolf sagged, his eyes falling closed, unable to fight the overwhelming confusion and fatigue. He fell against the witch then slid bonelessly down onto the shingles.
** X-X-X-X-X **
At her window, Buffy could see her unmoving friends in the sputtering light of the fallen candle. Injured? Dead? “Oh, God! Willow! Oz!” she exclaimed again, flinging the sash open in a panic.
Spike stopped her just as she started to climb out onto the roof, yanking her back only a fraction of a moment before she was illuminated by the flickering candle. “If she’s stopped her mojo, there’s no bloody fog, Slayer!” he reminded her, pulling Buffy away from the opening. “The Council gits can see you – got bloody Uzis, they do!”
“But – Willow and Oz!” Buffy objected, trying to pull free from his grip.
Spike spun her around and backed her into the corner. She nearly tripped over the dog bed there, but the vampire kept her from falling. “I’ll check on your mates. Keep your arse planted against that wall!” he ordered. “I bloody well mean it!”
Buffy looked up at him, wishing she could see his eyes in the dark. But she didn’t need to, really – she could hear it in his voice – he would check on Willow and Oz. He would keep her friends safe. He would keep his promise. She nodded and pressed her back against the wall, trusting him to do this as she suppressed every Slayer instinct she had to take matters into her own hands. It was like trying to stop a hurricane, but Buffy clenched her hands into fists against her sides and forced herself to remain still.
Spike gave her a curt nod in return and let her go. Turning, he took a long stride up to the edge of the open window and just peeked out, careful to not make a target of himself in the opening. “She and the wolf are okay,” he assured Buffy. “Looks and sounds like unconscious – not damaged. No blood. Breathing fine – slow, steady, like your boy on the lawn.”
“How is that possible?” Buffy wondered, pushing off the wall a couple of inches, but stopping herself from going to him.
Spike looked out at the people on the street and that uneasy feeling he’d had earlier reasserted itself, proving his gut to be right. Damn it! “Seems they have a witch of their own. Watcher didn’t mention that little tidbit.”
“Can you get them inside?” Buffy asked, fretting her lip worriedly, taking a fractional step toward him and the open window, but again stopping herself from going closer.
“Could, I reckon,” he muttered, thinking. Spike shook his head then, decision made, and turned back to Buffy. “These two are safe enough… not gonna fall like your soldier boy. Reckon I need to see ‘bout him. He’s a bloody sitting duck out there. Don’t want them gettin’ a hostage of their own, do we?”
Buffy nodded jerkily, knowing instinctively that he was right, even if she didn’t like the idea of leaving Willow and Oz outside, vulnerable. She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly to steady herself as they both turned and headed for the door, leaving the sleeping redheads on the roof outside.
“How are we gonna get Xander? You know, with the Uzi’s and lack of fog?” Buffy wondered as they made their way down the stairs.
Spike drew in a long, hissing breath through his teeth. There was only one way – only one person those bullets wouldn’t actually kill.
“Oh,” Buffy whispered gravely as she suddenly understood the plan, reading it in Spike’s lack of answer. A vision of Spike riddled with bullets from her dream flashed in her mind and her legs wobbled beneath her, nearly buckling. She caught herself on the rail to keep from tumbling down the stairs, coming to a stop behind the vampire to regain her composure. Buffy managed to fight the panic back, but it was getting harder and harder to keep it in check. Her friends were down. Xander was in imminent danger, and the only way to get him out of danger was to sacrifice Spike. She blinked back hot tears that burned her eyes. He’d be okay… he was a vampire, her least breakable friend. He’d be okay…
Buffy took a deep breath and continued down in Spike’s wake, trying to think of a new plan, one that didn’t involve getting the vampire below her mangled and shredded with bullets.
“Buffy Summers!”
The two blondes froze for a moment at the bottom of the stairs as the unfamiliar voice cut through the quiet night.
“Get in the closet with your mum and Cujo,” Spike instructed in no uncertain terms, pushing her back toward the hall closet.
“No! Not leaving you alone!” she hissed, glaring at him defiantly.
“No one has to get hurt tonight,” the deep voice continued from outside. “Come along quietly and we’ll let your Watcher live.”
Buffy froze. She stopped breathing. Her heart may have stopped beating. The whole world could’ve stopped spinning for all she knew. Thoughts pattered at her numb mind like cold raindrops against a window, trying to get in. Her Watcher? Let her Watcher live? Giles… what… Giles wasn’t even here! He… he wasn’t even her Watcher. He was fired! So… they couldn’t mean Giles. A new Watcher maybe. Someone she didn’t even know… that must be what they meant.
“Bloody fucking hell.”
The sound of Spike’s voice, though barely more than a sigh, snapped Buffy out of her trance. The vampire was peering intently out of one of the side windows into the front yard. Buffy couldn’t find breath to speak, but finally remembered how to walk, and joined him on trembling legs.
“Stay behind me, for fuck’s sake,” Spike ordered, pulling her back as she tried to walk right up to the tall window that flanked the door.
Buffy let him move her back, but kept her eyes trained out into the front yard, peering around Spike’s shoulder. “Giles.” It was all she could say before her throat closed up. In that moment it didn’t matter what Giles had done to her. The sting of betrayal she felt at the thought of him had been instantly replaced with an overwhelming terror that she could lose one of the most important men in her life. She hated what he’d done, but somehow, she couldn’t bring herself to hate him. Unlike Angelus or even her father, she couldn’t just turn off her feelings, no matter how much she sometimes wished she could.
“What the bloody fuck is he playin’ at?” Spike growled as he watched the two black-clad men toss the prone, stiff figure of Buffy’s Watcher onto the sidewalk beside the truck.
“Buffy Anne Summers. You’ve got three seconds to turn yourself over!” the man called from the end of the walk.
Buffy stood motionless, watching. She didn’t think her heart could’ve hammered any harder than it had when she’d seen Willow’s and Oz’s unmoving forms, but it did. It seemed to be the only part of her that hadn’t frozen in place.
“Three. Two. One,” Collins counted down quickly. He waited another second or two, but when the door didn’t open and his package didn’t present itself, he drew his booted foot back and landed a vicious kick against Giles’ back, making the Watcher’s body lurch sickeningly. “Heard you were a slut. Didn’t know you were a bleedin’ coward, too! Every second you stay hidden, is another broken rib… ruptured spleen, bruised liver!” he threatened, drawing his foot back and driving another vicious kick into Giles’ torso.
“Stop!” Buffy screeched, struggling to push Spike out of the way to get the door open, but he was more than up to the task, holding her back easily.
“Don’t be daft!” Spike snarled as she struggled against him, trying to get free.
Another dull thump of impact met her ears and Buffy let out a strangled gasp, as if the kick had landed on her back instead of Giles’. Buffy felt like she was being torn into a million pieces, her heart shredded, as her thoughts spun wildly out of control.
“Slayer! STOP!” Spike demanded, getting hold of her wrists and twirling her around, crossing her arms in front of her and pinning her back against his chest.
Buffy wriggled and writhed against him, trying to get free. She stomped a foot down on his, but he didn’t even flinch. She slammed her head back, trying to break his nose, but connected with the side of his neck as he simply turned his head and raised his chin. “Damn it! Let me go!”
“Not lettin’ you sacrifice yourself!” he growled back, tightening his grip until she gasped in pain.
Buffy sagged, growing still, defeated. She was overpowered, trapped like a bug. Her chin quivered as the sounds of boots striking flesh seemed to fill in every silent, empty space. She closed her eyes, trying to think, trying to calm down, trying to come up with a new plan. Yet another ‘thud’ rang in her ears and she jumped in Spike’s arms, tears streaming down her face.
“Buffy? What’s happening?” Joyce demanded as she and the big dog came out of the closet where they’d been hidden.
“Seems we weren’t the only ones thought o’ taking hostages for leverage,” Spike explained with an eyeroll, giving up on trying to tell her to get back into hiding. ‘Bloody Summers women.’ “They’ve got the Watcher.”
“Oh dear… Mr. Giles,” Joyce breathed as the Guardian approached the two blondes, his lips pulled back in a snarl and rumbling growl vibrating his chest.
“Let off, Cujo!” Spike spat at the dog, narrowing his eyes accusingly. “If you’d done your sodding job, I wouldn’t have t’ be doing it, now would I?”
The dog whined and lowered his head, his tail wagging woefully in apology, looking for all the world like he’d just been beaten with a stick.
Spike rolled his eyes, his jaw clenched. It was hard to stay mad at the furry beast when he looked so bloody pitiful. The dog must’ve sensed the lessening of his name-sake’s ire, because his mood abruptly changed. He pressed his flank against Buffy’s legs and began nuzzling one trapped hand, trying to offer some comfort.
Buffy took a few deep breaths, swallowing back her emotions once again. “Okay… okay… I’m okay… let me go,” she assured her captor.
Spike relaxed his hold fractionally, testing, but Buffy remained passive, so he released her. “Need a new plan—” he began, running a hand back through his hair as he began to pace, thinking.
The next kick that landed was accompanied by a grunt and groan of pain from outside. Buffy couldn’t stand it another moment. In a rush of adrenaline and panic, she pushed past both Spikes, and flung the front door open.
“STOP! STOP HURTING HIM!” she screamed as Spike cursed, “Bloody hell!” and hauled her back out of the open doorway. The dog must’ve innately realized the danger, or perhaps took his cue from the vampire, because he pushed Joyce out of the foyer into the living room, out of the line of fire that had been opened with the door.
Spike pulled Buffy into the dining room, holding the struggling Slayer around the waist, her feet lifted off the floor, as she continued to scream at the men to, “STOP!”
“I’ll stop when you come on out, girlie! No one else need get hurt,” the man who had been kicking Giles called. Spike knew his name was Collins from the faxes they’d gotten the night before – he was the leader of the team.
“Got one o’ yours in here,” Spike shot back, still holding Buffy’s back against his front as she struggled to get free of his grip. “Even trade,” he offered. “The Watcher for this bloke… Smith.”
Buffy subsided in her efforts to get free of Spike’s grasp as they stood just out of sight of the door in the entry to the dining room. Hope bloomed! Spike was right. Trade… they’d do a trade. Of course they would. It would be fine. Giles would be fine. They’d… they’d just have to find another way to capture these guys – just her and Spike – as soon as Giles was in the house with them, safe.
“No deal,” Collins called back, he sounded a bit closer now. “Watcher for the Slayer.”
“Don’t be a sodding idiot!” Spike yelled back. “Do the trade or I’ll bloody well kill him!”
Buffy made a small gasping sound, but covered her mouth with her hands as Spike continued to hold her in a death grip around her waist. “Know it’s not what you want, Slayer,” he whispered to her. “Do you trust me or not?”
Buffy swallowed hard but nodded. “Yes,” she croaked from behind her hand, afraid to take it away from her lips. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go! Spike told her they might come after her friends or family, but she hadn’t thought they’d go after Giles. Giles was one of them – he was on their team! Wasn’t he?
“All part of it,” the leader replied, and Spike could tell he was definitely moving closer to the house. “When we go on a job, we always put our affairs in order first, in case of accident. Now, just send the girl out and—"
“If you don’t think I’ll kill him good and proper, then you dunno who the fuck I am!” Spike interrupted the man angrily.
“We know who you are. Just the latest vermin this sorry excuse for a Slayer’s spread her legs for – William the Bloody.” This was a different voice – the other man – Weatherby. “Must be a fine piece of ass, this one. Have a sweet little cunny, does she? Reckon we’ll have a little taste ourselves – don’t reckon a whoring cunt like that would mind. Long flight ahead. Would cut the boredom.”
Buffy had barely registered what the man had said when a deep, furious growl exploded from Spike’s chest, his golden eyes flashing with rage. “Spike, no—” she started, realizing immediately that his chivalry bone had just been slapped with a glove and challenged to a duel.
The Slayer didn’t get to say more, however. Spike tossed Buffy away, back toward the kitchen where she’d be safe. She grunted with the impact and rolled a couple of times before coming to a stop just short of the tile floor. Spike took a long, angry stride toward the front door, hands clenched into fists, his borrowed blood boiling, intent on murder and retribution.
“Spike! No!” Buffy repeated, scrambling back to her feet. “STOP!” the Slayer screamed, stumbling as she tried to catch him, to stop him. This is what they wanted! Couldn’t he see that? They were just baiting them! And Spike had swallowed it like a big ole peroxided bass.
“STOP!” she demanded one more time, lunging desperately for the enraged vampire. Her fingers brushed the soft, clean leather of his duster, but he was beyond her grasp. Then Buffy saw a furry giant bound from the other side of the foyer right at the vampire. The two Spikes met in the open doorway, the dog trying to do Buffy’s bidding and stop the vampire; the vampire intent on ripping out Council spines.
The two Spikes, dark and light, tussled there for what could’ve only been a moment, but felt like years to Buffy. The growling, now doubled, filled the house and spilled out the open doorway into the yard as she continued forward, focused on pulling the vampire back, slamming the door closed, and regrouping. She’d barely made it past the archway into the foyer when the world exploded into deafening sound, drowning out the brawl in the foyer and shattering every coherent thought.
Gunshots. Too many gunshots.
The Slayer jerked back, diving away from the sound on pure instinct.
Screams, curses, and gasps echoed off the walls. Some of them sounded like her, though it felt distant, unreal. Buffy heard more thuds as everyone dropped to the floor just as she’d done. The Slayer raised her head fractionally, her hands over her ears, eyes squinting through the gunshots, peering into and across the dark foyer to try and see everyone. The two Spike’s had been right in the open doorway when it had started! And her mom was in the living room, only a couple of feet away. She didn’t get a chance to see much, however, because in that moment the sidelight windows on either side of the door exploded. The Slayer cowered back again, covering her head and face as shards of glass flew like shrapnel. She felt the hot sting as splinters of flying glass slashed into her arms and hands and she gasped, pressing her face against the floorboards to keep the projectiles away from her eyes. Bullets whizzed past like mad wasps, impacting with the stairs, splintering the risers, balusters, and newel post indiscriminately. Some sailed all the way to the sitting room down the hall, shattering knickknacks and family photos before embedding into the drywall.
Buffy heard her dog whine and yip in pain. She jerked her face up in time to see him fall heavily to the floor just a few feet away. Blood. There was blood. Even in the dim light, she could see it shining and wet and spreading on the floor beneath her best friend, the healer of her heart. Buffy lay there, frozen in place for too long, her eyes disbelieving, her heart splintering, her panic rising. The nightmare she’d had just two nights ago replayed in her mind in a flash – her dog and her vampire dead. Shot. Bleeding. Dusted. Gone. Tears sprang to her eyes, hot and terrified. Her whole body was trembling, pinned to the spot, her pulse a brutal staccato against her ribs and pounding like a freight train in her ears. She needed to move, to go to her dog, to stop her vampire, to stop the nightmare, but her body refused to budge no matter how forcefully she willed it.
Everything went silent then. The gunshots ceased. No one spoke. No one even seemed to breathe for what seemed an eon or two.
The nightmare was coming to life. Her dog dead. Her vampire falling to dust beneath her grip. Buffy was going to lose them both! How much more could she lose and still keep going, keep fighting, keep living? Merrick. Angel. Her dad. Giles. Her dog. Was her best frenemy next? Had he already been gunned down somewhere out of her eyeline? Were the Council guys coming up the porch steps right now, stakes poised?
Buffy saw her mother’s face appear out of the dark shadows from behind the couch and their eyes met and held. She felt like she was looking into a mirror of sorts – the terror in her mother’s eyes a perfect reflection of what she, herself, was feeling. Buffy felt trapped in her nightmare, unable to move, unable to change the inevitable outcome. She was losing everything, and she felt powerless to stop any of it.
Then her vampire’s growl reverberated through the house, rattling the shards of glass littering the floor and filling the silent, funereal space with pure, preternatural rage.
The sound seemed to steel her, center her, remind her that she was the Slayer, not some helpless damsel. Spike’s vehement words from the night he’d returned flooded through her, turning her fear into resolute determination. ‘You’re fucking magnificent, woman! Glorious! Not a demon alive can hold a candle to you when you put your mind to something. Not even me. That light inside sets you apart, makes you so sodding infuriating I wanna to rip my own head off! That brilliance, that glow, it’s what makes you… you. Smarter, craftier, sneakier, stronger than any woman – anyone – I’ve ever met.’
Buffy’s body tensed, her trembling limbs steadying, as she found the will and strength to move. She crawled forward onto the minefield of sharp glass, moving steadfastly toward her dog and the sound of her vampire. Blood flowed from the myriad of wounds on her arms and she instinctively tugged some larger shards of glass from her flesh as she went, her mind focused on the foyer and the two Spikes.
Buffy’s gaze swept the entryway for the blond, finding him just as her hands slipped in hot, slick blood on the floor. He was rising from where he’d been on the ground like the rest of them, looking angrier than Buffy ever dreamed he could look. His golden eyes locked on hers, pinning her in place, and his nostrils flared wide as he gained his feet, his gaze never leaving her. She realized that he had smelled her blood when another furious growl reverberated through the sudden silence, his eyes taking on a feral glint of pure, savage fury.
Not good. This was not good. This was soooo not good.
Spike’s saffron eyes were burning with rage as they turned away from the Slayer and back toward the open doorway. She couldn’t see what he was looking at, her view was blocked by his duster, which swirled around his legs as he swiveled. She could see is hands balled into fists and hear the low, insistent, growl rumble from his chest.
“Spike! No!” she ordered, doing her best to sound authoritative, Slayer-like. She tried to get to her feet, to bodily stop him, but slipped on the slick blood and crunching glass and fell back down.
He paused a moment, turning to look down at her, then at the dog, whose chest was heaving with wet, slow breaths. Time seemed to stand still for several long moments as Spike’s demonic eyes met hers again. Buffy could feel his seething anger roll over her like crashing waves with a bottomless need for vengeance beneath the churning surface. But he didn’t know! He didn’t know how he’d dusted in her nightmare! Didn’t know it was coming true!
Before Buffy could draw breath to speak again, Spike turned silently away from her. Turned toward those guns. Toward those bullets. Toward dust beneath her fingers.
“NOOOOOOOOO!! SPIKE! NO!!” There was no mistaking the panicked voice this time – it was hers.
** X-X-X-X-X **
** X-X-X-X-X **
STORY BOARDS
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link: https://flic.kr/p/2kRTiWd
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link: https://flic.kr/p/2kRTqB5
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link. https://flic.kr/p/2kRTiZE
End Notes:
Oh no!! What will happen now!?! Is the nightmare coming true? How badly hurt is Buffy’s good boi? Can her best frenemy keep his promise to not kill anyone and stay safe himself?
I couldn’t find a picture to use for Malvina that really matched my image of her. The beautiful woman I used is a model. I picked her because of her amazingly penetrating eyes. Here is her Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mameanta_wade/
Chapter 20: Don't Freak Out
Chapter Text
Chapter Notes:
Since I was so late posting on Thursday, I made an extra effort to get this one done extra early. I’m not sure if you’ll thank me for that or not...
Thanks to all of you for reading! It means so much to me, like cheeseburgers for my muse! Sending all the sloppy, joyful doggie kisses to everyone who has left a note, a like or a kudo. I’m working on replying to all your lovely comments and treasure every one of them.
Thanks also my two wonderful Beta readers and friends: Holi117 and Paganbaby, and to TeamEricNSookie for pre-reading. All mistakes are mine because I keep fiddling with stuff. If you see any, PM me and I’ll fix it.
No dogs were harmed in the making of this story.
Chapter 20: Don’t Freak Out
The pain that radiated through Giles’ upper body was excruciating. Every kick to his back from Collins’ steel-toed boot made something new inside him crack and flare with fire. Still, he prayed Buffy wouldn’t give in to the team-leader’s demands. She needed to stick with her plan, whatever it was, not try to save him. He didn’t deserve saving. He’d turned on her. Betrayed her. Took her trust and violated it, completely destroyed it. Put her in mortal peril. He deserved this and more.
In the back of the armored truck, the Watcher had managed to get his eyelids working on the way from the warehouse to Buffy’s. Able to blink at will, he’d mostly cleared his vision by the time they’d arrived on Revello, and, while his glasses were askew, they were at least still perched on his nose. He’d next concentrated on getting his fingers and hands to move as the four members of the wet works team schemed on the pavement outside the truck. Despite the throbbing pain in his leg, the bleeding had slowed enough for him to try and slide his hands out from beneath his necktie come tourniquet without fear of bleeding out.
With all the strength of mind and body he could muster, Giles fought against the residual power of the Peruvian Paralyzing Triturate, which was beginning to weaken. Thanks to that idiot Collins ordering the witch to clear the powder from his body, the magical effects were wearing off far more quickly than he’d anticipated, and his research had indicated. One thing to be grateful to that pillock for, he supposed. And the witch had certainly done a fine job of it. He was fairly sure her mini-tornado dermabrasion treatment had taken off several layers of skin along with the powder.
Had the magical triturate stayed in contact with his skin and clothing – as Giles would have gleefully ensured if it had been the Council covered in it – he’d still be completely helpless. As it was, he was just mostly helpless. Staying as silent as he possibly could, he’d just managed to slip one hand from beneath the binding and move his uninjured leg a bit when he was dragged from the truck and tossed unceremoniously onto the sidewalk in front of 1630.
His glasses went flying into the bushes lining the sidewalk, but he had no time to mourn their loss. Now all his strength was put into remaining still and stiff, and in keeping his free hand plastered to his leg. He had to seem fully paralyzed. Couldn’t give it away and have them tie him up. He had to wait for his chance. It wasn’t over yet – he could still help Buffy somehow.
But only if she didn’t give in to their demands.
“STOP! STOP HURTING HIM!”
‘Bugger it all to hell!’ Giles thought, wishing he could scream it out, tell Buffy to just get on with it and not spend time on him.
And then Spike’s voice was suggesting a trade. They’d captured the third man, apparently – Smith, Giles knew, since both Weatherby and Collins were in view. He sent a prayer to the saint of lost causes hoping that Spike could keep Buffy from sacrificing herself for him. And just how desperate do you have to be to hope a soulless, murdering vampire can keep a Slayer from acting on her instincts, from following her Calling to save everyone, even people she hated? Pretty fucking desperate.
“Did ya get the garden scanned for traps?” Collins asked Weatherby in whisper.
Weatherby shook his head. “Didn’t finish ‘fore the fog lifted,” he replied, equally low-voiced.
Collins nodded and some silent communication passed between them as they both set off, weapons held at the ready, moving warily, scanning not only the ground but the sky, trees, and shrubs with each measured step, as if the leaves themselves might attack at any moment.
Giles sighed internally, a momentary stab of relief that the bruising blows had stopped surging through him. That feeling was quickly replaced by a bone deep fear for his Slayer. Giles was desperate to call out a warning to Buffy, to tell her they were moving, but didn’t dare draw attention to himself; didn’t dare let them know he could speak or move – not yet.
With his tormentors’ attention fully on the yard and possible booby-traps, Giles carefully removed his other hand from beneath the necktie binding his wounded leg. He realized then that he didn’t know where the witch was. The Watcher chanced a quick glance behind him. There, just barely in view, the enchantress was standing in front of the truck, eyes closed, and appeared to be working a spell. Damn it! That would explain why the thick fog that had been shrouding Buffy’s home ever since they had arrived had dissipated so rapidly.
Giles had assumed it was a magical construct the instant he’d seen it, since it clearly wasn’t a weather phenomenon he’d ever seen in Sunnydale. Willow’s doing, no doubt. He’d felt the glimmer of pride in her capabilities, but it had turned to slithering anxiety in his gut as the last tendrils of the heavy mist had evaporated into the clear Californian night. He bit down on his lip with agitation, angrily berating himself that he should’ve known the Council’s bloody magic-slinger was countering it. How was he going to— Wait. Perhaps this could be a fresh opportunity? If the big, bad witch was focused on keeping Willow’s fog away, then she wasn’t focused on him. In fact, no one was focused on him at all.
Giles turned his attention back to the yard and the two men. Weatherby and Collins moved slowly, knees bent, half-crouched, their heads and guns moving side to side as well as up and down, scrutinizing every inch of the yard for threats as they advanced on the house. Giles moved carefully, testing his abilities, rolling gingerly to hands and knees. Pain shot through him, up and down his spine, and an invisible dagger twisted in his leg. He swayed there a moment, nausea and dizziness washing over him.
Have to help Buffy.
Giles winced as bruised flesh, pinched nerves, and mangled bones bit savagely at his resolve. He clenched his jaw over the involuntary groan of pain that bubbled in his throat.
Have to get up.
The rough pavement dug into his palms and knees and he focused on that – a tangible reason to find his feet, to not retch, to not pass out.
Have to push through.
A grunt of painful effort passed Giles’ pursed lips when he pushed himself to his feet, and he froze, his wide eyes fixed on the two menacing, black-clad men. They were nearing the porch now, nearly there, apparently having found no traps in their meandering search. He held his breath, his heart pounding like a frightened bird, waiting for them to turn back to him. After a subjective eternity, he let his breath out – they hadn’t heard, they were too focused on the open doorway of Buffy’s house to notice. He swiveled his head and looked back, but the witch still had her eyes closed, completely lost in the working of her spell.
Giles took a tentative step forward. His injured leg buckled. He remained upright only through sheer force of will. Drawing on a resolve he didn’t know he possessed, the ex-Watcher took another stumbling step, locking a cry of pain inside his straining throat. By the third step, his leg began to grow numb, the bolts of pain burning out the nerves, or perhaps he was losing circulation. Whatever it was, he welcomed it over the stabbing agony.
The two men had stopped before mounting the steps, weapons trained on the open door. Weatherby began taunting his targets, spewing vile threats about Buffy spreading her legs, being a fine piece of ass. Giles’s hands balled into fists and he began to stagger forward more quickly along the walkway, half-dragging his injured leg, determined and angry.
Everything began happening at once then. Spike appeared in the doorway, his blond hair standing out almost like a halo against the dark of the house, his growl reverberating through the air around Giles. The Watcher had never heard anything quite so primal, so feral. It seemed to resonate inside him, reflecting his own fury and resolve, perhaps even strengthening it. He held to that, used it, propelling himself forward, his stumbling steps gathering momentum.
Help Buffy.
And then the entire world seemed to explode in deafening shards of sound and flashes of blinding light.
The two men in front of him had begun firing on the house without warning. Giles lurched into a run, or, more accurately, a fast wobble. He covered the last few yards in just a second or two, no longer worried about staying quiet beneath the roar of the Uzis. Rasping cries of pain tore out of his throat with each step, a plan flashing in his mind in the couple of seconds it took for him to reach Weatherby and Collins.
Like well-trained military, the two men were standing too far apart for the Watcher to take them both out at once. Giles had to choose one and hope that, in the confusion, someone in the house could take the other down. Collins had the orbs, the binding dust. If he could get to them...
Giles slammed into the team-leader’s back, driving him down and forward onto the cement walkway, only a couple of feet from the porch steps. Both Giles and Collins cursed in surprise and pain as they landed hard on the unforgiving pavement. Collins reacted to the attack almost immediately, shaking off the surprise like the seasoned soldier he was. The two men began to tussle, rolling to the side onto the soft, cool grass. Collins was trying to wrench the weapon from between them as they rolled, but Giles wasn’t after the gun. His right hand found the pocket of Collins’ jacket that held one of the orbs and shoved in. His fingers were sliced open on the broken glass and he felt the now-familiar sparking against his flesh as the spilled dust activated.
Panic surged through the Watcher, but he fought it back with an effort of will, forcing his body to follow the hastily constructed plan. Giles closed his fingers over the shards of glass and sparkling powder and yanked his hand free before the paralyzing effect moved up his arm. With a screech of effort and determination that rang through the yard, the ex-Watcher shoved his clawed hand into Collins’ face and down his neck to his chest, coating him with the magical binding ash. Collins choked and spluttered on the dust before his face froze in a rictus of shock. His body was still mobile, however, and he caught Giles with an elbow to the temple.
The older man gasped and rocked back as stars flared like comets across his vision. He needed more – more of the magical powder! Giles gritted his teeth against the pain and plunged his bleeding, frozen hand back into the pocket holding the broken orb. He fumbled, unable to open or close his fingers, but he managed to scoop out more powder, using his palm like a child’s shovel scooping up sand at the beach. Pulling his hand free, Giles lurched back to scatter the ash over his foe’s arms and hands then down his torso and legs. Relief washed through Giles as Collins went still, his hands freezing on the Uzi a moment before the rest of his body subsided into immobility.
At some point during the scuffle with Collins, the gunfire had stopped completely. Buffy’s voice, screaming, “NOOOOOOOOO!! SPIKE! NO!!” spilled from the house as Giles fought to keep moving, to retrieve the other orb, or more dust if it was broken, to use on Weatherby, who he’d lost track of in the melee.
Perhaps because Giles had already fought off the effects once, or maybe because it had to travel up his arm from his hand, he was only slowed in his quest, not immobilized, and took full advantage. Using his good, left hand now to quickly explore Collins’ other pocket, he found the second orb – miraculously unbroken.
Giles pulled it out and turned, still on his knees, to search for Weatherby. At the same moment, Weatherby was turning his attention, and his gun, from the growling vampire in the open doorway of the house and toward Giles. The two men’s eyes met for a fraction of a second in the dim light cast by the streetlamps – bullets versus magic. Giles had no doubt who would win this battle, and it wasn’t him. But maybe… maybe Giles could neutralize Weatherby before he was riddled with bullets. Maybe Giles could stop this human monster from hurting Buffy before he died.
** X-X-X-X-X **
The gunshots stopped. This was Spike’s chance, perhaps his only chance, to close on the men, disarm them and, with any luck, disable them in the most painful way possible without killing them. He would keep his promise, if only barely, no matter how much it would piss him off to let the worthless pricks live. In the next brief moments, Spike registered everything happening around him as he pushed himself up from the wood planks of the Summers’ entryway.
He smelled blood. Very near. On his shirt, splattered across his face. Not human. Not demon. Then a whimper of pain filtered through the sudden silence. The fucking fleabag had gotten himself shot! He was still alive, but if that rat bastard of a dog died, Buffy’d never forgive him. Stupid bugger! Could none of the inhabitants of 1630 Revello follow bleedin’ orders?
Beyond the dog, Joyce was cowering on the floor of the living room, her heart galloping wildly, her breaths shallow and rapid. He focused harder for a split-second, quickly reassuring himself she was just scared, not injured.
Buffy was crawling toward him from the dining room, her hands and feet scuffing awkwardly against the floor. She was near – too near the open door, too near the path of the bullets. He had to get out there, stop the wankers before anyone else got hurt. He took a step toward the door but was halted by Buffy’s sharp cry of, “Spike! No!”
It assaulted him then. Blood. Slayer blood. Buffy’s blood. Intoxicating and raw, and wrong and painful. The scent of it flooded into the vampire like an icy dagger, twisting through his veins. He paused, looking back, terrified of what he’d see. His eyes met hers and held; an eternity passed within a single moment.
His Slayer. Bleeding. Trembling. Frightened.
Fury exploded inside Spike. The ice turned to fire. His blood boiled. His demon growled its rage. His mind blanked, leaving nothing but base, primal instinct and a need for vengeance. They’d hurt his Slayer. His. HIS.
They’d pay. He’d make sure they paid for this. Blood would spill. It was all he could do now.
In the yard, Giles was wrestling with one of the gunmen on the lawn just at the foot of the porch steps. The other was slapping another magazine of bullets into his gun. Spike only had a second, maybe two before he’d begin firing again.
“NOOOOOOOOO!! SPIKE! NO!!” Buffy cried desperately.
Spike didn’t stop. Didn’t look back again. Fire exploded through his chest as he moved – had he been shot? If he had, the fury inside had kept him from caring, and there was no time to give it any more consideration as he flew out the door, duster billowing out behind him like Batman’s cape.
“SPIKE!” Buffy’s shrill voice followed him out as she staggered to her feet, lurching toward him, trying to stop him. But he was too fast, out of reach, moving onto the front porch. Behind her, Joyce had crawled over to the dog and was doing what she could for him, but Buffy’s full attention was on the yard, on the vampire.
In a flash she took in the scene playing out on her front lawn.
Weatherby was not watching the house any longer. Instead, his attention, and freshly loaded Uzi, was turned toward two men on the ground on the other side of the front walk. ‘Giles!’ Buffy realized immediately, an involuntary gasp of, “No!” escaping her lips as the man prepared to fire on her Watcher at point-blank range.
Time seemed to nearly stop, everything moving in super-slow-motion as her adrenaline soared. Standing frozen in the door, Buffy could see Weatherby take aim. His finger began to squeeze the trigger. Giles was looking directly into the barrel of the gun, struggling to raise his arm, something glittering red and black in his hand. Then her vampire leapt from the porch, graceful and powerful as a panther. Buffy felt like she could even see the first bullet as it exited the barrel of the gun with a flash of fire, the weapon jerking in Weatherby’s hands with the recoil.
She screamed and staggered forward, following Spike, as if being forcibly pulled along in his wake.
Time sped back up.
Spike’s hands closed on the gun as he sailed between Weatherby and Giles. The first bullet struck the vampire’s chest. Blood flew. Giles was knocked back atop Collins as Weatherby and Spike fell into a heap of black leather and splattering crimson blood. There was a horrible succession of wet thumps and strangled grunts as the firing gun was muffled against Spike’s torso. The vampire’s body jerked and jolted atop Weatherby as bullets riddled his chest and abdomen. More blood sprayed from between the two men, falling like brilliant red rain onto the walk.
The gun clicked empty then went deafeningly silent.
Weatherby and Spike rolled one last time, locked together, the human ending up on top. Spike wasn’t moving, wasn’t fighting, wasn’t screaming, or even twitching in pain. He was completely still. Still as death.
Weatherby dropped the gun onto the grass, which was glistening with the vampire’s thick, dark blood. A gun wasn’t what he needed now. His father always told him the best way to get a job done efficiently was to use the right tool for the task, and Weatherby was nothing if not efficient. A stake appeared in the man’s hand seemingly from nowhere. Buffy suddenly knew how vampires must feel every time she did that. It made her stomach drop and her heartrate accelerate to something nearing the speed of sound.
The blood-splattered man sitting atop Spike lifted the stake high over the vampire’s mangled chest. Buffy registered a nasty grin on his gore-stained face as he began the deadly downward motion that would end her vampire. Dust. Dust beneath her fingers.
Buffy was jolted from her stunned haze. “NO!” the Slayer shrieked, engulfed in rage and fear. Where she got the strength, she didn’t know, but she found it somewhere deep inside. She launched herself at the man, at the stake, at her nightmare.
She hit Weatherby like a featherweight linebacker, but it was enough to knock him off her vampire and onto the grass. The impact sent agonizing jolts of fire and ice racing through her body, and she gasped, trying to fight through the pain. The stake flew from Weatherby’s hand and he grunted in shock when she hit him. They rolled a couple of times before coming to rest with him atop her. His fist connected with the Slayer’s jaw and bright yellow cartoon birdies began to flutter around her head. Buffy bucked and twisted, trying to dislodge him, but he only pushed his body down harder, pinning her down. “Oh, yeah, a feisty one, you are,” Weatherby taunted, grinding his hips against her lewdly before drawing his fist back and hitting her again. “We’ll have a grand time on the flight back, you and I.”
Buffy reached up blindly as the cartoon birdies turned into dancing hippos in purple tutus, trying to scratch and claw at his face as he pinned her to the ground. His hand closed around her throat and began to squeeze, cutting off Buffy’s oxygen. All the little cartoon animals began to fade to black as she fought to remain conscious, now clawing furiously at Weatherby’s hand and writhing frantically beneath him, trying to get free.
Suddenly, a ferocious growl rent the air. There was a flash of copper and a spark of blue-white lightning across her dwindling, fuzzy vision. Buffy wasn’t sure if it was real or not, but suddenly the pressure was gone. There was air! She began coughing and choking, clutching at her throat as she rolled over onto hands and knees and began instinctively crawling away from the danger, gasping, trying to breathe. Her head exploded with searing pain as blood rushed back into her skull, and she thought she might pass out just from that. Her eyes were watering, her body was trembling, everything was fuzzy, blurred by pain, fatigue, and tears, but she kept moving – away. ‘Get away.’
She finally flopped onto her ass, blinking, looking back toward the sound of the continuing struggle. It was then she realized it was Spike – her Spike, her dog – who had tackled the man off her and was growling and snarling as he battled with Weatherby. Her attention was drawn away by someone yelling her name warningly. Her head jerked around to see a dark figure closing on her, hand outstretched.
“Buffy! Move!” It was Giles’ voice. She didn’t question the order, just began crab-crawling backwards, away from the dark fingers that were reaching for her, away from the snarling and snapping dog and the cursing man. She kept blinking hard, clearing her vision in time to see a sparkling cloud of black and red dust wash over all three figures. The Slayer didn’t know what it was, but she scrabbled away faster, driven by intuition to not let it touch her.
The dark woman raised her arm in defense, but it was too late, she’d been engulfed in the dust along with the dog and the man. Their movements all slowed then went rigid, the man and dog freezing in mid-battle, the woman falling like a toppled statue to the grass, arm still extended, reaching now for nothing.
“Spike! What… I… Giles… What?” Buffy stammered, her eyes growing wider by the moment. She kept moving away as the glittering mist settled ominously atop the three frozen figures.
“Binding… magic,” Giles croaked out, his own body seizing up, his jaw barely moving. “Not… fatal. Do not t—”
“Giles!” Buffy exclaimed, skirting around the circle of ash and scrambling over to her Watcher. She stopped short of him, seeing that he, too, was coated in the binding magic. Buffy looked around the yard. No one was moving at all. Xander lay where he’d fallen from the roof, the tranq gun not far from his prone form. Spike, the vampire, was unconscious, laying on his back, bleeding profusely, his torso riddled with ghastly bullet holes. Everyone else was covered in a fine layer of ash – Giles, Collins, Weatherby, the black woman she didn’t know, and the Guardian. And, though she couldn’t see them, she knew that Oz and Willow were also unconscious and unmoving up on the roof.
“Not fatal,” Buffy repeated to herself as she scanned the area, trying to keep panic from overwhelming her again. “Do not touch,” she continued, knowing that was what Giles was trying to tell her before he turned to stone.
Her eyes darted from the vampire to her dog and back again. She had to do something! They were bleeding! But she felt as frozen as everyone else as she watched the blood seep from their wounds, life draining away and soaking into the soft ground. Could vampires dust from blood loss? She wasn’t sure, but dogs certainly could – well, not ‘dust’, but die. She looked back at her dog, frozen in place atop the man who had nearly staked Spike, his jaws open, teeth bared over Weatherby’s throat, ready to strike. Globs of saliva dripped his ravening jaws onto Weatherby and the ground beneath, forming a pool of hot goo on the grass.
Buffy’s heart fluttered erratically in her chest and her hands began to tremble again. How could she help him if she couldn’t touch him?
“Buffy?”
The Slayer jumped. Her head jerked around again to find her mom standing in the doorway of the house looking just as confused and frightened as Buffy felt.
“Stay there – it’s… there’s… some kind of magic. I—”
“But Spike!” Joyce exclaimed, taking a couple of steps onto the porch. “He was bleeding, then he just… he got up and…”
“STAY THERE!” Buffy ordered frantically, pushing up to her feet. Her knees felt weak and wobbly and she nearly dropped right back down, but managed to stay upright through sheer force of will.
“But we have to do something! He’s been shot!” Joyce continued, moving forward to the top of the steps.
Buffy could see that her mom was looking at the dog; she hadn’t noticed the vampire. Yet.
“OH MY GOD! SPIKE!”
Okay, now Joyce had noticed the vampire. The frantic woman was hurrying down the stairs, her eyes wide, hand covering her mouth, oblivious to any danger.
“MOM! Stop!” Buffy barked at her, skirting around the zones of magical fairy dust to intercept her. She was beginning to understand Spike’s frustration with people not staying where they were supposed to.
“But… Spike!” Joyce repeated, looking over her daughter’s shoulder as Buffy stepped into her path, blocking her advance. “He’s… is he…?”
“He’s not… not dead,” Buffy assured her, trying to assure herself at the same time as she braced her arms against her mom’s shoulders. “But I need you to focus now – don’t freak out.”
Joyce’s eyes met Buffy’s. Too late for the no-freak-out idea. Why did it always come down to Buffy to keep everyone from freaking out when all she wanted to do was freak out herself!? Spike was unconscious, his body filled with bullets. His whole chest looked like bloody, shredded hamburger and she had no idea how to fix that. Her dog was frozen with magic dust and bleeding from at least one bullet wound. Her Watcher was laying on his side on the grass like a fallen tree, his eyes glazed and vacant. And all her friends were somehow sleeping through it all. She had no idea how to fix ANY of this!
If there was ever a time to freak out, this was it!
“Buffy! What do we do?” Joyce squeaked, sounding more like the child than the parent.
“I don’t know! Okay! I don’t fucking know!” she snapped at her mom, making Joyce flinch back. Buffy closed her eyes, trying to think, but flashes of the last few minutes filled her mind. Spike diving between Weatherby and Giles. The sound of the bullets slamming into his flesh, pulverizing bone and shredding muscles. The coppery smell of blood heavy in the air. The stake raised over her vampire’s chest. The agony that had rippled through her when she hit Weatherby. Her growling dog flying over her, taking the man down. More blood. Always more blood.
“Blood,” she said finally, opening her eyes to find Joyce staring at her with a mixture of worry and fear. “We… we have to stop the blood. We… we need the first-aid kit and gloves and… Um… towels o-or sheets or something. I… maybe if we wash the magic dust off Spike then maybe I can touch him.”
“O-Okay,” Joyce stuttered, turning quickly back to the house, glad to have a task, something she could do. “I-I’ll get that.”
Buffy nodded numbly, looking back at her two Spikes. She wanted nothing more than to crumble. To sink into oblivion. To not see this, to not be here, to not be losing them both. ‘Please don’t let me lose them. Please, please, just let them be okay,’ she prayed silently as she waited for her mom to return.
A horrible wave of isolation, of loneliness, of alone-ness washed over Buffy as her mom disappeared into the house. One girl in all the world… she alone will fight… But that’s not how it was, not for her. She had her friends, her Watcher, and her dog. And the last few days she’d had her vampire. And now they lay strewn around her like so many bent and broken dolls. Bleeding and dying dolls. Tears stung her eyes as she wrung her hands, looking over the destruction all around her. She couldn’t lose them. She just couldn’t! She didn’t want to be alone, didn’t want to face a future without them all in it, including, she realized with a renewed, bone-deep clarity, her vampire. Buffy didn’t want a pen pal; didn’t want him sending postcards from across the globe. She wanted Spike here. Beside her. Part of her life. And, maybe one day, he’d even change his mind about not wanting her heart. But, even if he didn’t, even if they were never more than friends, she wanted him to stay with every fiber of her being.
Buffy stumbled back over to the blond Spike and dropped down onto her knees next to him. Her gorge rose when the house and porch lights flipped on and all that gore, which had looked almost black in the darkness, now shown as a shockingly bright red. Her hand clamped over her mouth and she swallowed hard to keep the bile down, willing herself to not throw up.
As she tried to breathe through the panic, Buffy was assailed with the smell of blood and worse, which made her choke behind her hand as it filled her nostrils and slithered down into her throat and mouth. She could taste it just from the air – taste the carnage – and her stomach roiled again. Then the sound of it hit her. Spike’s heart didn’t pump, but that didn’t mean that liquids didn’t flow, and seep, and drip, fueled by gravity and demon magic, no longer held in place by skin. But Buffy’s eyes suffered most of all. The thick, crimson blood that covered Spike’s torso was the least of it. His flesh had been torn, ripped, mangled beyond recognition. His skin was little more than a memory. His black t-shirt shredded to ribbons and plastered to his body. Shattered bones, bright white against the crimson, poked through at odd angles. Gaping wounds in his stomach showed the glistening snakes of intestines, which had been twisted and tattered by the merciless bullets.
Buffy couldn’t hold it back another moment. She lurched away on hands and knees and retched, her stomach convulsing painfully, spasming with the horror of it. Her fault. This was her fault. And she wanted him to stay? Why would he ever stay? What kind of selfish bitch would even ask him to?
Buffy sat back on her heels and wiped her lips with the back of one hand. Her throat burned with the bile and she thought she’d start puking again as she tried to spit and swallow and clear it from her mouth.
‘Have to help him. Have to be strong.’
Buffy steeled herself and turned back to the downed vampire, moving back to her original spot near his head.
She had no idea how to help him, where to even begin.
Tears of frustration stung her eyes – she seemed to be trapped in an ongoing tide of it lately. Buffy sat back on her heels in despair, dropping her bloody hands onto her thighs. She focused on Spike’s face. It was lax and waxen, much more pale than normal beneath the splatters and smears of blood and dirt. She reached out to stroke his cheek, leaving a streak like war paint amidst the chaos. So cold. She’d never seen him appear quite so dead. Spike was always in motion, fidgeting, fighting, talking, laughing, leering. This stillness was just wrong, so very wrong.
As she stroked his cheek, droplets of blood trickled from her wounded arm, landing in beads across the vampire’s nose and mouth. Spike’s features changed abruptly, the demon emerging, and his tongue darted out, capturing the scarlet manna. Nothing else moved. His eyes never opened, but his tongue continued to search out each miniscule spec of hemoglobin.
Buffy’s heart lurched in her chest, her eyes going wide with realization. She could help him! The Slayer looked down at her slashed arms and quickly found a large glass shard still protruding from the fleshy bit just below her elbow. With her teeth clenched over the pain, Buffy, twisted and pulled the projectile out, opening the wound even larger. Blood flowed like honeyed wine – thick and red and full of life.
She held the wound over his mouth and squeezed, making the blood pour down, splattering his lips. Spike’s mouth opened, his fangs glinting in the low light from the house. It was nothing but reflex, but it was something – it was life, it was hope.
“Swallow it… c’mon, Spike… it won’t help if you don’t—” Buffy begged, her eyes closing in relief as she saw his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed.
Buffy used the bit of glass to open her arm up more, willing her blood out and into him. It wasn’t enough, but it was something. Almost against her will, Buffy’s eyes wandered back to his ravaged torso, trying to think of what she should do next. “God, Spike…” she murmured, taking it all in as her blood fell, pooling in her vampire’s waiting mouth, sliding down his throat. This was her fault. All her fault. If she hadn’t called him. If she hadn’t insisted none of the Council die. If she’d had a better plan. If… if… if…
Her mother clomping heavily down the steps made Buffy jump guiltily. Reckless. Disappointing. Slayers did not freely give their blood to vampires. How many times had she told Spike that very thing? Insist that he’d never taste her blood? The Slayer yanked her bleeding arm away, hoping her mom hadn’t seen what she’d been doing, and pressed the wound against her side to staunch the bleeding. Spike’s tongue continued to quest out, finding every drib and drab that had splashed on his lips, but there were no signs of consciousness or movement beyond that.
Buffy sat back and swiped the tears from her eyes with the back of one wrist, which was the least bloody option. She winced as small splinters of glass raked over her face and were embedded deeper into the back of her hand and wrist. She began picking the shards out mechanically, her jaw clenched, her resolve steeled. Her plan had gone to hell; now it was time to improvise, think on her feet, and try not to freak the fuck out.
She had to be that glorious, strong Slayer now – for Spike. For her dog. For all her friends. Even for Giles. She didn’t have time for these tears, didn’t have time for guilt or blame now. She had to be the Slayer; she could be a girl later… she hoped.
** X-X-X-X-X **
A few minutes later, Giles had been doused with cold water from the garden hose. The ash had washed away, sinking into the grass and running down the walk to the street. She’d started with him, hoping he could tell her just how to fix everyone else. But, even with the dust gone, he still didn’t move, not even to shiver from the cold. Buffy had thought it would bring him around immediately, but apparently not.
Maybe she had to have magic water to get rid of magic dust. Or holy water? She might need water from the Ganges River for all she knew! Buffy hazarded touching him and nothing happened to her, so that was one plus, at least. With grunts of effort, Buffy and Joyce dragged him out of the mud and up onto the porch. They found the wound in his leg, loosened the tourniquet and dressed it with clean bandages. The bleeding had mostly stopped, so they covered him with a blanket and left him, hoping he’d wake up soon. It was all either of them could think to do.
Prioritizing the wounded, they turned their attention to Spike, the dog, next.
Buffy trained the garden hose on Weatherby and Spike. The two were locked together, dog atop man, jaws frozen mid-snap, teeth bared, the man’s hands wrapped around the dog’s throat, holding him off. There was no way to clean one off without the other, and no way to get her dog from the man’s grip without first rinsing off the dust.
Even though Giles hadn’t moved after being washed off, Buffy was taking no chances. Her mother stood with Xander’s tranq gun aimed more or less at Weatherby, the barrel wavering with her trembling fingers.
“Why don’t you take the gun and I’ll handle the water?” Joyce asked for the third time, her nerves fluttering in her voice.
“No! I don’t want you that close, just in case he wakes up.”
“I don’t want you that close, either!” Joyce snipped back as Buffy began to hose down the two frozen combatants.
“I’m the Slayer. It’s my job!” Buffy reminded her curtly, getting even closer to make sure she saturated Spike’s thick, almost impenetrable fur with the stream of clear water.
“And I’m the mom!” Joyce shot back, the gun veering off to one side, aiming more at Buffy than at Weatherby.
“Which means you stay back! Hey! Watch where you’re pointing that!” Buffy admonished as a deep puddle formed and her feet began to sink into the saturated lawn.
Joyce quickly pointed the gun back at the man on the ground, looking contrite and more than a little fearful.
“Do you see any more on him?” Buffy asked worriedly, leaning over to try and see all parts of her huge dog.
Joyce took a step closer and helped her daughter look, the gun again forgotten, resting in the crook of her elbow. “I think you’ve got it.”
Buffy gave one more sweep of the spray over Spike’s coppery mane and let go of the trigger on the nozzle. She dropped the hose and stepped up to her dog’s head, her feet squishing wetly in the sodden grass. “I’m so gonna need new shoes after this,” Buffy complained as she gripped either side of Spike’s big head, burying her fingers into his ruff, and yanked, trying to free him from Weatherby’s grip.
The man and dog both jerked with the effort.
Joyce jumped, swung the gun at the man, and fired.
Buffy let go and lurched back, her eyes wide. She overbalanced and fell onto her ass in the puddle, muddy water splashing everywhere. “Mom!” she chastised, scrambling back to her feet and giving her mother a contemptuous look.
“Sorry! I just… he moved, and I panicked! I told you I should do the water!” she defended, looking up at her daughter with wide, disbelieving eyes.
Buffy huffed out a breath and looked down. Joyce had actually managed to hit Weatherby with the dart, right in the meaty part of his thigh. The Slayer shrugged. “Good shot. Better reload it. Xander has more in that green duffel bag.”
Joyce forced a tremulous smile at the compliment before hurrying over to where Xander lay in the yard to get another dart.
Buffy was starting to shiver from the cold now; her whole backside was wet and dirty, as were her hands and arms, and her shoes were totally ruined. Someone owed her a trip to Macy’s when this was over! She sighed and shook her head as she began working to free Spike again. She pried on Weatherby’s fingers with all her strength. The first finger cracked sickeningly, bending backwards at an unnatural angle. Buffy scrunched up her face in a mix of revulsion and vengeful satisfaction, moving on to the next finger, and the next. With repulsively loud cracks and pops, which left the man’s fingers mangled and twisted, she managed to get them all free from Spike’s throat.
As he was released, the dog fell onto this side and a soft whimper of pain gurgled from his throat. “God, Spike… baby,” Buffy moaned, leaning in close and petting him softly. “I’ve got to move you… it might hurt, but… I can’t see here, can’t see where you’re bleeding. Okay?”
Spike let out a feeble whine that Buffy took to be understanding… and consent? Her heart twisted. She hoped that’s what it meant.
Buffy did her best to be gentle as she began dragging the large, wet dog out of the mud and onto the relative cleanliness of the cement walk.
That was easier said than done. The dog was heavy – much heavier than Giles – and stiff. He sank into the soft, wet earth, his shoulder digging a furrow in the lawn, making it that much harder to move him. She winced every time the dog made a sound, but kept going – there was no choice. Buffy panted and pulled with all the strength of her back and legs trying shift him. She remembered a show she’d seen where engineers tried to explain how the pyramids were built, how they’d gotten those heavy blocks to the site and into place. This felt something like that, only without the helpful throngs of laborers.
Finally, Buffy managed to drag the dog up onto the walkway and she collapsed onto her knees in front of him. Spike’s eyes, like Giles’ were open and unblinking. She leaned in close to look into his eyes, hoping it would be some comfort to him. “I’m here, Spikey, it’s okay. Gonna get you fixed up, everything will be okay, baby,” she assured him as she tried to regain her breath, petting his wide head and smoothing his long, wet hair down. “We’re gonna get cheeseburgers when this is over. All the cheeseburgers in town, I promise – you just have to be okay. You hear me? Just be okay.” With a final deep inhalation to soothe her aching lungs, she dropped a kiss on his forehead and began searching for the source of the blood.
It wasn’t hard to see where he was bleeding now that he was on the white walkway. He’d been shot in his back leg. Her mom had brought out a couple of battery-operated lanterns with the first-aid supplies, and Buffy pulled one up closer so she could see. She dug through his fur trying to find the wound itself. It took a bit of doing, his hair was so thick, but she finally tracked down the bullet hole. She grabbed a pair of scissors from the first-aid kit and started trimming his hair quickly, leaving uneven, choppy tufts behind until she could see the wound. Her fingers felt all around and found a matching exit wound on the other side. She sighed in relief – she wasn’t going to have to dig a bullet out, at least.
“This is gonna hurt,” she murmured to the dog after trimming more hair away from the other side of his leg and exposing the gaping, bruised and swollen exit wound. Her mom had come up and was petting his head, trying to offer comfort as her daughter worked. Buffy poured peroxide over the wound, flushing it from both sides. A pitiful, heartbreaking whine fell from the dog’s open jaws and Buffy flinched, grimacing as if the pain were hers.
“Sorry! Sorry, sorry, sorry,” she chanted, her heart twisting in guilt as she cleaned the wound. Joyce began cooing to him softly, doing what she could to help keep him calm and comforted. He probably needed stitches and antibiotics, but Buffy could barely do this, no way she could add more pain and stitch him up. The only antibiotics she had were in the form of an ointment, and she applied it liberally, trying to get it into the hole as far as she could, making Spike keen even more miserably.
“Sorry,” the Slayer continued to repeat, and it was true. She was sorry. He was hurt because of her. Everyone here was hurt because of her. Buffy swallowed back her tears – she didn’t have time for them now. There was more to do, so much more. Her eyes darted to the lifeless vampire still lying in the grass, and her stomach churned and considered making another run for it. Everyone was hurt because of her.
Buffy tore a strip off a sheet to wrap around the dog’s leg to keep it clean. The bleeding had mostly stopped by the time she was done. “I love you so much. I’m so sorry, baby,” Buffy murmured into Spike’s ear once she’d finished. “I promise lots of cheeseburgers… okay? But first I have to…” Buffy looked over at the vampire again, her stomach was still trying to make a break for it. “I just have to fix Spike, then we’ll all have cheeseburgers, okay?”
The dog moaned, this time sounding understanding and even hopeful. His tongue moved the tiniest bit, as if trying to lick her. Buffy’s eyes went wide. “Did you see that?” she asked her mom, pulling back. “His tongue!”
Joyce lifted the light and stared. For several long moments, nothing happened, then Spike’s tongue moved again. “And he blinked!” Buffy noticed then. “He’s blinking! He’s… oh, God, he’s unfreezing! Thank God,” she sighed, flinging her arms around her furry friend, and hugging him tight. “You’re gonna be all right. It’s gonna be all right,” she vowed against his wet fur, tears of relief flowing freely from her bleary eyes. She wanted desperately to just skip to the cheeseburgers, to have this all over with, to have both her Spikes, and all her friends, well and whole again. But, as with everything in her life, there were no shortcuts. Wishes were not horses. No one would ride.
Buffy sighed and buried her face deeper in her dog’s thick fur, taking comfort from his solid strength. She could feel his steady heartbeat and hear his soft, somehow reassuring, whimper that burbled from his throat as the warmth of his body began to seep into her. “Cheeseburgers,” she promised quietly. “Soon.”
STORY BOARD
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link: https://flic.kr/p/2kS31fS
** X-X-X-X-X **
End Notes:
If Spike were talking, I think he’d say this whole thing went pear shaped....
Chapter 21: My Friend
Chapter Text
Chapter Notes:
Thanks to all of you for reading! It means so much to me, like French fries for my muse! Sending all the sloppy, joyful doggie kisses to everyone who has left a note, a like or a kudo. I’m working on replying to all your lovely comments and treasure every one of them.
Thanks also my two wonderful Beta readers and friends: Holi117 and Paganbaby, and to TeamEricNSookie for pre-reading. All mistakes are mine because I keep fiddling with stuff. If you see any, PM me and I’ll fix it.
Chapter 21: My Friend
Buffy wished she could just keep hugging her big dog and not have to deal with anything else tonight. She was overwhelmed and exhausted, mentally, physically, and emotionally. But there was more to do. Her friends needed her. Friends who had sacrificed and fought and been hurt, for her. She knew that Xander was still out, still breathing, seemingly asleep. They’d checked on him when they’d retrieved the tranq gun. Oz and Willow were the same, still up on the roof; Joyce had checked on them when she’d gone upstairs to get the big first aid kit. There didn’t seem to be anything she could do for them, and they didn’t seem to be in immediate danger, but her vampire was still broken and bleeding on the lawn.
With a deep inhalation to steel herself for what was to come, she reluctantly, but determinedly, pushed herself away from her furry friend. While Joyce got Spike’s thick coat dried off as much as possible, Buffy took the industrial-sized first-aid kit and the light over to where the vampire lay, still unmoving. As far as she could tell, he’d not been hit by the magic fairy dust, just bullets. She snorted to herself and shook her head – just bullets. That meant that he’d lost consciousness from the pain. Pain that he was suffering because of her. Her heart clenched agonizingly in her chest, twisted with guilt. ‘My fault… all my fault.’
Buffy knelt next to the vampire and forced herself to take in the devastation, now aided by the bright lantern. It wasn’t any better than it had been earlier. Skin shredded, flesh mutilated, bones shattered, guts mangled, with blood and gore coating it all.
Her stomach had not changed its mind about this – it was on the verge of another all-out revolt. Her heart, too, was skittering and thumping wildly against her ribs, wanting to escape. “God, Spike,” she murmured, running her fingers gently over his forehead. Blood from the deeper slices on her arms still ran, leaving a new, glistening stripe of red on his skin in their wake. Her fingers trembled. Her arms ached. Her throat was dry, her eyes were damp, and her courage was waning. How was she supposed to play a life-size game of Operation with shaking hands and blurry eyes?
“Buffy?” Joyce asked softly as she came up behind her daughter. “What can I do?”
Buffy sniffed and swiped at her eyes, shaking her head. “I’m… I’m not sure. I think I need to get these bullets out. I don’t know…” She sighed, chewing her bottom lip worriedly. She’d shot Angelus that one time, at the high school when they’d been possessed by ghosts, but she had no idea if he’d left the bullet in or gotten it out. She had no idea if a vampire would just heal around bullets, or if their bodies would eventually push them out or…
Buffy sighed again and rubbed at her tired eyes with blood-stained fingers. She should ask Angel. She didn’t want to ask Angel. She didn’t want Angel anywhere near this complete fiasco she’d made. She could hear his condescending tone, asking why she hadn’t called him, telling her what a fool she’d been to try and do all this without him. Of course, he’d blame everything on Spike, and none of this was Spike’s fault. The plan had been going fine until the Council had tossed their hostage onto the sidewalk and started kicking him. Spike had lost his temper, but no more than Buffy had. In the end, he’d saved Giles. He’d dived between an Uzi and her Watcher and taken every one of those bullets for a man who had betrayed her. And he’d done it, she knew, not for Giles, but for her. Spike knew that, despite everything, she’d never want Giles dead, and watching him die would’ve ripped her apart.
She wasn’t sure Angel would’ve done that.
Buffy blinked back her tears and ran a hand over her face again, smearing dirt and blood over her skin, trying to get her rampaging emotions corralled. She had to decide – she couldn’t just sit here shaking and watch her vampire bleed. “I think I need to get them out,” she announced tentatively.
“Okay,” Joyce agreed, kneeling down next to her daughter. She began rummaging in the first-aid kit and came out with a large set of tweezer-like things. “Will these work?”
Buffy looked over, still blinking to clear her vision, but nodded. She curled her hands into fists, trying to get them to stop shaking. She didn’t need to hurt him worse!
“Do you… do you want me to do it?” Joyce offered, though Buffy could tell it was reluctant, less than half-hearted.
‘YES!’ Buffy thought. ‘Please! Fix him!’ But she shook her head negatively. She’d made this mess, she needed to clean it up. Spike had been brave enough – or foolish enough – to take those bullets. She needed to be at least brave enough – or foolish enough — to get them out. “I’ve got it,” she replied somberly, trying to sound more confident than she felt.
The Slayer took a deep breath and searched for her focus as she let it out, her determination growing. Isn’t that how this all started? That stupid rock and Giles making her learn to focus? To block everything else out and concentrate on the mission at hand? Well, maybe some good could come of that, after all.
With one final exhalation, Buffy opened her eyes. Mimicking surgeries she’d seen on TV, Buffy put her hand out and said in the tone of a doctor asking for a surgical instrument from the O.R. Nurse, “Scissors.”
Taking the cue, Joyce slapped the scissors into her daughter’s hand. Buffy looked over at her mom, who gave her a reassuring nod. Buffy returned it, then did her best to channel Doogie Howser, MD as she turned her attention to her patient.
Spike’s t-shirt was shredded almost past recognition, and not in an artful or fashionable way. It was also soaked with blood and stuck to his wounds as she lifted the hem and began cutting it away. The nauseating squelching sound it made when she peeled it back from his chest and stomach was one Buffy knew would be featured in her nightmares for years to come. The Slayer swallowed back the bile that was bubbling at the back of her throat – doctors did not puke on their patients! She was pretty sure that was a rule. ‘Be a doctor, be a doctor, be a doctor,’ she chanted mentally as she gave her mom the scissors back. ‘Oh, God – I don’t wanna be a doctor! Ever!’
“Buffy?” Joyce asked again, cautiously.
Buffy cleared her throat and tried to shake off the wiggins that was threatening to engulf her. “I’m okay, um… tweezer thingies,” she said, trying to sound doctorly as she opened her hand, palm up.
Joyce put the long tweezers into her hand and Buffy closed her fingers around them. “You can do this,” she muttered to herself, leaning forward and peering down at the myriad of horrific wounds covering Spike’s torso.
It was difficult to even tell where the bullets went in. There was so much carnage she could see right through to his literal guts – an experience she really had never wanted to have again after the bear attack last year. You’d think there would be at least one bullet glinting in the light that she could pluck out, but no. Not a single one presented itself for easy removal. ‘Of course not, why would anything start being easy now?’
Buffy decided to start with a wound in his shoulder nearest her. It seemed to be the least mangled of her choices, looking more or less like a bullet hole. Holding her breath and doing her best to keep her hand steady, she slipped the instrument into the hole, but it hit something mushy and stopped. Definitely not a bullet. She grimaced, realizing that she needed to go in at the exact angle the bullet had gone in, which really wasn’t easy to determine without other doctor-y stuff, like, say, x-rays or MRIs, or you know, an actual doctor. She took another steadying breath and tried again. And again. And again. “God, please!” she begged desperately, trying again.
Finally, she hit something hard. With a sigh of relief, she gripped the projectile and pulled it free of the vampire’s body. The wound was bleeding profusely from all her botched attempts to find the right angle. This was what she’d feared – doing more harm than good. But she didn’t know what else to do. She couldn’t very well take him to the hospital! And she absolutely wasn’t going to get Angel. It was up to her – she had to do this, had to help him. She just needed to do a less crappy job of helping. Maybe she should channel a better doctor… Hawkeye or Trapper John, perhaps?
Buffy dropped the misshapen, copper projectile into her mom’s hand. One down, five million to go.
Joyce placed a comforting hand on her daughter’s shoulder, afraid to speak lest the sick bubbling at the back of her throat took that opportunity to escape. Buffy looked up and met her eyes for several long moments. Her little girl… Tears blurred Joyce’s eyes and she blinked them back, trying to hold everything in, to be strong for the brave young woman her little girl had grown into. Joyce knew the smile she conjured was more ghastly than assuring, but it was all she could muster, along with an encouraging nod. Buffy returned the gestures, both women swallowing back their tumbling emotions, before the Slayer returned to her task.
As Buffy searched for more bullets, she couldn’t decide which was worse – the sickening gurgling sounds Spike’s body made as she shifted shredded muscles and torn organs aside, or the squishy, slippery feel of them beneath her fingers. Or maybe it was the acrid scent of blood, bile, cordite and other unidentifiable, yet equally unpleasant, odors that clogged her nose. Her eyes, at least, seemed to have gone numb to the grisly input of gory destruction they were bathed in – if only she could get her other senses to do the same.
Pushing through all that, she found a second bullet lodged in what she assumed was Spike’s liver, based on the location and what she could see of it through the torn flesh. She’d done a better job getting it out than the first, leaving his liver mostly intact.
Did vampires need livers? Did they need any of these organs? Where, exactly, did the food Spike ate go? What happened to it? She had no idea, and honestly was only thinking about it because if she didn’t keep her mind occupied with trivialities, she was pretty sure she’d lose it completely as she dug into the ghastly remains of Spike’s previously Adonis-like torso.
After the relative success of the second bullet, Buffy was frustrated by the third, which was giving her a problem. Joyce had lifted the light, trying to give Buffy a better view, but even that hadn’t helped. It was buried somewhere beneath what used to be Spike’s navel, cocooned in folds of either stomach or intestines, she wasn’t sure. She’d found the right angle pretty quickly, gotten ahold of it with the tweezers, but it wasn’t coming out. She pulled and twisted and tried to work it free, but something was holding it in place. Based on the location, she didn’t think it could be in a bone. Was his body healing around it, holding it in?
With little choice, Buffy wiggled it, turned it this way, then that, and used the tweezers to enlarge the hole, making it even wider, sending a thick stream of blood gushing onto the saturated ground below. Buffy grimaced as if she were stabbing into her own flesh, and finally, in utter desperation, yanked as hard as she could.
The bullet came free, ripping the wound even wider and leaving splinters of… Buffy froze, her heart swelling with terror and threatening to suffocate her. She held the bullet up at eye level, her gaze disbelieving, her mind trying to process what it was seeing. It wasn’t copper or lead or any other metal they made bullets out of. It was not like the other two bullets she’d pulled from him. It wasn’t metal at all.
It was wood.
Splintered wood.
Deadly wood.
It was misshapen. Bits of it were missing, still in the wound. The pointed end had gone in fine, but the gunpowder had mushroomed the bigger end, shredding it so it wasn’t a smooth projectile, but a tangle of ragged, wooden barbs which were embedded into Spike’s muscles and organs. That’s why it wouldn’t come out, and all the twisting she’d done had only stabbed the fragments in deeper and broken them off.
If that had been next to Spike’s heart…
Buffy stopped breathing.
Her mind reeled.
Her heart twisted.
The nightmare wasn’t over. He could still dust right beneath her hand.
“Buffy?” Joyce asked with concern, touching a hand to her daughter’s shoulder.
The Slayer gasped, gulping air into her aching lungs at the touch. She scanned their patient’s chest with wide, frightened eyes. How many were near his heart? Three? Four? Five? So many of the holes overlapped, it wasn’t easy to tell. How many of the bullets were wooden? What if she stabbed one right into his heart trying to get it out? What if he moved, shifted just the wrong way, and was gone in a puff of smoke?
“What in the world?” Joyce breathed, her brows furrowed as she examined what Buffy was holding.
Buffy swallowed, trying to get her heart back down into her chest, and dropped the wooden bullet into her mother’s hand.
“Wood,” the Slayer croaked, her eyes still fixed to Spike’s chest. “Some of the bullets are made of wood.”
“Oh, God,” Joyce murmured, realization dawning on her. “But… they missed, right? They… it’s okay because they missed his heart, like I did with the stake. He’ll be okay… right?”
Tears suddenly overwhelmed Buffy. She blinked rapidly, but wasn’t able to keep them from spilling out. How was she supposed to do this? How in the world could she possibly get them out? But if leaving them in had been an option before, it absolutely wasn’t an option now, and who else was there? Hot, frustrated tears blurred her vision, washing streaks on her dirt-and-blood-stained cheeks.
“We… I… have to get them out. His heart… if they touch… if they go into his heart…” the Slayer stammered in reply.
Joyce cleared the devastating emotions from her throat so she could speak again. “How… how big does the wood have to be to…?”
Buffy shook her head. She honestly had no idea. It might take nothing more than one of those tiny splinters, smaller than a toothpick, to dust a vampire. To dust her vampire. “I think… I think not much.”
“So, we need to get it all out,” Joyce summarized dazedly.
Buffy nodded blankly, her eyes still staring down at the holes around Spike’s heart. The Slayer sat there, immobilized by fear. They had to come out, but she made no move to begin. Her most unbreakable friend was in danger of breaking horribly and irreparably right under her hands. She longed to hear him taunt her for just sitting here, doing nothing. The annoying, stupid vampire would undoubtedly tell her to just get on with it. ‘Gonna let a few little bits o’ kindling scare ya? Thought you were the sodding Slayer!’
But even with Spike’s voice in her head goading her on, Buffy stayed frozen in place, tweezers squeezed tightly between her numb fingers, gazing hopelessly at the field of landmines peppering her vampire’s — her friend’s — sternum.
Then a warm, strong hand closed over her shoulder. She looked over at her mom, but Joyce was looking up and behind Buffy. The Slayer’s gaze slowly followed her mother’s to find the owner of the hand. “Giles,” she rasped, desperation and relief pouring out of her. “They… some are… wooden bullets,” Buffy stammered, gesturing for her mother to show him the one she’d just dug out.
Giles was still wet and obviously freezing. He clutched the blanket around himself with one trembling hand, shivering against the chilly night air. He stood mostly on one leg, the other barely touching down for balance. The hand holding the blanket was bleeding and he was hunched over, looking quite broken, clearly in agony from the beating he’d taken.
The Watcher looked at the splintered bullet, then down at Spike’s ravaged torso and visibly paled – which was an impressive feat, given how ashen he already looked. Those bullets had been meant for him. He’d been staring right down the barrel of the gun only a moment before it fired. All those holes would’ve been in him if the vampire hadn’t jumped between himself and the gun just in the nick of time.
“I… I can’t,” Buffy croaked, her red-rimmed, shimmering eyes a mask of utter despair.
Giles squeezed her shoulder and nodded, gathering himself. “I can.”
** X-X-X-X-X **
Joyce retrieved Giles’ glasses from the shrubbery – luckily unbroken – then helped the freezing, injured man into the house to get cleaned up. Buffy stayed by Spike’s side, afraid to leave lest he wake up and try to move and dust himself. For once she was glad she didn’t have her Slayer strength and thus, had not tried to move Spike, being too tired after moving his namesake and Giles. The feeling of his solid flesh turning to dust beneath her fingers that had been so vivid in her nightmare wouldn’t leave her. She kept hold of his arm, constantly assuring herself that he was not dust, he was not dust, he was not dust…
The guilt was a tangible weight on her shoulders. She’d gotten him into this, called him, ranting and crying and begging for help. He wouldn’t have been here otherwise, wouldn’t have been chewed up and spit out like a piece of meat through a grinder. And now she couldn’t even get her hands to stop shaking enough to get the bullets out, to help him. Buffy tried again, clenching her free hand into a fist to stem the trembling, but when she opened it, her fingers twitched and shuddered as if they had minds of their own. Her nerves were shot, that’s all there was to it. And, whatever drugs Giles had given her to slow her reflexes and dampen her strength, clearly weren’t letting her recover from it.
As she looked at her hand, willing it to stop spasming, she saw the gashes in her arm, some still oozing blood. Buffy hazarded a look at the house. Giles and her mom were nowhere to be seen. She chewed her lip nervously. They wouldn’t understand. No one would understand. But it was all she could do now for the vampire who’d stood with her, who’d sacrificed himself for her, who’d come when she’d called because they were friends. Working quickly, she reopened the deepest wound on her arm, scratching at it with dirty, jagged nails. She pumped her fist to increase the circulation and squeezed her forearm, watching the crimson liquid begin to flow again, then tipped it over her vampire’s lips. Just like earlier, Spike’s tongue darted out, his lips parting as the blood dripped and splattered over his mouth.
“Please be okay,” she whispered, wincing as she opened the cut more, urging more blood from the ragged gash in her flesh. “Please just be okay, Spike. I need my friend… I need you,” she begged hoarsely, her voice clogged with guilt and worry.
He didn’t awaken. He didn’t reply. The only movement came from the instinct of the demon, his tongue searching for life, for the healing power of blood.
“Please, Spike,” Buffy chanted, leaning over him as her tears fell, dripping down with her blood to soak her vampire’s lips.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Half an hour later, Giles was washed, dried, and sufficiently warmed enough to stop his hands from shaking. His bleeding wounds had been tended to, and he’d downed a few Ibuprofen to try and mask some of the pain that radiated from his ribs, spine, and throbbing leg. The man hadn’t dared even look at his back – he’d worry about how bad it was later. He’d added a couple of instruments to the surgical kit – a utility knife with a new blade, a pair of needle-nose pliers, and a cup to save the bullets in so they could make sure they got them all.
While Giles had been cleaning up, Joyce hunted down a long extension cord that would reach the yard. With that, she plugged in a bright electric light for them to work by, as the battery-powered lanterns were starting to dim.
“I’m going to begin with some of these beneath the sternum,” Giles explained, gasping in pain as he lowered himself gingerly to the damp, cold grass next to the inert vampire. “To perfect the technique away from his heart.”
Buffy nodded, not taking her eyes off their patient.
“This will be quite painful. If he awakes, I will need you to hold him perfectly still,” he continued.
Buffy goggled up at him, slack jawed. How was she supposed to keep Spike still without her Slayer power?
“It is quite imperative that he not move,” Giles pointed out.
Buffy shook her head slightly, but swallowed hard and then nodded, silently chanting, ‘Don’t wake up, please, don’t wake up.’
Buffy and Giles both jumped when they heard the sound of the tranq gun firing and the resultant ‘thud’ as the dart hit flesh. They looked around to see Joyce with the gun trained on the dark-skinned woman; the colorful dart embedded in the woman’s thigh. “Sorry,” she apologized meekly. “I saw her blink… I thought…” Joyce shrugged helplessly.
Giles nodded. “Yes, very good. Perhaps you should do the same with others now. We can ill afford distractions during this process.”
Joyce gave him a small smile and a nod before retrieving the last dart from Xander’s bag, loading the gun, and taking aim.
“Wait—” Buffy started to call – an idea coming to her – but it was too late, Joyce had fired and Collins had a matching dart in his leg.
Joyce cringed, looking at her daughter. “Was that wrong?”
Buffy sighed and shook her head. “No... I just thought maybe we should use one on Spike,” she explained. “Check Xander’s pockets, maybe there’s another one?”
Joyce did, but there weren’t any more darts. Buffy sighed and renewed her mental chant that Spike not wake up.
Giles took a breath and picked up the sharp-bladed knife. Buffy winced as he cut away ravaged flesh until he found the bullet’s trajectory. He then slashed a deep, wide ‘X’, opening the path up even wider. With only a little coaxing, the hole gaped open and the glint of a metal bullet could be seen in the bright light. Giles extracted it, looking at it curiously in the light.
“Fascinating,” he muttered before dropping it into the cup with the others.
“It’s a bullet – it’s not fascinating, it’s disgusting,” Buffy seethed through clenched teeth.
Giles seemed to have forgotten she was there, lost in thought. His head jerked over to her. “What? Oh, yes, of course. I simply meant…” He waved a hand at Spike’s body. “These projectiles, at least the brass ones, should have gone through his flesh and exited out the back, or perhaps embedded into his spine.”
Buffy’s eyes went wide again, her throat closing up. She hadn’t even thought of that! What if he was paralyzed again?
“Most of the damage would typically be on the exit,” he continued. “Not the entrance. But, instead, they seem to have blown his flesh apart on impact and then… well, stopped a few inches in. It’s quite peculiar.” Giles looked over at the inert from of the witch, pursing his lips in thought.
“S-so…” Buffy croaked, then had to clear her throat when her dry mouth stopped the rest of her words. “So… his spine is… ummm, okay?”
Giles gave a small shrug, then winced from pain with the motion. “That remains to be seen. But these bullets were certainly meant to remain in the body, I presume, to travel about within and do the most damage. I theorize they may have had some magical enchantment applied to them. And, clearly, by interspersing wooden projectiles within the clip with the conventional bullets, they were well prepared to face vampires. I wouldn’t be surprised if we find a silver bullet or two within the mix, as well.”
“For Oz…” Buffy breathed.
Giles nodded. “They took my diaries… they know, everything. I should’ve realized they would’ve brought a witch to counter Willow.” He sighed heavily, guilt and remorse weighing heavily on his shoulders. “It’s really a wonder Spike survived the initial barrage. Quite lucky.”
“Lucky,” Buffy repeated morosely. Leave it to the Council to make guns even more horrible than they already were.
Giles sighed, looking down at the mangled vampire. That could’ve been him, should’ve been him. And if it had been, he’d be most assuredly dead. In fact, he’d quite expected to be dead, and yet… What in the world had prompted Spike to intervene? To take these bullets for him? He looked over at Buffy, who had her worried eyes trained on Spike’s face, clearly avoiding looking at the grisly horror of the vampire’s torso. Giles shook himself, now wasn’t the time to ask.
The Watcher moved on to the next wound, looking for wooden bullets to practice on. By the time Giles got to the cluster of holes around Spike’s heart, he’d found three other wooden bullets. It had taken an excruciatingly long time to remove them and all the tiny splinters, even after cutting the wounds wide and pulling the bleeding flesh back from the deadly projectiles.
Spike’s stomach, already disfigured by the magically enhanced bullets, was now also covered in at least a dozen gruesome, bleeding ‘X’s, like some sick game of one-sided tic-tac-toe. Giles’ forehead was beaded with sweat, despite the cool night air, and he had to stop periodically and stretch his neck and hand to release the cramps that were forming. Buffy didn’t like any of that. Yes, he’d practiced, which was of the good, but now he was extra-uber-exhausted, which was not of the good.
“Can you do this?” she asked worriedly as Giles sat back and rolled his head around on his neck, making it pop and crack audibly.
Giles stopped realigning his cervical vertebrae and looked over at her gravely. “While nothing is guaranteed, I believe that I can, yes. Do you trust me?”
Buffy snorted and rolled her eyes, looking away from him and out at the armored car still parked in front of her house.
“I realize that I have not earned it, but it was, and still is, my intention to do so. I am here to help—”
“By getting yourself taken prisoner?” she shot back bitterly, turning her frustrated gaze back on him. “We had a plan – it would’ve worked until you went and got turned into the clichéd, plan-destroying hostage guy. Spike wouldn’t be… be—” Her voice gave out, but the flash of anger in her eyes finished her thought perfectly well.
Giles met her eyes and forced himself not to flinch. He saw rage and fear there – a deadly combination in a Slayer, even a weakened one. “I underestimated Travers. He sent a witch with them,” he revealed, nodding toward the unconscious woman. “I… I thought I could stop them coming for you. I failed. Again.”
Buffy’s eyes flicked to the dark woman and nodded. Spike had been right about that. She worked to rein in her fury and her fear. She couldn’t change the past. She had to focus on getting everyone through this, starting with where they were. Blame and recriminations could come later. “She knocked Xander, Oz, and Willow out with magic… they’re unconscious. Do you know how to fix that?”
Giles cleared his throat and removed his glasses, pulling out a relatively clean scrap of bedsheet turned surgical towel to polish them with. “I will have to consult my books, but I’m confident we can find a counter spell to revive them unharmed,” he replied, finally returning his glasses and looking back up at Buffy. “But I don’t believe they are in any immediate danger. Spike, however…”
Buffy looked back down at the deathly-still vampire, focusing on the cluster of cavities around his heart that didn’t have ‘X’s cut over them. The air between Slayer and Watcher grew thick and silent with unexpressed emotion, regret and anger, shame and disappointment, disgrace, and heartache.
Finally, Giles asked again, “Shall I continue? Do you trust me?” He dreaded her answer, but he had to know. Had to know where he stood with his Slayer. He’d lost her respect, her trust, he knew that, but he wanted desperately to earn it back. He needed her to allow him that chance. Just a glimmer of trust would be enough for now.
Buffy shook her head negatively, trying to decide, before looking back at him. Giles seemed to have aged twenty years in the space of a few days. She looked down at his hands which were coated in blood – both his own and Spike’s. They were steady, not trembling like hers were. She couldn’t do this – he’d done a few now, gotten the wooden bullets out in their entirety, even the smallest sliver had been removed from each wound. “I don’t have any choice,” she murmured, meeting his eyes again. “Don’t fuck it up.”
Giles suppressed an ironic smile. “I shall diligently endeavor to not, as you so eloquently put it, fuck it up,” he assured her, picking up the knife and turning his attention back to his task. He’d no sooner begun the first slash to form the ‘X’ when the vampire shrieked and began thrashing beneath the blade.
“Spike! Stop! No!” Buffy screamed, pressing both hands down desperately on his shoulders.
“Keep him still!” Giles ordered, pushing the flat of his free hand down on Spike’s ravaged stomach to try and help, but it only made it worse as another agonized wail tore from the vampire’s throat. Joyce, who had been watching from a few feet away, hurried forward and tried to grab Spike’s legs, but he kicked her off, sending the woman sprawling onto the muddy ground with a squeal of surprised pain.
“I’M TRYING!” Buffy barked back, lurching around so her knees were on the lawn above Spike’s head. This allowed her to push down equally on his shoulders, using her entire upper body to try and hold him. If he hadn’t been riddled with bullets and leaking his borrowed blood for the last couple of hours, she would’ve been thrown off like her mom had been. As it was, she was losing the battle with the pain-maddened vampire, which meant she could be losing him. Permanently. “Spike! Look at me! Spike!” she begged, her face right above his. “LOOK AT ME!”
“Damn it, man!” Giles cursed in frustration, moving his hand away from the worst injuries and pressing down instead on one of the vampire’s hips. “Be still!”
But Spike was clearly in too much pain to hear them. His demon had taken over and his golden eyes were wild and unseeing, filled with a bone-deep fear Buffy had never witnessed before in any demon, even as she drew her killing blow. Spike thrashed and writhed and fought to escape the agony, to be free of the all-encompassing pain. Every roar and whimper, every lurch, cut into the Slayer as if they were her own.
“Spike, please! It’s me! Buffy!” the girl screamed urgently, struggling with every ounce of strength she could muster from her drugged, battered, and exhausted body to hold him still, tears beginning to fall from her ears at the awful sight. “There’s wood in your chest! Stop moving!”
“Buffy! Do something!” Joyce cried, as she sat up, rubbing a hand over what she knew would be a magnificent bruise right in the center of her chest.
“I’m trying!”
Buffy knew the look in Spike’s eyes. It wasn’t just pain or fear, it was both of those compounded by hunger. Not like ‘I missed breakfast’ hunger or even ‘fasting for a blood test’ hunger, but ‘concentration camp’ hunger. His body was trying to heal, but he didn’t have enough blood to fuel it, even with what she’d given him. Too much had leaked out and soaked into the soil of her front yard.
“BLOOD! Mom! Get him blood!” Buffy ordered frantically, struggling against the ravenous vampire, who had begun snapping viciously at the Slayer’s flesh, her arms, her throat, anything was fair game to the wild demon. Buffy realized then she’d made a mistake. She’d made herself into food by giving him her blood. And now the open wounds on her arms were driving him mad, turning him into a crazed animal driven by a vampire’s desperate hunger and instinct for survival.
Joyce jumped up, clutching her bruised ribs, and ran for the house. One shoe was sucked into the mud and pulled off her foot as she went. The woman cursed and kicked the other off in frustration. Her bare feet squelched in the muddy ground as she hastened for the house as quickly as her legs would carry her.
“HURRY!” Giles admonished, trying to help the Slayer hold the wild vampire still with humiliatingly poor results. The man shifted his position, swinging his injured leg over Spike’s bucking hips, using his full weight to hold the thrashing demon down. Fire exploded from the bullet wound, splintering his vision for a moment as he fought against the wild man beneath him and his own pain. “SPIKE!” he tried, doing his best to help Buffy. “For God’s sake, man!”
Buffy felt her grip on the injured blond weaken, her strength waning and his only growing stronger and more determined as his demon became more desperate. His snarls and snapping fangs normally wouldn’t have fazed her, but in her weakened condition, there was fazing. Lots and lots of fazing. With her nerves jangling and her heart racing, she looked up at the house, praying her mom was returning with the blood, but the door remained stubbornly empty.
“Buffy! If any of the bullets around his heart are wooden—” Giles panted, doing all he could to hold the twisting, squirming, growling vampire still.
She didn’t need him to finish the thought. There was no more time. Spike would pull free any second… he could dust under her desperate grip, just like in the nightmare. He’d be gone. Forever. And, if that didn’t happen, then William the Bloody would have a third notch on his Slayer-belt, because she’d never be able to fight him off in this condition and she didn’t think he’d be able to stop himself, even if part of him, the part that was her friend, wanted to.
“SPIKE, PLEASE!” Buffy begged frantically, tears of frustration and fear falling in torrents as her hands slipped over his muddied, blood-stained duster, fighting feverishly to hold him still. She tried to get him to look at her, to actually see her, but his eyes were vacant of any coherent thought. He was running on pure instinct – fear and pain and the bone-deep hunger driving him beyond her reach. She could feel his pain, his fear, his utter desperation, and was sure her own eyes mirrored all that back to him.
With one last glance at the empty doorway – What was her mother doing? Butchering the pig herself? – Buffy made a rash decision. It wasn’t as hard as perhaps it should’ve been for the PTB’s Champion, but she was at the end of her rope, and barely hanging on by the frayed and tattered scraps, her own survival instincts kicking in. Gathering what remained of her strength, Buffy released Spike, lunged to the side and grabbed the now-limp arm of the man her dog had been fighting, the man who had shot Spike, who had nearly killed Giles.
Giles exclaimed in alarm when she let go, and Spike’s head and shoulders came up off the ground in the second or two it took her to complete her plan. With a grunt of effort and a scream of agony as new daggers twisted in her back, the Slayer jerked the unconscious man the short distance over to the raging vampire. With another effort of will, fighting through fatigue and pain, the Slayer, the one girl in all the world who stands between the vampires and the rest of the world, fed the man to the vampire.
Buffy fell back on her ass, panting, muddy, and exhausted as Spike’s growl rent the air, echoing through the still night like a lion’s roar. Then his fangs sank into the man’s arm like daggers through warm butter. Spike went perfectly still then but for the rhythmic draw of life from the veins of the Council’s literal triggerman.
“Buffy! I… you can’t possibly…” Giles gasped, too many jumbled emotions bouncing around for him to settle on any particular one. There was palpable relief that the vampire had stopped struggling, and he sagged visibly, exhaustion making his limbs rubbery. There was disgust as Weatherby’s arm was savaged, fresh blood mixing with the mud where it oozed past Spike’s lips. There was shock that Buffy would do such a thing – purposely and willfully abandon her Calling and her training to feed a human – even one as reprehensible as Weatherby – to a vampire. There was also a good bit of vindictive pleasure as the man who nearly killed Giles got his comeuppance. It wasn’t like he didn’t deserve it; and it wasn’t like Spike hadn’t just saved Giles’ life. If Weatherby hadn’t riddled the vampire with bullets, there would’ve been no need for such desperate measures. Giles had never seen karma work quite so quickly.
“Not a word!” Buffy growled back at Giles, wiping some mud or blood or who-knew-what off her face as she composed herself again, moving back nearer the feeding demon. “He’s not moving – work now! Be disappointed in my choices later,” she urged the man, waving a hand at Spike’s bullet-ridden chest.
Giles blinked, looking down at the remaining ragged holes that surrounded his heart. “Errr... Y-yes… yes, of course,” he muttered as he carefully climbed off the slim figure beneath him, wincing as more daggers slashed and twisted through his body. He quickly began looking around to find the blade he’d been using to open the wounds, which had been dropped in the struggle to hold the vampire down. He finally saw a bit of it glimmering in the light, half-buried in the dirt. He retrieved it and wiped it off on his pants, which did little more than transfer muck between the fabric and the knife.
“You aren’t using that on him, are you?” Joyce asked from right behind Giles, making the man jump and drop it again.
Giles clenched his jaw and picked it back up. “He’s a vampire,” he explained carefully, trying to keep the edge of annoyance from his voice, but not exactly succeeding. “Microorganisms are not an issue for their kind.”
“Buffy,” Joyce implored, looking to her daughter for support.
Buffy shook her head. “He’s right… it’s okay. We can clean it all up later, but it won’t hurt him.”
Joyce scowled but didn’t press it further. “I have the blood,” she pointed out, reaching out to hand a mug to her daughter.
Buffy looked down at Spike, chewing her lip. Part one of her plan had worked – Spike was nearly motionless and not struggling. Part two was taking longer than she’d hoped. Even under the man’s dark, scruffy five o’clock shadow, he was turning pale. Deathly pale. She had no idea how much blood the vampire had taken, but she knew it didn’t take long to drain someone if a vamp was motivated, and Spike was nothing if not motivated. He’d begun bleeding freely from his wounds again, the blood seemed to be going in and right back out again.
She had to decide soon. Was she willing to let Spike kill this man? Willing to go back on her command that no humans be killed? Part of her screamed, ‘YES! This jerk shot deadly bullets into your house; he shot your dog! He was about to shoot Giles at point-blank range, and he did shoot Spike! If anyone deserves to die, it’s him!’ Another part of her growled a visceral, ‘NO! He’s a human! It isn’t the Slayer’s job to be judge, jury, and executioner. It’s the Slayer’s job to protect humans from monsters. Monsters like Spike. What happened to not being a reckless disappointment? What happened to being a better Slayer? This is not what a Slayer does!’
Giles was cursing softly under his breath as he struggled to cut a larger opening in Spike’s sternum with the utility knife to retrieve the bullet that seemed nearest Spike’s heart. Blood poured from the wounds, making it even harder for the Watcher to see. It seemed to be taking forever for him to get the remaining bullets out, which didn’t help Buffy’s predicament one little bit.
Buffy felt dizzy, like she was being spun around and torn apart. Was she a friend to this vampire or a Slayer? Where was the line? There used to be a line – crisp and clear, black and white, right and wrong, but it was all blurred and confused now, and she couldn’t seem to find her footing. She wanted desperately to be a good Slayer, but Spike had saved Giles, twice now. He’d helped her save the world from Angelus and his big rock, he’d been the one to completely change her life by leaving that little puppy in her mother’s arms. Didn’t that deserve some consideration? What had this human done except cause her pain and put her family in danger?
Buffy swallowed and looked down at the monster who had done so much good. Blood coated his lips and ran in gory trickles to drip onto the mat of green grass and brown mud beneath him. He was still taking long pulls from the big artery just below Weatherby’s elbow. She had to decide which side of the line she stood on. Now. Would she stand by her scruples or shelve them when things got hard? Who was she? Slayer or killer?
She leaned down close to those deadly fangs, her wet, muddy hair falling in stringy waves to brush against the vampire’s cheek. “Spike. Can you hear me? Spike?”
Spike’s golden eyes tracked up to meet Buffy’s in the dim light. He froze, his fangs still buried in Weatherby’s arm, but no longer taking pulls of rich, warm blood. Green eyes stared back at him, glimmering with tears, imploring, fearful, and yet full of an inexplicable strength that pulled him in and held him in an iron grip.
“Spike, I need you to stop now. Do you understand? I need you to let go of the man,” Buffy continued, trying to keep her voice calm, though it cracked and wavered from tiredness and strain.
Spike growled around the warm flesh he still held to, like a dog with a bone, but didn’t take any more blood.
Buffy clenched her jaw and swallowed, the growl sending warning shivers down her spine. “You can have pig’s blood,” she tried. “All you want.”
Spike’s growl redoubled, making ripples in the small puddles that surrounded them.
Buffy clenched her fists, steeling herself against her instincts that were screaming at her to fight or flee, slay or hide. “Okay! Fine. Not pig’s blood. We’ll make another withdrawal from the blood bank – later. But right now, I need you to stop. Please stop,” she pleaded, her eyes overflowing with tears again, the turmoil inside her roiling and writhing.
Spike’s growl faltered and finally stopped, though he didn’t release the artery. He blinked up at her, his lids closing and opening sluggishly. Slayer. Buffy. Green eyes. Not fair. No means no. Promise – no killing. Promised. The world began to spin lazily, the eyes that haunted his dreams and nightmares swirling in his vision, blending with blood and mud, leaving him feeling disoriented and confused. Suddenly he was exhausted beyond all measure. His eyes closed of their own accord, though he could still see the green eyes whirling lazily in the dark. His demon slipped away as his mind began to float dreamily, every muscle and sinew relaxing, his body going rubbery. The meal he’d been feasting on was suddenly gone, but the vampire had no energy to object. Voices. He thought he heard voices. Were they speaking English? He couldn’t make them out clearly as he sunk into the comfort of darkness and away from the pain.
“Finally,” Buffy sighed, ripping a strip from the bottom of her muddy shirt and hastily wrapping it around the wound on the man’s arm, staunching the flow of blood.
“What happened to Spike?” Joyce asked worriedly, still holding the mug of pig’s blood as she looked down on the trio.
“Weatherby’s blood was laced with tranquilizers,” Buffy reminded her, waving a hand at the dart that still protruded from the man’s leg. “You are what you eat. Spike’s tranquil.”
Joyce’s and Giles’ jaws dropped open a bit, taking that in. “You planned that? That was quite a dangerous gamble,” Giles said after a moment, returning to his task.
Buffy shrugged and sat back on her heels on the cold, wet grass. She hurt everywhere. She was exhausted beyond belief, and extraordinarily jealous of the sleeping vampire… bullet wounds notwithstanding.
“What if it hadn’t worked?” Giles continued, carefully removing the splinters of a wooden bullet from between the third and fourth ribs on the left side of Spike’s chest. Too close to his heart for comfort. Much, much too close. “What if he’d killed the man?”
Buffy clenched her teeth, her ire rising despite the fact that she’d been worried about the very same thing. She didn’t need this from him. He wasn’t even her Watcher anymore! He was a lying, back-stabbing, chameleon who’d poisoned her and her dog and put everyone in danger! What right did he have to judge her? “Then I’d have one less bargaining chip and the world would be a better place. I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.”
Giles’ brows raised skeptically, but he didn’t look up at her as he continued to work. “Spike means that much to you?”
“How can you ask me that? He just saved your life! All those bullets are yours! Are you even serious right now?”
Giles continued working intently on making sure all the wood was out of the wound, never even raising his eyes to hers. “Yes, I’m well aware of that. But I don’t believe for a moment that letting a man die at the hands of a vampire is something you could simply brush off. Even if the man is evil and the vampire… perhaps less so – at least at the moment.” Giles got the last of the wood out. He sat back a bit and finally looked up at her. “Does he mean that much to you that you would risk your soul for him?”
“I’m not risking my soul. My soul is fine,” Buffy shot back, clenching her jaw in defiance.
Giles raised his brows, clearly not buying her bravado. Buffy hated that Giles knew her so well, that he could see through her. She could feel the weight of Slayer-fueled guilt for acting recklessly, of being a disappointment. But what choice did she have?! She bit her lip and looked down at the bruised, battered, shot, muddied and bleeding vampire. She blinked back more tears that surfaced – would they ever stop?! – and swallowed the lump in her throat. She started to speak, but had to clear her throat again before she could rasp out, “I-I trust him. H-he’s never lied to me.”
Giles winced, and dropped his gaze, his teeth grinding together in frustration and guilt.
“He… he saved my mom, he saved you. Rambo here was gonna kill you – Spike saved you,” Buffy argued again, her voice getting stronger.
Giles looked up at her then, his own emotions in a state of desperate turmoil. All that was undoubtedly true, but would Buffy sacrifice a human, even one as despicable as Weatherby, to save a vampire? Buffy could deny it all she wanted, but if Weatherby had died at the hands of this demon, he was relatively certain she would lose more than sleep over it. It would scar her; it would eat at her soul, leave her hollow and bleak; it would change her. She was a hero. She was the Slayer. She was the champion of the Powers. She was a bright, shining light in a bleak world. She wasn’t a killer; it wasn’t in her, and he never wanted it to be. He never wanted her light to be dimmed by such a dark and weighty shroud.
The ex-Watcher cleared his throat and gave a small nod. “Yes,” he agreed solemnly. “And his actions certainly garner a considerable degree of gratitude and respect, but you still haven’t answered the question. What does he mean to you?”
Buffy met Giles’ gaze, her eyes shimmering with a tsunami of emotions – fear, doubt, relief, uncertainty, hope, gratefulness – then she dropped her eyes back to the pale, sleeping vampire. She reached a trembling hand out and gently brushed her fingertips over Spike’s forehead.
“He means the world. H-He’s… He’s my friend.”
STORY BOARD
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link: https://flic.kr/p/2kT8k5r
End Notes:
Phew!! Still a ways to go, but at least the wood is out and Spike is tranquil, for now.
Chapter 22: The Sound of Silence
Chapter Text
** X-X-X-X-X **
Chapter Notes:
Thanks to all of you for reading! It means so much to me, like ice cream sundaes for my muse! Sending all the sloppy, joyful doggie kisses to everyone who has left a note, a like or a kudo. I’m working on replying to all your lovely comments and treasure every one of them.
Thanks also my two wonderful Beta readers and friends: Holi117 and Paganbaby, and to TeamEricNSookie for pre-reading. All mistakes are mine because I keep fiddling with stuff. If you see any, PM me and I’ll fix it.
Chapter 22: The Sound of Silence
Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence
~Simon and Garfunkel, The Sound of Silence
Silence.
Stillness.
Calmness.
It was dangerous to Buffy – all this peacefulness and tranquility – it left too much space to feel, too much time to think.
The shattered glass from the windows scratched across the foyer floor as she swept, gathering it into a pile.
Do. Doing was good.
Move. Moving was good.
Not thinking was better.
Clean up the glass.
Don’t look at the unconscious vampire laying on the old sleeping bag on the floor a few feet away.
Blood on the floor. Need to clean the blood, too. Her dog’s blood.
Don’t think about her dog being shot. Don’t let the anger flare. Don’t let the guilt erupt.
Clean. Move. Do.
Don’t look at the dog lying next to the vampire. Don’t cry. Don’t scream. Just sweep up the glass.
A cold breeze against Buffy’s wet clothes made the post-battle tremors turn to outright shivers. Her teeth began to chatter in earnest as she turned to look at the source of the chilly draft.
Broken windows. Need to put something up over them. Keep the cold out.
The glass on the floor was forgotten with the new task in mind. Her thoughts scattered like frightened quail, dizzyingly jumping from one thing to another, all the while trying to just not shut down or drown in all the feelings bubbling beneath the surface.
Buffy’s eyes landed on Xander, unconscious on the couch. They’d gotten him inside, but no one had been in any shape to lug him upstairs to an actual bed. He must be cold too. She shuffled over, her exhaustion evident in every stiff movement, and covered him with a couple of throws.
Cover the windows. Right.
With what?
Oz and Willow were upstairs. Should she check on them? She started for the stairs before changing her mind. No, they’d be warm enough. They were in her bed. It had taken all three of them – Giles, her mom, and herself – to get them inside, but they’d done it.
Buffy checked the chair that was shoved under the handle of the hall closet door instead. It was still secure, holding their prisoners. The four members of the Council’s special ops team had been tightly bound and gagged and crammed in there. It was either that or drop them down the stairs into the basement. It was a close call, but in the end, they’d decided that the four would make better bargaining chips if their necks weren’t broken by tumbling down the stairs.
Joyce and Giles had left a little while ago. Her mother had insisted that Giles needed to go to the hospital to be checked for internal injuries, not to mention the mud-caked bullet wound in his leg. Buffy had agreed, adding in a request for them to make a withdrawal from the blood bank for Spike while they were there. A bottle or two of heavy-duty painkillers wouldn’t hurt either. Giles had argued that he was fine, and said he just needed to get a book from the school library which he thought had a reversal spell to awaken Oz, Willow, and Xander. Buffy had no idea who would win that argument, though Giles agreed that he was in no state to drive, so she suspected the hospital would come before the spell books.
But now there was too much silence. The yard, where there had been deafening gunshots, shouts, growls, and so much pain, was peaceful. The whole world seemed to have settled and slipped into an unnatural stillness. The only thing that wasn’t calm was her skittering mind.
Buffy envied all the sleeping and unconscious people surrounding her, wishing she could collapse into oblivion with them, but, despite the exhaustion, she was still too hyped up. And, anyway, she was the only one left to watch over them. She had to stay awake, make sure no more harm came to her friends. But the hush surrounding her was the enemy now, leaving too much time for her brain to travel down dark paths. She needed to move, to do something. And most of all she needed to not let her emotions spill out from their little prison deep inside her. There were too many; they’d suffocate her.
Glass glittered on the floor. Still needed to get that up. She picked up the broom and dustpan again, bent to the task.
Another barrage of shivers ran up and down her body, half from the cold air drifting in the broken windows, half from the overload of adrenaline still coursing through her veins, and half from the bone-deep fatigue that seemed to suffuse her every cell.
She needed to cover the windows; keep the cold out.
A sound. Not her. Buffy looked up at what she’d been avoiding. Her vampire, still tranquilized, his body shattered by the bullets. Her fault. No, no thinking! Stop thinking! That way lies badness.
The Guardian of the Twilight had pulled himself across the soft bedding without rising onto his wounded leg. He was right next to Spike now and had begun licking gently at the vampire’s wounds.
Healing.
A painful sob caught in Buffy’s throat. Her chest constricted, knowing this was all her fault and wishing she could do something to heal all this misery, not just for the vampire, but for her dog too. Instead, it was the Guardian, the healer of her heart, that was stepping up in her stead. The dustpan and broom tumbled from her hands, forgotten. Glass shards scattered across the floor like confetti as she hurried over to her two Spikes.
“Spike… are you sure? You’re hurt… you’re still weak from the poison,” Buffy reminded the dog worriedly, dropping to her knees next to him on the musty, old sleeping bag. It was something left over from a time before her parents realized Buffy was more indoorsy than outdoorsy. Joyce had done her best to make something comfortable for the unconscious vampire on the living room floor when it became clear no one was in any condition to carry him upstairs to the guest room. Pillows cradled his head and there was a thick camp pad beneath him, cushioning his ravaged body.
The big dog looked up, his gaze shifting from the vampire to her, his brown eyes earnest. His reply was a small sneeze, which rattled his tags and flung droplets of cold water from his floppy ears. Then he turned back to his task, gently running his healing tongue over one of the many wounds on the white rabbit’s chest.
Another sob sounded loud in the quiet space, but this time it was tinged with a small laugh. Buffy cleared her throat, swallowed, and pushed it all back. Breakdown later. Do something now. “Okay… okay, but wait… let me… let’s get him more cleaned up first. Don’cha think that would be better?” she asked, laying a hand on the big dog’s neck, stilling him.
They had managed to wrangle Spike out of his sodden duster and the remains of his t-shirt before bringing him inside, leaving both outside with his muddy boots, but that was as much as they’d had time or energy for. He was still covered in muck and blood, all drying on what was left of his ravaged chest and abs.
Not that she was any better on the slime-and-grime scale. Buffy sighed and looked down at herself. She couldn’t remember ever being this filthy, this crusted in blood and mud and God only knew what else, in her entire life. She could patrol in the sewers for hours, dust a dozen vamps down there, and still not be this gross. She longed to get a shower with every fiber of her being, but didn’t dare leave her vampire alone. What if he woke up? What if he panicked again? The wood was out, yes, but he was still torn to shreds, nothing he did in that condition was going to help him heal. Plus, there was at least one handy meal laying helpless on the couch nearby. Xander might not take too kindly to being a nummy treat for a ravenous demon.
“Just keep an eye on him a minute, okay?” Buffy instructed her dog as she pushed herself back to her feet, her aching joints and muscles protesting the effort. “I’m gonna get some stuff and see if we can clean him up.”
The dog settled his chin down on Spike’s bare shoulder and huffed out a breath, looking up at Buffy for approval.
Buffy gave him a small smile and nodded. “Good boy. Cheeseburgers soon, I promise.”
Spike licked his chops, a bit of drool slipping out in anticipation and dribbling down onto the vampire’s grimy skin. “That’s really not helping with the yuck-factor,” Buffy informed him before heading for the kitchen. “And don’t get too excited about the cheeseburgers. We need to get Spike fixed up first,” she cautioned, doing her best to add something akin to cheer to her voice. She wasn’t sure it was really working. “We’ll get him to drive us… plus, I think he deserves a few, too, don’t you?”
“Rrrwrf,” the dog agreed with an amicable rumble as he settled in to keep watch over the white rabbit.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Joyce and Giles rode in an uncomfortable silence as she carefully drove them toward the hospital in Spike’s car. Since the Jeep was still in the shop, it had been a choice between ‘Millie’ and the armored truck. The DeSoto won, if just barely. At eighteen feet long and a bit over six feet wide, the finned wonder was nearly as big as the truck, and two feet longer than her Jeep. Luckily, she’d watched Spike drive it a couple of times so knew that you had to push the weird little buttons on the dash to put it in drive and back into park.
Driving the monster required a good bit of her attention to make sure she didn’t cut corners too closely and take out street signs or hedges. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing – it kept her mind occupied, at least for a few minutes, as she got used to the feel and handling of the dinosaur of a car.
Once she’d gotten it pretty well mastered, though, all the silence began to feel suffocating and a bit unsettling. After all the frantic activity and stomach-churning stress of the last hours the calm felt unnatural, almost overwhelming. Joyce chanced taking one hand off the wheel and turned the radio on. She changed the channel a couple of times, but then clicked it back off again. The music was too cheerful; even the commercials seemed clownish after what they’d been through.
Finally, she cleared her throat and hazarded a glance over at the beaten, exhausted man in the passenger seat, unsure where to even begin speaking. She settled on, “Thank you for your help with Spike.”
Giles nodded slightly, the motion making pain slosh and splash around in his skull like an overfull wave pool. “It seemed the least I could do.”
Joyce let out an indelicate snort. Her emotions spun around in a dangerous roulette between enraged and grateful, and not even she knew which would emerge before the words were out. “That’s certainly true. If it weren’t for you, none of us would’ve been in this mess in the first place,” she pointed out bitterly.
“I’m well aware of that,” Giles ground out harshly before letting loose a defeated sigh, the defensive shock of her sudden, biting honesty losing out against his own miserable self-recriminations. “It was one of the worst things I’ve ever done in my life… and that’s quite a feat. But what’s done is done; I can’t turn back time and change it. I… I can only try to make amends now.”
“Which raises the question about who you’ll be making those amends to. You seem to switch sides quite easily.”
Giles turned and looked at her, but Joyce kept her eyes steadfastly on the road, intent on keeping the car between the lines… more or less. Luckily, at this late hour, the roads were mostly deserted. He sighed again, looking away. “I was ten years old when my father told me I was destined to be a Watcher. He was one, as was his mother before him, and I was to be next. My family has worked within the Watchers Council for generations and I was expected to continue the proud tradition,” he explained soberly. “I was sent away to the Watcher’s Academy soon after. I’ve been ensconced within that organization for the largest part of my forty-five years on this planet; their authority became unquestionable… sacrosanct.”
“You’re not ten anymore. You’re a grown man, able to make your own choices.”
“Indeed, because I’ve made so many stellar choices as Buffy’s Watcher,” he scoffed bitterly. “Such as not having the forethought to realize the prophecy of Buffy’s death at the hands of the Master was self-fulfilling. O-or perhaps the choice to turn a blind eye to Buffy’s relationship with Angel. I didn’t even have the wherewithal to research his curse, for God’s sake! I could’ve saved…” The man’s voice broke, and he had to clear his throat before he could continue. “Could’ve saved everyone a great deal of heartache if I could have warned Buffy of the… the danger. Or perhaps my choice to not press Buffy to study the Slayer’s Handbook, which may have given her better guidance than my wretched leadership. Shall I continue? My judgement as her Watcher has been dreadful at best, deadly at worst. If she weren’t such an incredibly talented and resourceful girl…” Giles’ voice faded, his head shaking in regret, leaving the thought unfinished.
Joyce frowned. “Even so, you had to have known this test was… was… inhuman,” she insisted.
Giles slumped even more in his seat. “Yes,” he admitted quietly. “I… I tried to speak with Mr. Travers about it, assure him that Buffy did not need such a test, that she was an extraordinary Slayer who needn’t be put through this archaic exercise in cruelty. He said I was too close, unqualified to make such a declaration.”
“That’s who was at your apartment the night Buffy was attacked… when I came to get the books,” Joyce realized.
“Yes,” Giles agreed, wincing as he tried to find a more comfortable position, and failing. “But you don’t understand. Because of my past missteps – not just with Buffy but in other regards as well – I… I felt as if he may be correct. I am too close. I feel deeply for Buffy and it made me doubt my own judgement. I feared this was another instance of my impetuous side leading me astray, off the path of logic and reason, despite it feeling anything but logical or reasonable. The Council had been my guidepost for so long, the one thing I could count on with its experience and knowledge to keep me from falling victim to my own foolish impulses and shortsightedness.”
Joyce sighed, shaking her head. “You knew this was wrong to do to Buffy, but you didn’t stop it,” she accused quietly.
Giles nodded. “My trust was badly misplaced, and I doubted my own mind – all of which I realized much too late. I can only say that I did as much as my… my training allowed to stop this.”
“Training? I think you mean ‘brainwashing’,” Joyce asserted scornfully as she swung the car wide and turned into the all-too-familiar hospital parking lot, narrowly avoiding jumping the curb with the back tires. “You didn’t just drink the Kool-Aid, you filled a pool and swam around in it.”
Giles snorted, which sent daggers shooting through his torso, making him clutch at his sides. “Undoubtedly.”
She pulled into a spot a no far from the ER doors, but away from any other cars. She might’ve pulled into two spots, but they were small and who’s counting? Joyce punched the button to put the car in park then cut the motor before looking over at him fully. “So, whose side are you on now?”
Giles looked up, taken aback. “I thought that would’ve been abundantly clear from my actions.”
“I really need you to look me in the eyes and say it,” she insisted, remembering their conversation on the night she’d mentioned, remembering how he couldn’t exactly meet her eyes, kept looking away, cleaning his glasses, doing anything but actually look her in the eye.
Giles kept his bleary, bloodshot gaze trained on hers. “I am unequivocally on your side… on Buffy’s side,” he assured her solemnly. “For whatever good it will do.”
Joyce nodded and looked away, fresh tears stinging her tired eyes. She swiped them away quickly and straightened her shoulders. “Then we better get you checked out before you keel over,” she suggested, pulling the keys from the ignition, and swinging her door open.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Buffy struggled to keep her focus on the task at hand. She tried not to think of the man, the vampire, the friend beneath the ragged, torn flesh. She tried not to hear his voice, see his sparkling blue eyes, or worse, his panicked, wild golden ones. If she let herself get pulled into any of that, she’d collapse into a pit of despair and guilt that she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to pull herself out of.
She knelt across from her dog on the soft bedding and gently cleaned the mangled, muddied flesh between them, doing her best to not inflict pain in the process. Spike was still tranquilized from Weatherby’s blood, but she had no idea how long that would last – and anyway, she couldn’t bear the thought of adding to Spike’s pain, even if he couldn’t feel it.
The house was still and silent but for the sound of the water trickling back into the pan next to her as she wrung out the soft cloth she was using to gently wipe away the blood and mud from the wounds. She’d brought a stack of them – mostly dishtowels from the kitchen – using each one only once. When it was too soiled to use, when she’d turned and folded it until it had no unused portion left, she dropped it and picked up a new one. Slowly, painstakingly, she wiped away all the muck, revealing small patches of startling white skin between alarmingly raw, red, still-open wounds.
The bile in her empty stomach roiled and danced, but she held it back valiantly as she continued her mission, methodically clearing one swath of Spike’s torso of dirt and debris before starting on the next. Across from her, the dog watched, his soft eyes concerned and intent. After a few minutes, Spike nudged her hands away with his muzzle and took over. He used the healing magic of his tongue and salvia to gently lave the angry, crimson gashes, slashes, tears, and holes that peppered the vampire’s trunk.
Buffy sat back on her heels, the damp, grimy cloth clutched tightly in her shaky hands, and watched. Her heart rose into her throat, feeling hopeful and worried at once. Her dog was still weakened by the poisons he’d been fed, not to mention injured and exhausted. She’d noted that while the Guardian had licked his own bullet wound, as dogs were wont to do, it hadn’t healed. Could he not heal himself? Did it only work on human flesh? It seemed strange that it would work on a vampire. Mortal enemies! Hello! But it had on their road trip last year when the vampire had been slashed by a bear. Or was there something in the magic that Giles had said was on the bullets that might keep the wounds from healing?
That last thought was the worst. What if neither Spike could ever recover? What if her dog was in pain for the rest of his life? What if they had to amputate his leg? What if he couldn’t do all the things he loved to do – like run and jump and crunch on vampires? And the vampire… what if he was in constant agony? What if she never saw those sapphire eyes again? What if, as he tried and failed to heal, he could be nothing but a ravenous demon for all eternity? Or had to be kept sedated?
Would that be something the Council would do? Create bullets that inflicted un-healable damage? A knot of fury and terror wound itself around Buffy’s insides, snaking its way through her veins like shards of frozen glass. Of course they would.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Giles leaned heavily on the cane they’d given him at the hospital as he made his slow and painful way through the empty corridors of the high school. Joyce followed him, wincing at every one of his labored steps, as if feeling them herself. It was hard not to empathize after she’d seen the extent of his injures at the hospital. It was a wonder he’d ever managed to get to his feet after being shot and beaten mercilessly, let alone get the remaining bullets out of Spike. Despite everything, she found herself with a new level of respect for his fortitude and determination to help. It certainly made his words that he was finally on Buffy’s side easier to believe. Better late than never?
“Are you sure you don’t want to take one of these pain pills?” she asked as he pushed through the double doors into the dimly lit library.
“Not until I find and perform the reversal spell,” he replied through gritted teeth. “I do not want anything to compromise the incantation.” His breathing was labored, as if he’d just run a mile, and he had to stop and wipe a sheen of sweat from his brow when he reached the counter, using it as support to take all the weight off his injured leg.
“At least sit down,” she insisted, hurrying over to the research table, and dragging a chair over to him. “Tell me where to look for the book.”
Giles dropped into the chair with a grunt of both pain and relief. His leg throbbed with no weight on it, but it was better than the stabbing jolts of fire that walking induced. He rubbed at his thigh, which was beginning to cramp, and wished he could breathe more deeply. The wrap they’d put on his torso to stabilize the cracked ribs was like a seventeenth century corset… or perhaps some type of torture device, limiting his lung capacity.
“I believe… I saw it in… one of the crates… the Council sent,” he gasped out between breaths, waving a hand at the large wooden shipping containers that lined one wall. “It was brown… about the size of… Sunnydale’s phone book. And in Latin.”
Joyce went over to the first of the crates. It was stacked with books, as was the second and the third crate. They were all brown and about the size of Sunnydale’s phone book. Okay, maybe some were dark tan, perhaps russet, and some were blackish, but the distinction was so slight to be inconsequential. She sighed.
“What’s it called?” she asked, beginning to remove the musty books from the first crate so she could see the titles.
“’Contra Magicis Carminibus Remedia, Cartae Tertiae’,” Giles replied as he finally got his breathing under control.
Joyce turned and arched a brow at him. “Can you spell that?”
Giles rolled his eyes. Like daughter like mother? He clenched his jaw and pushed back up to his feet with a groan, pressing down heavily on the cane once again. “Perhaps if you could pull a chair up to the crates for me, it would be faster for me to look.”
** X-X-X-X-X **
Buffy gnawed at her lip as she watched the Guardian’s wide, pink tongue slide over the vampire’s ravaged flesh. He worked just the area she’d gotten clear of mud and dried blood, leaving a shiny coating of thick salvia on the bloodied and bruised surface of Spike’s stomach.
‘Please work, please work, please work…’ she chanted silently, unable to tell if it was working since the dog’s big head blocked most of her view. The cloth in her hand began to rip as she wrung it absently between her fists, dripping wet, dirty water onto the sleeping bag where she knelt. “Please just work,” she muttered aloud, barely able to get the words out of her tight throat.
Spike stopped and looked up at her then, slobber globules falling in slow motion from his lolling tongue to splat softly on the vampire. He was panting, as if what he’d been doing had been a long, strenuous run rather than a couple of minutes of gentle licking. Buffy’s teeth dug into her lip harder as she leaned forward, peering down at the area he’d been healing.
Buffy felt the air suddenly come back into her lungs as she inhaled in relief. “It’s working!” she exclaimed, feeling astonishingly less exhausted than she had only a moment before, almost buoyant. “You did it! It’s working!” Buffy cried again, reaching over and hugging her dog’s thick neck. “Oh, God, Spike… you did it… he’s healing.”
Spike’s tail thumped against the floor like a fur-covered baseball bat as he licked at her neck and face joyfully, celebrating with her. Buffy couldn’t hold her emotions in check another moment. They rushed up and ambushed her wavering control, plowing through her walls and her resolve. What came out wasn’t a sob or a laugh, but some bizarre combination of the two. Tears welled in Buffy’s eyes and spilled onto the Guardian’s soft mane, while her lips curved into a hopeful smile. All the while the healer of her heart thudded a happy rhythm with his tail and nuzzled her neck and shoulder with a cold nose, leaving her shirt even wetter than it had been, dripping with sticky spittle.
Spike, the vampire, was far from being healed, but what the Guardian of the Twilight had done was a start. Some of the flaps of loose flesh had started to reattach themselves while the deep gashes and tears began slowly mending, closing over Spike’s internal organs. There was a long way to go, but it was a start, and it meant they could both heal. This wasn’t permanent!
Buffy was still half-laughing and half-crying when she finally pulled back from her dog. His brown eyes were bright with delight, but she could tell he was tired. What he’d done had cost him. She took one of the pans of clean water she’d brought out with her and set it down in front of the dog. Spike immediately began lapping up the cool liquid, splattering more dampness over the sleeping bag. Buffy swiped at her tired, swollen eyes and swallowed back both the laughter and the tears. If she let them go on too long, they’d devolve into hysteria, she was sure.
She gave a nod, mostly to herself and pushed to her feet. “I’ll get you something to eat,” she told Spike. “Then you can rest while I finish cleaning him up. There are gonna be sooooo many cheeseburgers in your future, boy.”
Spike looked up at her, panting happily, water and spittle dribbling from his sloppy jowls, his mouth open in a doggie grin. His tail never stopped its drumbeat against the floor as Buffy headed for the kitchen for more clean water and something yummy for her best friend.
** X-X-X-X-X **
“You will find white sage in the trunk there in the corner,” Giles instructed Joyce as he hobbled into his apartment some time later. “Get a large handful of stems along with a white ribbon to secure them. There are pink quartz crystals in the bottom left desk drawer,” he continued. “We’ll need three of those.”
Joyce nodded and hurried past him into the room, set on retrieving the ingredients for the spell that would free Willow, Oz, and Xander. It hadn’t taken too long to find the book; it had been in the first crate, only about halfway down in the third stack of books. Unfortunately, there were some ingredients needed for the spell which weren’t at the high school, so another stop before heading home was necessary, this time at Giles’ flat.
“What about the peppermint oil?” Joyce asked as she clicked on one of the stained-glass lamps so she could see better. The hinges on the lid of the trunk creaked a bit as she lifted it and began scanning the contents for something that looked like sage.
“Kitchen… top cupboard to the right of the sink,” he replied, limping toward the stairs.
“Where are you going?” she asked, brows furrowed as she looked up from her task. She’d expected him to plop down in a chair, or at least take a seat on one of the bar stools. The doctors had wanted to keep him overnight for observation, but he’d refused that. The least he could do was try to rest while she gathered the things they needed.
“I thought I’d take the opportunity to clean up a bit,” Giles explained, waving his free hand down at his ruined clothes as he steadied himself with the cane. He looked at the stairs leading to his bedroom and noticeably grimaced, thinking of trying to navigate them. The few steps down into the courtyard outside had been difficult enough.
Joyce followed his gaze and sighed. She straightened from searching through the trunk and came over to him. “I’ll get you some clean clothes,” she offered kindly, laying a hand on his forearm. “You go ahead into the bathroom and start cleaning up.”
Giles’ lips pursed together, clearly wishing he didn’t require her assistance in this, but finally nodded. “Thank you.”
“You’re going to be able to fix them, right? This spell will work?” Joyce asked, meeting his eyes.
Giles nodded. “I am confident that it will, yes.”
“And they’ll be okay afterwards?”
“I don’t foresee there being any lasting ill effects. Perhaps a bit of a magic hangover for a day or two, but nothing serious.”
Joyce nodded. “Good, because I don’t think Buffy could stand any more pain on her conscience. Spike was bad enough… well, both of them, really.”
Giles shifted uncomfortably, the ache in his leg only part of the problem. “Those injuries seem to be weighing quite heavily on her,” he agreed. “She seemed particularly… upset by the vampire’s plight.”
Joyce raised her brows – there seemed to be more to what he was saying than just the words. She tried to read the ex-Watcher’s expression, to glean more meaning, but pain obscured anything extra she might find there. “Is there some reason she shouldn’t be upset? You saw him. You know what he did, what he sacrificed.”
Giles nodded slowly, shifting again, trying to take the weight off his injured leg and onto his arm and the cane. It only shifted the pain from his leg to his cracked ribs. He finally gave up and hobbled back a step to lean against the wall, sweat once again beginning to bead on his brow with the effort. “She is the Slayer. What she did for Spike, giving him Weatherby’s blood, risking the man’s life… i-it was… contra to her… nature,” he said carefully.
“You can’t possibly be defending the Council—”
“Believe me, I am not,” Giles cut her off before Joyce could get too indignant. “I’m simply pointing out that if Weatherby had died, it would’ve been… difficult for her to live with.”
“He’s a horrible man—” Joyce protested.
“Yes. But he’s a man. Spike is not.”
Joyce flinched. “How could you say—?”
“I’m simply stating the facts. It’s not a… a moral judgement. It’s biology. The core mission of the Slayer is to protect humans from demons at any cost, even if that means sacrificing their own lives. It is an instinct, their Calling. There is no distinction between bad humans and good ones, or between helpful demons and destructive ones. What Buffy did…” Giles sighed and slipped his free hand up beneath his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose, shaking his head morosely.
Joyce watched him, trying to understand. “What are you saying?”
The exhausted man removed his hand and looked up at her. “I’m saying that she has strong feelings for Spike – perhaps as strong as she had for Angel at one time – and it’s… troubling.”
Joyce rolled her eyes and shook her head. “She has a crush on him… a schoolgirl crush. That’s all. Spike’s devoted to Drusilla. He and Buffy… they’re friends… allies – that’s all it’ll ever be.”
Giles gave her a bleak smile. “I do hope you’re correct. While Spike has shown remarkable restraint and has certainly earned a debt which I’m unlikely to be able to repay, he’s an extremely dangerous vampire. He’s killed two Slayers; fought an unknown number of others and survived. And he’s not as doltish as he’d have us believe. If he turns on Buffy…” Giles let his voice trail off, too drained to finish the thought.
“He won’t turn on any of us,” Joyce asserted confidently. “Except maybe you if you decide to change sides again,” she added warningly.
Giles snorted softly. “I feel safer already,” he muttered, pushing off the wall and limping for the downstairs bathroom.
Joyce huffed and headed up the stairs to get him some clean clothes. Spike wouldn’t turn on them. She knew that in her bones. And it was just a schoolgirl crush Buffy had… wasn’t it? Just because Buffy had given the man to Spike didn’t mean anything. Joyce would’ve done the same if she’d thought of it. Of course, she wasn’t the Slayer.
Joyce furrowed her brows as she began searching the closet for slacks and a shirt, her mind still turning everything over. Hadn’t she just told Giles a few nights ago how being the Slayer had changed her daughter? How it was more than strength or speed, but a soul-deep part of her?
Was Giles right?
Joyce chewed her lip as she pulled a grey tweed suit and white shirt from the closet. She laid it out on the bed and turned for the dresser to find underclothes and socks, her mind still working. Did Buffy have more than a crush on Spike? Was her little girl setting herself up for another soul- shattering heartbreak? Spike was taken, devoted fully to Drusilla. He was also a vampire, decades old … perhaps even centuries. He was immortal – assuming no one accidentally staked him. Buffy was not.
Joyce stopped in the middle of opening the first drawer and blinked at herself in the mirror. She gazed into her own eyes, looking deeper, sorting through her thoughts. Standing there, she realized her worry was not that Spike was a century-old vampire or that he’d killed two Slayers, or even that he was immortal, but that he was already with someone.
She turned that over in her mind, trying to apply logic and reason to what she was feeling, but those concepts just slid off like oil from Teflon. She found herself unconcerned by those hard facts, by biology, as Giles had said, because though Spike may be a vampire, he’d also proven himself to be a man. He’d come when they’d called. He’d sacrificed himself. He’d helped. He’d fought. He’d gone beyond the terms of a simple truce; he’d been so much more than just a reluctant ally.
He'd been as true a friend to them as anyone, even more so for Buffy. He understood her world the way Joyce never could. He’d lived it for a century – albeit from the other side – but he knew the world her daughter lived in intimately. He could understand the Slayer inside her girl better than Joyce could ever hope to.
And her daughter cared for him. Cared enough to turn away from those ingrained mores, the core of the Slayer, and do whatever she had to in order to help him, to save him.
As far as his immortality went, Joyce knew deep down that any man Buffy loved would outlive her. She didn’t like to think about it or admit it, but it was true, nonetheless. In the research Buffy and Willow had been doing about Slayers, the longest they’d found any Slayer had survived after being Called was eight years. And Buffy had already been the Slayer for nearly three years already.
Joyce drew in a deep breath and sighed it out, shaking her head as she went back to looking for clean underclothes for Giles. The fact remained that Spike was taken and if Buffy really did have strong feelings for him, then her girl’s heart was in grave danger. She’d have to have a talk with her daughter. It would probably be best if Spike left, went back to Dru, as soon as he was healed and able to go, for everyone’s sake.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Buffy sat cross-legged on the living room floor, a clean-ish towel draped over her legs and Spike’s head cradled in her lap. She dipped a folded clean cloth – one of many she’d used in the last hour or so – in the bowl of water at her side and gently dabbed at the crusted blood, mud, and worse that was plastered to the vampire’s face. She began scrubbing a bit harder, careful not to hurt him, removing the grime from his pale skin in small swaths before re-folding the towel to a new, clean spot, and repeating the process.
Slowly, his lax features began to emerge from beneath the shroud of filth. Spike’s face still showed bruises from his recent brawls, though they had begun to fade to mottled greenish-yellow as they healed. Buffy’s fingers traced one stark cheekbone, her tired, blurry eyes following along in their wake. He looked gaunt in the low lamp light, his body using all its reserves to heal the heinous wounds he’d amassed, first against Kralik (including an inadvertent staking) and then against the Council.
Buffy looked over at the empty mug on the floor next to the bowl of water. It had been filled with warm pig’s blood. The turkey baster she’d used to get the blood into her vampire’s mouth earlier sat next to it, coagulating leftovers dribbling slowly from the open end to create a small red puddle on the floor beneath. Spike had taken the blood, swallowed it. His demon had come to the fore and accepted the life-giving offering, though he didn’t lick any of the drops from his lips as he had her blood. Even half-starved, it was clear he really didn’t like pig’s blood. And she’d even put a couple of hot peppers in it to try and help. She wished her mom and Giles would get back with the human blood from the hospital soon. Spike really needed it. Laying here like this, so very still and quiet, he looked like he could be a wax figure, nothing like the vibrant vampire she knew and lo—and… and liked.
Buffy brushed damp curls back from his forehead, letting her eyes get lost in the lines and curves of his face. Long, dark lashes feathered against his pale skin, fluttering now and then as his eyes moved behind his lids, seeing dreams. She could imagine his lids opening, blue eyes gazing up at her, locking onto hers in that intense way of his, but that didn’t happen. She ran her fingers over the jagged scar on his brow, wondering where he’d gotten it. There was still so much about him she didn’t know… and she wanted to know everything.
Buffy’s hand danced lightly down the side of his face, from one stark cheekbone into the shadow of his cheek, then to his strong, solid jawline. That was a jaw that could take a punch. She knew because her knuckles had connected with it more than once. She thought she could almost feel the impact as her curled fist smashed against that unforgiving mandible. She couldn’t help the small snort of amusement that drifted from her nose or the tiny curve of her lips.
“You are one hard-headed vampire,” she whispered softly as her fingers passed over the curve of his chin and up to his full lips. They were incredibly soft – even as chapped as they were – a marked contrast to that seemingly unbreakable jaw.
Buffy licked her own lips as her fingertips traced his with a feather-touch. If she kissed him now, he’d never know. A knot formed in her throat and hot tears stung her eyes. She swallowed hard and shook that thought away. He didn’t want her heart, and she didn’t know how to separate it from the rest of her. She knew it must be possible, people did it all the time, but she just didn’t know how. And, anyway, if she ever kissed him – if he ever changed his mind about her heart – she wanted him to be kissing her back.
She leaned down and touched her warm, damp lips to his forehead instead, planting a soft kiss on his cool skin as he’d done to her after her nightmare. The salty tears of regret that quivered on her lashes fell when she closed her eyes. They trickled down, leaving a shimmering trail of her sorrow on Spike’s pale skin before they disappeared into the riot of curls. “Hate you, Spike,” she murmured against him. “I’m so, so sorry.”
Her dog let out a soft huff of breath as he settled onto his belly to her right, just a few inches from those lips she’d been contemplating, and she sat back, wiping at her eyes. Apparently, while she’d been indulging in a mini pity party, he’d finished his healing ministrations on the vampire’s torso. It was still a disaster, but it was better than it had been – quite a lot better. Spike’s chest and stomach were clean for one thing – well, apart from the shiny layer of saliva coating it all. Blotches of angry red and purple flesh was crisscrossed with narrow lines of seemingly untouched alabaster skin. She could still see the deep ‘X’s where Giles had removed the bullets, but all the bleeding had stopped, and scabs were beginning to form around the tattered edges of the bullet wounds.
Unfortunately, she could also still see the shattered ends of pure white bones protruding from a few places.
“I guess magic spit doesn’t fix broken ribs,” she muttered, looking over at her dog.
Spike whined plaintively and settled his head down on his paws, looking up at her apologetically.
“It’s not your fault,” she assured him with a tired sigh, reaching over to scratch his fluffy ears. “You’ve got the best magic spit of anyone I’ve ever known. Who’s a good boy? Spike’s a good boy, isn’t he?” she cooed, baby-talking him.
Spike’s tail swished across the floor and his eyes glittered happily, pleased with the compliment.
“I guess the ribs are up to me,” Buffy continued, looking around for the first-aid kit they’d been using outside. It was on the coffee table. The coffee table seemed about ten million miles away.
She sighed.
Buffy gently lifted Spike’s head from her lap and slid back. She grabbed one of the pillows with one hand and resettled him on it until he looked comfortable again. She groaned as she leaned forward, coming onto her hands and knees, and just crawled the immense distance across the living room to retrieve the kit.
She slid it back over to where the vampire lay on the musty sleeping bag – which was now a wet, musty sleeping bag – sat down crossed legged and began to examine the contents. Adhesive tape and Ace bandages. Those should work.
Buffy pursed her lips and looked back at the sleeping vampire. “This is gonna hurt you a lot more than it hurts me,” she murmured. If he woke up during this, it would be beyond badness. Light years beyond. Maybe she should wait for her mom and Giles to get back with the blood and pain killers.
She frowned. No, this was her fault, she needed to fix it. She needed to get his ribs reset before they started trying to heal. Heaven only knew what would happen if they started mending with the ends not lined up. Determined, she got out the scissors and cut off a few long pieces of the widest tape in the box and hung them from the edge of the nearby desk. She then did a little exploring of Spike’s ribcage, trying to see just where she’d have to push and pull to get the bones back under the skin and lined up with its other half.
Her hands moved tentatively at first, her heart skittering in her chest, afraid he’d sit bolt upright and attack at any moment, but the vampire remained sedated, unaware, and hopefully far from the pain.
With a plan in mind, she shifted to a kneeling position for more leverage and took a deep breath. “If he wakes up, I’m gonna need you to help me hold him down,” Buffy told the dog, who had been watching closely.
Spike let out an explosive sneeze and looked back at her, tongue lolling out of his grinning mouth.
“Yeah, I know you think you can take him, but it might not be that easy,” Buffy warned him. “Just be ready.”
A huffed-out sigh told her that the Guardian was born ready, and she should just get on with it.
Buffy nodded again, running everything she needed to do over in her mind. With grim determination and a deep, settling breath, she set to work on the first of the shattered bones. She pressed Spike’s sternum away from her with one hand while forcing the exposed bone down and toward her with the other. The end of the bone disappeared into the tear in his flesh, as she’d hoped. She slowly released the pressure on the two sides of his rib, holding her breath and sending up a silent prayer to the Saint of Broken Vampires.
Ominous creaking and popping sounds pierced the silence as the bone moved, realigning beneath his skin. The sound hit her like a screeching cat raking its claws down a chalkboard, sending a violent chill shuddering through her. Buffy grimaced, her shoulders lifting, trying to cover her ears, afraid to completely release the pressure with her hands. Her eyes flashed to the vampire’s face to make sure he wasn’t waking up as she waited for the shiver that ran down her spine to subside.
He seemed unaware of anything she was doing, so she carefully took her hands away. Still nothing happened, so she began running her fingers along the length of the bone, beginning a few inches away from the break and curving up and around. She felt the bone shift again as she neared the fracture and then felt it more or less settle into place, lining up with the other side with only a small bump to show the damage.
“Yes!” she breathed quietly, keeping her celebration low-key. Buffy grabbed a strip of the tape and pressed one end into place along Spike’s flank, then pulled it as tight as she could up and over the break before securing it to the opposite side of his torso. She ran her fingers over it a few times, making sure the rib hadn’t moved while she’d been getting the tape – it hadn’t. The two ends were where they belonged – or at least close enough – touching each other, and both out of sight beneath his ravaged muscles.
She sat back and let out the breath she’d been holding, then drew in another to calm her racing heart. It had worked! And he hadn’t woken up. Thank goodness for ginormous favors! Maybe she should pray to the Saint of Broken Vampires more often.
“One down, three to go,” she murmured, looking over at her dog. “You ready?”
“Rrrwarf!” he replied, licking his lips, eyes and ears alert.
“Glad someone is…” she muttered, as she began examining the next broken rib.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Buffy sat back and wiped the cool sheen of perspiration from her brow. All of Spike’s broken ribs had been set and taped up. Now everything just needed to knit back together.
Buffy looked down at the empty mug on the floor – she should try to get him to drink more blood. He’d need it to heal. She clamped her teeth down on her bottom lip, looking back at the vampire then down at the wounds on her arms. She’d cleaned them up but hadn’t bandaged them because they’d mostly stopped bleeding.
Her stomach fluttered with nerves. No one would understand. She was the Slayer. She wanted desperately to be a GOOD Slayer, to not be reckless and disappointing. She was pretty sure good Slayers did not willingly give vampires their blood, didn’t turn themselves into ‘food’. In all the time she’d been with Angel, she’d never given him a single drop. Not even after he’d returned from the hell she’d sent him to. Not one drop.
But this was Spike. Spike had come when she’d called; he was here in the middle of this because of her. Spike had saved her mom, saved Giles, he had probably saved her too – keeping her from giving herself up to the Council when they’d been beating Giles.
He was in this condition because of her.
And now he needed help. How could she not help him?
Her eyes darted to the front door, wondering when Giles and her mom would be back. Her gaze then skipped over to the boy on the couch. “Xander?” she called, softly at first, then more loudly, “Xander, are you up?”
No reply. No movement from her friend.
More lip gnawing as she looked down at her only witness. “What do you think?”
Spike lifted his head, tilting it to the side as if considering.
“He needs it… and I have it…” she reasoned.
The dog tilted his head the other way, ears perked up, his too-intelligent eyes darting back and forth between the vampire and the Slayer. He made a low sound in his throat, something like the rumbling of a motorboat, and ran his tongue over Spike’s shoulder in reply, leaving a slick, warm trail of slobber in its wake.
Buffy nodded and reached for the thin-bladed scalpel in the first-aid kit, decision made.
** X-X-X-X-X **
STORY BOARD
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link: https://flic.kr/p/2kTsY1y
End Notes:
I used a picture of Saint Roch in the story board. He’s the patron saint of bachelors, dogs, falsely accused people, invalids, and gravediggers among other things. That was about the closest I could find to a patron saint of vampires, and the doggie saint was an extra bonus. Oddly, there doesn’t seem to be a saint of vampires....
Some of you have asked why none of the neighbors called the police with all the gunfire. This will be spelled out more fully later when this very thing is discussed between the Scoobies, but there was a very short line before the shooting started in the convo between Collins and Malvina:
“Don’t forget the dampening spell,” he reminded her. Usually Smith handled that, but Collins figured the witch might as well make herself useful. “Don’t need the bleedin’ locals sticking their noses in.”
“Not one o’ your bafans... Been up, hasn’t it?” the witch threw back over her shoulder.
Chapter 23: The Last Train to Graysville
Chapter Text
Chapter Notes:
Hello, Gentle Readers. If you’ll bear with me a moment, I have a little story of my own and a favor to ask before we begin.
A few months ago, I lost my invaluable, idea-bouncing beta, Holi117, at Chapter 24 of this story because for some weird reason she thought having a baby and subsequently taking care of said baby was more important than Spuffy. I mean, honestly! Additionally, Paganbaby has RL stuff going on, and she’s only beta'd up to Chapter 27. Thankfully, TeamEricNSookie has been a trooper and has gotten all the way to the end of the story! Phew! Thank you, TENS!
Despite being super-cute and having a killer smile, it doesn’t appear that Holi117’s baby boy is going to suddenly start taking care of himself anytime soon (what is wrong with kids these days!?). Therefore, I’d like to put out a call for anyone who would be interested in betaing this story and subsequent Mortal Allies stories (I do have the next one started, several chapters done on it), to PM me. I’m mostly looking for idea-bouncing and letting me know if things don’t make sense or are unclear, tell me I’ve said ‘bloody’ ten times on this page and that’s probably too many, and be a bit of a cheerleader, more than grammar and punctuation help (though those are of course welcome too!). It would be ideal if we could be Facebook friends and communicate via chat there, especially for idea-bouncing. Of course, if you need beta help in reply, I’d be more than happy to beta for you or idea bounce or whatever you need.
TLDR: If anyone is interested in betaing this series PM me! Ta!
Rest assured, this will not slow the posting of this story at all.
We now return you to your regular programming.
Chapter 23: The Last Train to Graysville
Joyce pulled the DeSoto into the driveway and cut the motor. She sat there in silence, listening to the clicking of the cooling engine, too exhausted to move and not wanting to wake her dozing passenger. Giles had fallen asleep on the short drive back from his apartment. His head was pillowed against the hard glass window of the passenger’s door in what looked a terribly uncomfortable position. His mouth hung open and a snore or a snort would escape now and then. It was late… or early, depending on how you wanted to look at it, they’d both been up too many hours without rest or respite. Giles was certainly in much worse shape than Joyce, having been shot and beaten in addition to being sleep deprived.
Unfortunately, he was the only one that knew how to perform the spell to wake Xander, Oz, and Willow from their magically induced comas.
“Mr. Giles,” Joyce said softly, not wanting to startle him too badly.
Giles snored.
“Mr. Giles,” she said again, more loudly.
No response.
“Rupert,” she tried, reaching over and touching his shoulder.
Giles jerked awake with a shout, “There is no worm!” He looked around, his glasses askew, eyes wide, and blinked owlishly at Joyce.
She arched a brow at him. “Well, worm or not, I’m afraid we have to get up.”
Giles shook his head, blinking sleep and confusion from his eyes, and removed his glasses. He found a handkerchief in his clean suit pocket and began to scrub the smudges from them. “I-I’m sorry, I seem to have dozed off a moment.”
Joyce gave him an understanding, if wan smile, and looked back at the house. “Well, at least it’s nearly over now. Just the spell to wake up Oz, Willow, and Xander and…”
Giles’ disagreeing snort interrupted her.
“What?” Joyce questioned, looking back at him.
Giles returned his glasses to his nose. “The Council still needs to be dealt with. Buffy may feel that she has some leverage with her hostages, but… well, you recall what they said when Spike offered to trade Smith for me. Additionally, I don’t think Travers would believe she would actually let harm come to them, which reduces her bargaining power substantially.”
Joyce scowled and looked back at the house. “How do we get them to stop? How do I protect my daughter? Do they need to be... killed?”
“No,” Giles retorted vehemently, then sighed. “That would likely only make things worse. We do not need the wrath of the entire Council brought down upon us. They are more than these few members, and they have quite a lot of power.”
“So, what do we do?” the woman asked.
“I believe Buffy will need to make some concessions. Send Spike away – the vampire, I mean— as he seems to be a personal thorn for Travers. A-and likely she will need to agree to resume working for the Council. I believe they will then send a new Watcher to oversee things here. Agreeing to work for a new Watcher may be the only way to assure her relative safety.”
Joyce frowned and looked down at her hands, clasped tightly in her lap. “I was thinking it might be best for William to leave as soon as he’s able,” she admitted. “I would hate to see Buffy’s heart broken again. I… you might be right about her feelings being more than a childish crush.” She sighed heavily. “I hate the idea of her working for them again, though. They’re… they’re horrible people – look what they’ve done! There really should be some... some punishment, some consequences for their actions. Doesn't anyone have any authority over them? The Queen or... or Scotland Yard or someone?”
Giles gave an amused snort, shaking his head, but his voice was downtrodden when he spoke. “Unfortunately, the Council is quite old and has become deeply entrenched within most official international agencies and major governments, either via operatives or... donations.”
Joyce raised a brow at that, understanding ‘donations’ to mean ‘bribes’.
Giles shrugged, then grimaced as his ribs shifted. “It is, sadly, how the world works. I understand your hesitancy to allow Buffy to continue her relationship with them, but I’m afraid it may be the only way. Perhaps look at it as keeping your friends close and your enemies closer. I will do all I can to run interference, to make sure no further harm comes to her. You have my word on that… for what it’s worth.”
Joyce looked over at him again, her emotions once again warring inside her. She wanted to trust him, but look what he’d done! Poisoned her daughter and their dog! Lied to them. Nearly gotten everyone killed… or worse. And she absolutely did not trust Travers or the Council any further than she could throw a pregnant elephant.
Giles cleared his throat, uncomfortable under her silent scrutiny. “I know I don’t deserve your trust, but I would like the chance to make things right… as right as I can,” he pleaded.
“If you hurt my daughter again, it will be the last thing you ever do. I may not be a Slayer or a vampire or a… a Watcher…” She spat the last word as if it was bitter acid in her mouth. “…But I’m worse. I’m a mother. Do we understand each other?”
“Perfectly,” Giles agreed, taking a deep breath and reaching for the door handle. “Shall we?”
** X-X-X-X-X **
Blood flowed freely from the slash in Buffy’s arm, dripping in a thick, red stream into Spike’s mouth, coating his eager tongue and his deadly fangs. His head was back in her lap, cradled on her crossed legs, her arm hovering a few inches above his face as the crimson river of life flowed from Slayer to vampire.
She’d cut herself a bit deeper than she’d intended – the scalpel was sharper than she realized, and it had pressed into her flesh like warm butter. Spike still hadn’t awoken, but he’d made a desperate, greedy sound as the scent of her blood filled his flaring nostrils and the demon burst from beneath the man’s features. He didn’t rise, didn’t reach for her, didn’t snap at her, but simply took what she offered, desperately swallowing the manna dripping from heaven.
She had no idea how much she’d given him – whatever Spike needed – no amount seemed too much. He was here because she’d called him. He’d come because he was her friend. Being her friend was a dangerous proposition. Just ask Willow, Xander, and Oz. How many times had they been hurt, threatened, or huddled at death’s door? And now they were comatose and who knew if Giles could even wake them up. And Spike was… She let her eyes wander over his torso – which was beginning to heal with the help of her blood and her dog’s magic slobber – but still, the sight of it made her stomach turn and cramp painfully.
None of this would’ve happened but for her. The Slayer was beyond tears, there just weren’t any left inside her, but it didn’t mean her heart didn’t ache with regret and guilt. All her fault.
She heard a car door slam from just outside and flinched, flinging a spray of blood down Spike’s chin and over his neck. “Shit, shit, shit,” she muttered, clamping her hand over the slash in her arm as she tried to slide out from beneath him. They wouldn’t understand. They’d never understand. Bad Slayer. Reckless.
A forlorn, keening moan surfaced from the depths of the vampire as the flow of blood into his mouth stopped. His tongue searched his lips for more of the sweet, warm liquid but found only droplets here and there, nothing like the wonderful stream that had been there. Buffy’s heart lurched again as she heard voices outside – Giles and her mom. Shit! She looked around for a bandage or something to wrap her arm with as she scurried back from beneath Spike’s head. His head thunked down on the sleeping bag as she slid out from under him, not taking time to ease him down or put pillows under his head, panic driving her. They couldn’t know… couldn’t see this. Disappointing. Reckless.
She scrambled to her feet, still clutching her bleeding arm. Blood oozed from between her fingers and she lifted her arm above her head as she hurried for the kitchen, driven by the sound of feet on the porch steps.
The Guardian whined, looking between Spike and Buffy, then at the door, the long hair of his brows twitching in thought. After a moment, he pushed himself to his feet with a grunt and limped slowly after his hooman. In the kitchen he found Buffy pressing a cloth against her arm, still holding it up over her head, willing it to stop bleeding.
“Rrrrwrf,” he rumbled, coming up to her and nudging her hip with his cold nose. “Rrrrfff!”
Buffy looked down at him, her eyes wide with panic. He was looking up at her dripping arm. Of course! Where had her brain skipped off to? She quickly lowered the wound to him, removing the cloth. His hot, rough tongue grazed over the deep cut, removing the caked blood from around it and coating it with a sheen of salvia. Another lick and another and the cut began to heal. She could hear her mom and Giles in the living room now, speaking in low voices. She looked back down at her arm – the deep slash was nearly gone, just another healing red welt, like the ones from the glass.
Buffy let out a sigh of relief. She dropped down to the floor threw her arms around her dog’s neck, hugging him tightly. “Just our secret, right? No one else needs to know… just us. It’s for Spike.”
He nuzzled against her ear, his cold nose and warm breath tickling her skin. She scrunched up her shoulders and pulled away, laughing lightly. “Good boy… you’re the best.”
Spike chuffed out a satisfied breath as his tail wagged happily, thudding against the kitchen cabinet, his brown eyes glinting with love.
“That deserves a treat,” Buffy continued, standing up and turning for the refrigerator. She had just finished fishing out a meatball from the spaghetti for him when her mom and Giles came in.
“Buffy!” Joyce called in surprise. “I thought you might be upstairs asleep.”
Buffy turned around, quickly closing the fridge door and dropping the hand with the meatball in it down beneath the edge of the counter. Spike gobbled it up and licked her fingers clean in the blink of an eye, his tail still thumping against the cabinet.
“Well, you know what they say, no rest for vampire sitters. Did you get the blood?”
Giles, who was behind Joyce, limped in, leaning heavily on his cane. He lifted the cooler into view with his free hand and set it on the counter. “It turns out your mother is quite the bandit,” he drawled, sliding the red and white Igloo over to Buffy. “She got a good bit more than I would’ve considered prudent.”
Joyce seemed to blush a bit. “I just thought… well, Spike needs it, doesn’t he? To heal?”
Buffy opened the cooler and found about two dozen pint bags of blood in it. She gave her mom a grateful smile and nodded. “Yeah, he needs it,” she agreed as she began stacking most of them into the freezer, leaving a few in the fridge for more immediate use. “I’ll heat one up for him…”
“Why don’t I do that, honey?” Joyce began, coming around the counter to her daughter. “You need to get cleaned up and get some rest.”
“Like you don’t?” Buffy scoffed, feeling suddenly inexplicably protective, even possessive, of the incapacitated vampire, even though she knew her mom wouldn’t do anything to hurt Spike. “Did you get some painkillers for Spike?” she asked as she got a mug down and began filling it with the blood. She tried not to think of it as human as she popped it into the microwave. Microwaving pig’s was okay – that was kind of like having bacon in there – but humans was just weird and gross. She wasn’t sure she wanted human blood in the same microwave with her popcorn. Blech.
“I’m not quite a good enough thief for that, but they prescribed Mr. Giles oxycodone,” Joyce revealed, pulling a bottle of pills from her pocket and setting them on the counter.
“Score,” Buffy chorused, reaching for the bottle.
“Save some for Mr. Giles,” Joyce warned as Buffy tapped a few of the small yellow pills out into her palm. Buffy sighed and put one of them back. “Did you find the spell to wake the others?” she asked, turning around to look at Giles. He looked horrible. His skin was waxen, damp with perspiration, even his hair was wet, sticking to his skull. Dark circles surrounded his sunken eyes and bruises bloomed, disappearing beneath his clean shirt. He had taken a seat at the breakfast bar, the handle of his cane hanging from the counter at his side. Buffy reached for the pill bottle and put another one back.
Giles nodded. “Yes. We’ve got everything we need. It would, however, be best if all three were in one place.”
Buffy sighed heavily, all her fatigue and guilt pressing her down, sapping what little strength she had left. “So, do we haul Xander upstairs or Willow and Oz down?”
They all fell silent, seeming to shrink before either prospect, each looking at the others, waiting for someone else to find the energy to speak, the strength to decide, as the microwave dinged.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Buffy leaned against the cool tile of the shower and let the steaming hot water stream down over her head, engulfing her in warmth. It was the first time she’d felt warm in years… okay, hours, but it felt like years. She also finally felt a bit more human, with all the grime and grit, blood and mud and bile washed from her hair and body. The scent of her lavender body wash mingled with the vanilla-almond of her shampoo, helping to clear the rancid aromas that seemed to have gotten lodged in her nose over the last few hours. She couldn’t remember any shower ever feeling better than this one, and she wondered briefly if she could just stay here forever.
They’d decided that the three sleeping beauties would be more comfortable upstairs than down, so she and her mom had dragged Xander up the stairs. He was now sleeping on the doggie bed on the floor next to Willow and Oz, who were in her bed. He’d probably have some bruises on his butt from bumping up the stairs, but it was the best they could do. At least they hadn’t smacked his head against the risers. Giles had been in no shape to really help with the hauling, and she couldn’t really begrudge him. He looked like shit. Shit that had been baked on the pavement in the blazing sun, run over by a cement truck, and then dragged home by a neighborhood cat.
She’d managed to get a full pint of warmed human blood down Spike’s throat, along with three of Giles’ pain pills. Buffy had also decided they needed a second microwave – one for human food and one for vampire food, because the thought of splattered human blood dripping onto her leftovers made her queasy. Spike still hadn’t woken, and Buffy really wanted him to heal more before he did. She’d grudgingly left her mom and her dog in the living room watching over the vampire after her mom pointed out that Buffy needed to get warmed up and out of the filthy, still-damp clothes lest she ‘catch her death of cold’. Once her mom started talking like that – like Grandma Irene – there was no arguing with her, so Buffy went.
Giles had begun working on the spell in her bedroom, so she’d grabbed some clean clothes and retreated to the bathroom. He’d said that the spell ‘should’ work, and there ‘should not’ be any lasting harm done to her friends. Should, should, should. She had a laundry list of things that hadn’t quite worked out the way they ‘should’. His reassurances were less than reassuring.
Buffy furrowed her brows. What was a laundry list, anyway? That didn’t even make any sense. A grocery list, sure. A ‘to-do’ list she got. She could even understand a ‘reading list’ as a concept. But a laundry list? How was that a thing?
Buffy shook the thought away. She knew what she was doing – distracting herself. Distracting herself from the reality of everything around her. Her friends were Rip Van Winkling and who knew if they could be woken up, and if they could, would there be any ill-effects done to them? Would they still be themselves when this was over? Her dog had been shot in the leg and poisoned by her Watcher, let’s not forget that little fact. Spike had been…
Shredded.
It was the only word that came close to what had been done to him. Behind her closed lids, tears that Buffy thought had run dry stung her bloodshot eyes.
All of this was her fault. If she’d just been a better Slayer. If she’d just been less reckless, followed the rules, done the ‘right things’, then none of them would be hurt. If she’d just died like they’d wanted her to…
Buffy sank down to her knees and curled into a ball beneath the warm downpour as a sob wracked her exhausted body. ‘Should’ve just died like a good Slayer. None of this would’ve happened then. Everyone else would’ve been okay. Should’ve just died.’
** X-X-X-X-X **
The water turned cold. Buffy’s sobs turned to shivers. She hadn’t died. She was still here, though she was pretty sure Spike wouldn’t find her glorious, magnificent, or smart anymore. She was like Midas, only instead of gold, everything she touched turned to pain and blood. Once Spike woke up it would be a miracle if he ever spoke to her again, let alone let her touch him and bring him more pain.
Buffy took a deep, shuddering breath as she reached up and turned the water off. The cold spray stopped but her shivers didn’t subside. With an effort, she pushed up from the bottom of the tub to a sitting position and wrung her dripping hair out, sending more spasms of cold down her spine with the water. She looked down at herself. Her sweet Spike had healed her cuts, but bruises remained in various stages of healing. Her body was peppered with blue and green and yellow blemishes, most of which she had no idea how she’d even gotten. Her jaw ached. She touched it gingerly, wincing as she remembered Weatherby slugging her in the face. He soo deserved to die. She should’ve let Spike kill him.
Bad Slayer. That’s what she was. A bad Slayer. If she’d been a good Slayer, she would’ve died like they wanted and no one else would’ve gotten hurt.
Buffy sighed and rubbed her tired eyes – there never was a magic time-turner-backer thingy when you needed one. A wide yawn overtook her, sending a dagger lancing through her aching jaw and up into her brain. She groaned and held her head in her hands, massaging her temples. The exhaustion that had been held at bay with adrenaline-fueled activity suddenly wrapped around her like a lead-lined blanket, pulling her toward oblivion, whispering that everything would be better if she just got some sleep.
She knew that was a lie, but sometimes you just had to lie to yourself and, anyway, Buffy was too wrung-out to fight it any longer. All her bluster and bravado were gone, washed down the drain with her tears. All that was left was a bone-deep weariness and relentless guilt that felt like a hard, icy ball in her belly. She pushed herself to her feet and grabbed a towel, half-heartedly rubbing away the cold droplets from her skin. Buffy pulled on a pair of sweats and a long-sleeved t-shirt, wrapped the towel around her hair like a turban, and drifted out of the bathroom in a half-asleep daze.
The hallway smelled of burning sage – sweet and smoky. A thin haze filled the air, giving it a dreamy feel. Or maybe she was asleep, and it really was a dream. It was getting hard to tell. She saw Giles in her room waving the smoldering smudge stick over her three sleeping friends. A white candle surrounded by three pink crystals burned in a saucer on the floor, smelling faintly of peppermint. He was reading from a book – it sounded like Latin, but could’ve been Italian or Klingon for all she knew – while he went from one to the other of her friends, wafting the smoke over them.
Clearly, the spell hadn’t worked… yet. Buffy briefly considered asking if he needed help, but didn’t want to interrupt him – plus what help was she? She, the bringer of blood and pain. Giles already had enough of that for one day. Despite the guest bed being just feet away and unoccupied, she turned for the stairs and began down them, her body on autopilot, her numb mind slowly being consumed by exhaustion.
Her mom had finished cleaning up the glass in the foyer. Good thing since Buffy was barefoot. Joyce had hung up some blankets over the smashed windows to keep most of the cold out, too. Buffy barely noticed, though, as she padded for the living room. Her two Spikes were still on the grimy, damp sleeping bag on the floor, side by side. Buffy was drawn to them like a river is drawn downhill, flowing towards the sea.
Her dog looked up as she neared, but the vampire never moved, never opened his eyes. Buffy dropped to her knees on the end of the old camp pad and shimmied between them, her big dog sliding back to give her room. She snuggled down between them, turning on her side and burying her face against her dog’s furry neck. Warm. He was so warm. She hadn’t been sure that she’d ever be warm again, but maybe… maybe there was hope for that. Small things were all she could hope for now. Like warmth. Buffy dug her fingers into the thick fur of his bronze mane, holding to him like a life preserver as her body began melting into the mat like a wax figure in the blazing sun. The dog adjusted his position and pillowed his big head on her shoulder, letting out a contented sigh as he relaxed against her.
Buffy’s other hand felt behind her, seeking her vampire. Her fingers closed over his cool forearm. Strong. Solid. Not gone. Both Spikes were here – not dead, not dust like in her nightmare. Here. For now. She was sure the vampire wouldn’t want to be here much longer, not once he was healed and could get away from the cause of all his injuries and pain – namely, her.
But he was here now. Buffy’s eyes fell closed as she was dragged into the greedy arms of Morpheus, still clinging to her vampire and her Guardian, holding on to them, never wanting to let them go.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Joyce came back into the living room carrying a couple more blankets that she’d planned on trying to tack up over the broken sidelight windows. She stopped at the sight of her daughter asleep on the floor between the two Spikes. Joyce sighed, looking down at them, noticing the grip Buffy had on the vampire’s arm. Her heart ached for her daughter. She wished she’d seen it earlier, seen that what Buffy was feeling for the vampire was more than a schoolgirl crush. She’d need to speak with Buffy about it soon, before the girl’s heart was too far gone, before too much damage was done. William was devoted to Dru and the sooner he went back to her, the better off Buffy would be.
As Joyce carefully spread the blankets over the three sleeping warriors, she prayed it wasn’t already too late.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Green eyes filled Spike’s vision. Frightened. Begging. He tried to look away, to not see the fear in them, but they followed him. Around him voices echoed, high-pitched screams. He could feel the panic in the words, hear his name repeated again and again by the girl that owned those green eyes.
He blinked and reached out, trying to touch her, silence the shrieking, but she moved too fast, taunting him.
“Buffy?” he rasped, blinded by the shimmering green eyes, deafened by the panicked shouting.
Maniacal laughter replaced the yelling for a moment. Too many voices coming from too many directions. He whirled around, trying desperately to find the source, but they were nothing but ghosts. Green-eyed ghosts. Lisa from Fairplay slashed at his face with ragged nails and he recoiled in horror, clutching at his bleeding cheek. Her long dark hair had come out in patches, her face was sunken, mummified, almost skeletal. The only thing that was the same were her eyes. Green. Accusing.
He whirled away only to find Buffy behind him, her green eyes hard, her body riddled with bullet holes. Blood poured from the wounds in rivers, soaking through her clothes, and dripping into the foggy abyss beneath them.
Spike gasped, stepping back, his own eyes going wide, horrified. “Buffy! No! It can’t… this can’t…”
“Sorry – I guess you missed your shot at killing me… Get it? Shot?” she joked, raising her brows and waiting for him to chuckle. When he just stared at her, she sighed and rolled her eyes. “Tough crowd.”
“Buffy… I… you… what…?” he stammered, taking a hesitant step toward her, his wide, blue eyes awash in disbelief and a rising tide of panic.
“Bullets really are hell on a girl’s wardrobe,” Buffy observed, fingering some of the blood-soaked holes in her shirt. She lifted her hand up toward Spike, blood running through her fingers like wine. “You want some? Shame to just let it go to waste. I guess I should’ve said you’d have a taste of my blood ‘over my dead body’ instead of ‘in your dreams’, since… well, clearly tasty deadness,” the Slayer observed, waving her blood-slick hand at her ravaged body before offering it to him again.
Spike shook his head in denial, his heart constricting painfully in his chest, his throat too tight to allow any sound to pass.
“C’mon, you know you want it,” Buffy crooned seductively, as she reached out to smear his mouth with her blood. Spike tried to duck away, turning his head, but there was no escape. Her blood coated his lips, then spilled into his mouth, a flood of crimson threatening to drown him. He choked but couldn’t get it out, it was trickling down his throat, hot and sweet and powerful. The more he tried to spit it out, the more it seemed to fill his mouth, a deluge of Slayer blood – of Buffy’s blood – overwhelming his senses. It was something he’d dreamed of many times in the past, but not now! This wasn’t how it was supposed to be!
“Is hers better than mine?” Lisa wondered, coming up to stand next to Buffy, her bones creaking eerily as she moved.
Spike shook his head numbly, unable to speak, his mouth and throat clogged with Slayer blood. He had to swallow it, but as soon as he did, more fountained into his mouth, smooth and warm against his tongue.
“Maybe he needs a reminder?” Buffy suggested.
Suddenly Lisa’s emaciated form filled out, back to vibrant life. Blood began to flow from the twin punctures in her neck, running down her bare body. She tilted her head to the side and moved forward, pressing her naked, blood-slick flesh against the vampire, offering her neck to him. “How many times can you kill me?” she purred into his ear, reaching up to pull his head down to the ruby river of life that spilled from her.
Spike jerked back, horrified, terrified, his eyes darting between the two women. He took another step back, and another, but Lisa and Buffy advanced on him, both bloody, both dead, their green eyes shining with malice.
He turned then; turned and fled. Fled the accusing eyes and the flowing blood. Their shrieks and screams began again, following him as he searched desperately for some escape from what he’d done.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Midday light filtered in through gaps in the living room curtains, but the house was still and quiet. Buffy hadn’t gone looking for anyone when she’d woken up, preferring to be alone for the care and feeding of her vampire. The Slayer sat cross-legged on the floor, Spike’s head in her lap. The mug of warm, human blood was on the floor next to her. She’d crushed up a couple more of Giles’ pain pills into it, hoping to keep Spike comfortable and sedated, at least until he was healed more. She used the turkey baster to fill the vampire’s mouth with the liquid, waited for him to swallow, then repeated the process.
With the last of the O-positive from the hospital down Spike’s throat, Buffy set the baster down and tugged up the sleeve of her shirt. She cocked her head to one side and listened – listened for any movement from any of the other inhabitants of the house – but heard no one rustling. With one last glance at the empty stairs, she picked up the scalpel she’d kept out of the first-aid kit and made a fast, deep slash across her forearm.
Blood welled up immediately, bright red in the filtered light, and she held it over Spike’s mouth, letting it drip down onto his lips and tongue.
The vampire began to choke, turning his head away from the rain of blood.
“Damn it,” Buffy muttered, dropping her arm down so the slash covered his mouth, not letting him turn away from it. “I didn’t slash my arm for you to let all my tasty blood go to waste, you stubborn vampire,” she rasped, his fangs scratching her skin as he continued coughing, his head twisting back and forth in her lap, trying to get away from the blood.
Suddenly, his head stopped moving and, for the first time in hours, Spike’s eyes blinked open slowly, glittering gold against his bruised and battered skin. Buffy leaned down and met his gaze, her hair falling in a curtain on either side of their faces. “Hey,” she murmured. “Just relax, it’s okay, everything’s okay,” she assured him.
His eyes were distant, and his lids drifted closed and open again, seemingly of their own accord, never able to fully focus on her. “Buffy?” he slurred against her arm before his eyes closed again and he went still and limp once more.
“Yeah, it’s me, Spike. It’s okay,” she replied, lifting her arm to check it. She’d just begun opening and closing her fist to increase the flow again when she heard someone on the stairs. ‘Shit!’ she thought, thrusting her arm toward the dog, who was watching her with concerned, soulful eyes from his position on the sleeping bag next to his namesake.
The dog had given her arm two healing licks before she jerked it back and tugged the sleeve of her shirt down over the cut, just as Giles came into view at the bottom of the stairs.
He stopped short, apparently surprised to find her up. “Buffy!” he exclaimed, though it came out more of a croak through a sleep-and-exhaustion roughened throat. “I wasn’t aware anyone else was up.”
Buffy shrugged and carefully lifted Spike’s head from her lap, re-settling it onto some pillows as she slid out from under him. “Just trying to get more blood down him.” She lifted the empty mug and turkey baster for emphasis before pushing up to her feet. “You know, to make with the healing.”
Giles nodded and came closer. He wasn’t using the cane this morning, but he stopped frequently, leaning on the backs of chairs or tabletops as he made his slow, limping way into the living room.
“Did you wake our sleeping beauties with your stinky herbs?” she asked as he leaned against a chair, taking the weight off his injured leg. “Are they okay?”
“It took a bit longer than I anticipated, but, yes, the counter-spell worked. They all woke up long enough to eat, drink, and get an explanation of what happened, then laid back down, complaining of headaches and exhaustion.”
“Is that… good or… you know, normal-ish?”
Giles removed his glasses and began polishing them. “I’m not certain if there is a normal in this instance, but magic always has side-effects, consequences. Apparently, Malvina made sure the price for her magic was paid by the recipients of her spell.” He examined the lenses and slid his glasses back onto is nose, looking back up at Buffy. “But I don’t think it’s anything to worry about. I would assume that, with a bit of rest, they’ll make a full recovery.”
Buffy felt a wave of sweet relief wash over her. The tightness in her chest eased just the tiniest bit, the weight on her shoulders lessening. Maybe she hadn’t gotten all her friends killed or forever lost in a Sleeping Beauty coma. She looked back down at the vampire, his ribs wrapped and taped, mummy-like, his stomach a terrible tableau in purples and reds, crisscrossed with dark scabs. Even still, it was better than it had been only a few hours ago. He’d woken up, too – sort of. Maybe everything would be okay.
“Since you’re up,” Giles interrupted her thoughts. “Perhaps you could join me in the kitchen. We have a few things we should discuss.”
Buffy arched a brow at him. Part of her wanted to tell him she had nothing to discuss with him, but the other part remembered him getting the bullets out of Spike, bullets she couldn’t get out. Of course, if not for him being hostage-guy, Spike wouldn’t have been filled with bullets in the first place. But, if she hadn’t been too stubborn to just die like the Council wanted, they wouldn’t have sent the assholes, and none of this would’ve happened at all. But, then again, if Giles hadn’t drugged her… if she hadn’t called Spike… if, if, if…
She rubbed at her tired eyes with her free hand, her shoulders slumping. There was plenty of blame to drown them all in.
“Fine,” she muttered, heading for the kitchen. She looked back down at her dog. “Keep an eye on him, boy, I’ll be back in a minute.”
“What we need to discuss will likely take longer than a minute,” Giles pointed out.
The Guardian huffed out a breath and laid his big head on the vampire’s shoulder, clearly settling in for a long wait.
Buffy rolled her eyes, turning back to face her ex-Watcher, still holding the bloody mug and turkey baster. “Then why don’t you sit down on the couch and we’ll talk here? I’m not leaving Spike alone that long, just in case he wakes up.”
Giles hesitated. “I was going to make some tea,” he explained.
“All we have is Lipton’s… instant,” Buffy pointed out. “How about some nice American coffee?”
Giles considered telling her that coffee was far from being a strictly American beverage, but thought better of it. “Is it Taster’s Choice, by any chance?” he asked hopefully.
Buffy rolled her eyes. “Folgers.”
Giles sighed. “Very well, then.” He shuffled over to the sofa, clutching his broken ribs with one hand while using the other for support on any furniture he could reach. He really should’ve just kept using the cane; it just made him feel so old and feeble. It occurred to him that perhaps he was old and feeble. He sighed, resigned, then dropped down onto the cushions with a groan of both pain and relief, already breathing hard from the exertion.
Buffy winced in sympathy then scowled at herself for feeling that way. Dog poisoner! Slayer betrayer! Hello! He got what he deserved! She rolled her eyes again and headed for the kitchen. Why were there so many shades of grey in the world, all of a sudden? What happened to the simple black and white world she used to live in? Could she get a ticket back there? She sighed heavily, realizing she’d taken the last the train to ‘Graysville’, and it was a one-way ticket. She could never go back. Nothing was ever going to be easy again.
** X-X-X-X-X **
STORY BOARD
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link: https://flic.kr/p/2kUszJ2
** X-X-X-X-X **
End Notes:
Thanks to all of you for reading! It means so much to me, treacle tarts for my muse! Sending all the sloppy, joyful doggie kisses to everyone who has left a note, a like or a kudo. I’m working on replying to all your lovely comments and treasure every one of them.
The Taster’s Choice reference explained, if you don’t know: https://youtu.be/jLRJu-dS704
The photo of SMG in the shower is from a movie called ‘The Grudge’ (2004): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0391198/
Chapter 24: Chutes and Ladders
Chapter Text
Chapter Notes:
I’m so excited and happy to announce that All4Spike has volunteered to take on the beta challenge for this series. Thank you so very much, Gillie! I really can’t tell you how much I appreciate it. And she was even able to beta this chapter before posting! What a rock star!
Thanks to all of you for reading! It means so much to me, like peach cobbler for my muse! Sending all the sloppy, joyful doggie kisses to everyone who has left a note, a like or a kudo. I’m working on replying to all your lovely comments and treasure every one of them.
Thanks also to my other wonderful beta readers and friends: Holi117 (this is her last chapter. #sadface), Paganbaby, and TeamEricNSookie. All mistakes are mine because I keep fiddling with stuff. If you see any, PM me and I’ll fix it.
Chapter 24: Chutes and Ladders
Buffy returned to the living room a few minutes later with a tray of sandwiches, bottled water, and freshly brewed coffee. Also on the tray was Giles’ bottle of painkillers. As soon as she set the tray down on the coffee table, Giles grabbed the pill bottle. His brows furrowed as he opened it and noted how many of the pills were gone. He looked up at Buffy then over at Spike, his mouth turning down into a disapproving frown.
“It could be worse,” Buffy chided, sitting down on the opposite end of the couch. “You could be the dead one full of bullets. The least you can do is share the happy pills.”
Looking resigned, Giles heaved a sigh and tapped a tablet out onto his palm before re-capping the bottle and placing it back on the tray. As he swallowed the pill with a gulp of coffee, Buffy reached for a sandwich. A moment later, Giles did the same, and in uncomfortable silence, the pair began eating.
Furry Spike, being a supernatural hero, Guardian of the Twilight and, well, a dog, took immediate note of the feast being served just a few feet away. He raised his head off the vampire and began thumping his tail rhythmically against the floor as he locked his eyes on the tray of food. He pushed up to a sitting position, giving a pitiful whine of unendurable pain in the process.
Buffy rolled her eyes. “Drama queen, much? Your leg didn’t seem to be bothering you when I let you out to pee earlier. You were barely limping,” she reminded him.
Spike huffed out a breath and walked his front feet out until he was settled onto his stomach facing his hooman, then laid his chin on his paws, his doleful eyes still glued on the tray of sandwiches.
Buffy sighed. “My dog, the moocher. Spike totally ruined you,” she declared, tearing off a bite of her sandwich and tossing it over to him. The dog rose effortlessly and snapped his jaws over the tidbit before it touched the ground, gobbling it up in a flurry of slobber and flashing teeth.
Buffy and Giles continued eating in silence, with Spike getting bites tossed to him at far too regular intervals. Then again, the pup was still owed cheeseburgers, so the least Buffy could do was offer him ham and cheese sandwiches in the meantime. Taking another bite and chewing for what was probably too long, Buffy couldn’t help but anxiously wonder what it was Giles needed to discuss, and why the hell he wasn’t already making with the discussing. She chose not to push it. Maybe he was just as hungry as she was, or maybe he was dreading whatever he had to say – like she was. Maybe he was afraid she’d kick his ass out the second she heard whatever it was he had to say. The options were endless. And so, she swallowed and took another bite of her sandwich.
When, finally, all that was left on the tray were crumbs and bottles of water dripping with condensation, Buffy leaned back against the arm of the couch, cradling her mug of coffee. She stared into its cloudy depths and debated whether to speak or not. She chose not, and instead turned her attention to her ex-Watcher, waiting.
Seeming to realize he couldn’t stall any longer, Giles set his own mug down on the table and shifted positions, wincing against the pain it clearly caused him as he forced himself to at least partially face her. He drew in a deep breath, as if bracing himself for a punch.
“We need to talk about the Council,” he said finally, removing his glasses and cleaning them with a handkerchief from his pocket. “They’ll undoubtedly send someone to check on their… assets before the end of the day. I suggest we contact Travers before that happens to begin bargaining rather than wait for someone to show up.”
“We?” Buffy questioned, curling her hands tighter around the warm mug of coffee and sipping at it slowly.
Giles shrugged, returned his glasses to his nose, and turned his gaze fully on her. “If you’ll allow me, I believe I may be of some assistance in this negotiation.”
“Because you’re one of them,” Buffy accused bitterly.
“Because I understand them, I was one of them – I am no longer,” he entreated. “I cannot take back what I’ve done, I can only try to do whatever possible to set it right, to regain your trust.”
Buffy snorted, sending ripples across the surface of the light-brown liquid she held near her lips.
“It would be prudent of you to continue to take advantage of any and all resources, even ones you may find distasteful,” Giles pointed out. His eyes shifted over to the unconscious vampire. “You didn’t seem to have a problem with that in the past.”
Buffy followed his gaze, bristling, her ire rising. She uncurled her legs from beneath her and was on her feet in a heartbeat, her mug slamming down onto the tray, some of the coffee sloshing out. “Oh, I’m anti-prudent, is that it? I’m reckless and disappointing… right?” she demanded, beginning to pace in a tight circle between the foyer and the couch. “You think I’m a shitty Slayer! Calling Spike for help – feeding that scumbag to him – well, maybe I am! I’ve always been, haven’t I? Starting back in LA, getting Merrick killed. Then here, with Angel. ‘Stupid Buffy, falling in love with a vampire, sleeping with him, setting Angelus free’,” she ranted, her arms waving madly as she marched back and forth.
“Buffy,” Giles tried.
But Buffy just kept talking over him, barely pausing for breath. “Making a deal with William the Bloody to let him and Dru leave town to wreak havoc and murder somewhere that is else if he helped me against Angelus. Then going off with him on my own to help rescue the crazy bitch only a few months later – even though I was also trying to save my dog – foolish and disappointing, right? Don’t you think I KNOW all this?” she screeched, whirling to face the man who she’d considered a father-figure, frustrated tears burning her bloodshot eyes, her chest heaving with emotion and exertion.
Pain and fury and guilt all warred inside her as she glared at him. She’d loved him like a father, and thought he’d loved her like a daughter, but then he’d betrayed her. He’d clearly been disappointed in her choices ever since Angel, and making deals with Spike had only deepened his disapproval. He’d hurt her so badly, sided with the Council against her, and it was probably all her own fault!
“It’s why you went along with them, isn’t it? Drugging me, poisoning Spike – Spike, for God’s sake – an innocent dog! A Guardian! He never did anything to you, but you.... Look what you did!” Her hand shot out in the pup’s direction, underscoring her point. The dog took that opportunity to looked exceptionally pathetic, letting his ears droop woefully and sighing forlornly.
“It’s why you set me up for this… this test of theirs,” Buffy continued. “This test that’s probably killed more Slayers than vampires ever have! You wanted to get rid of the stupid, reckless, disappointing Slayer you’d been saddled with – get someone better! Someone like… like Kendra. Someone who follows the rules, who’d actually seen the damn handbook—”
“Buffy,” Giles tried for the third or fourth time, rising to his feet with difficulty. He grunted with the effort of moving, but closed the short distance between them with just a couple of wobbling steps. He pulled her back down to the sofa next to him, his hands gripping her upper arms tightly. The desperate man shook her lightly, forcing her to look up at him with those shimmering green eyes. “None of that is true,” he stated unequivocally.
Buffy snorted and shook her head. “Yes, it is,” she muttered, fighting back the tears that wanted to fall.
“It bloody well is not!” Giles declared vehemently, sounding so much like Spike it made Buffy blink. “I have never thought you anything but a magnificent Slayer. You are a strong, intelligent young woman with exceptional instincts and remarkable abilities. Have you acted rashly in the past? Yes, of course. Will you likely do so again? Certainly. It does not negate my feelings for you; it doesn’t make you a… a ‘shitty Slayer’. Quite the contrary. It’s your heart that makes you extraordinary.”
Tears finally spilled down Buffy’s cheeks and her chin quivered, trying desperately to keep from sobbing as Giles continued in earnest, “I was the foolish one… the disappointment here, Buffy, not you. I followed my training, followed the rules, as I had been taught to do, and look where it has led us. If I had been more like you, if I had followed my heart instead, then you, your dog, your mother, and your friends wouldn’t have paid this price.”
Giles released the grip he had on her arms and sat back, yanking his glasses off with one hand as he retrieved his handkerchief again with the other. He began scrubbing them intently, his own eyes shining with unshed tears, unable to meet her disbelieving gaze. “I am truly sorry. I… I never meant to hurt you, and certainly never want to see you… k-killed.”
Tears streamed down Buffy’s face, dripping from her chin and soaking into her shirt. She curled her legs beneath her again, pushing back into the cushions, and wrapped her arms around her stomach, making herself as small as possible. “Y-you said,” she began in a small voice. “You said I was reckless… I was disappointing… you said… I… thought…”
Giles looked up, blinking back his emotions as best he could, and slipped his glasses back on. “If I said that, it was because you gave me a fright.”
“’If you said it’…” Buffy repeated numbly, looking up at him. “You don’t remember?”
Giles gave her an apologetic smile and a half-shrug. “I’m quite old. My memory isn’t what it used to be.”
Buffy dropped her face into her hands and shook her head slowly back and forth. The sobs she’d been holding back shuddering through her, wracking her shoulders. He didn’t even remember calling her reckless and disappointing. HE DIDN’T EVEN REMEMBER. She didn’t know whether to be angry or ecstatic; she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry or just break down and lose her mind.
Buffy remembered hearing or reading some weird saying about an axe and a tree... ‘The tree remembers what the axe forgets.’ She hadn’t really understood it until this moment. Giles was the axe; she was the tree. He didn’t remember, while she couldn’t forget.
“I couldn’t love you more if you were my own daughter, Buffy. I… it’s not proper for a Watcher to feel that way. We’re supposed to be detached, objective. But, I suppose I’m not a Watcher any longer… for that very reason. I’m sorry I never told you that before. It must sound quite hollow now, under the circumstances.” Giles sighed and slipped a thumb and forefinger beneath his glasses to grip the bridge of his nose, as he did when trying to stem the headache. “I am so… so horribly sorry.”
Buffy continued shaking her head, her face in her hand, but her heart constricted painfully in her chest. She’d needed this before, when Hank had stood her up, when he’d brushed his only daughter off for ‘quarterly projections’. But hadn’t Giles done the same, or worse? He said he loved her, but look at what he’d done.
Was it her? Did she drive them all away? Was she just not good enough? Her chest ached as she struggled to reinforce her emotional walls, to protect what little was left of her shattered heart.
Buffy felt Giles shift on the couch, and she brought her arm up sharply, blocking what she knew was coming – a comforting hand. She couldn’t do this. “Don’t,” she ground out, swiping madly at the tears streaking her face. “Just don’t.”
Giles drew his hand back and nodded gravely, his expression desolate and remorseful.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” she declared, standing up. She grabbed up the nearly empty tray and started for the kitchen, slopping more of her now-cold coffee over the discarded plates and napkins. “If you have something to tell me about dealing with Travers, then I’ll listen – keep the rest of it to yourself. Let’s just stay… detached.”
“Of course,” Giles agreed morosely, sitting back to await her return.
Buffy set the tray down on the counter in the kitchen and leaned over it, her head bowed, her arms propped on either side. Was this how love would always be for her? Betrayal, abandonment, hollow promises, and heartache? Tears streamed from her eyes and uncontrollable sobs shook her slender shoulders, despite her best efforts to hold them back. Maybe the Council was right. It felt like a bitter pill had gotten stuck in her throat thinking the Council could be right about anything, but maybe detachment would be better. Slayers were meant to be alone – the one girl in all the world. Not the one girl and her friends, family, dog, and boyfriend. Not even the girl and her Watcher. Just the girl. That way no one got hurt – not them, not her.
Buffy’s heart cracked. She had no idea how to live that way. “Figure it out,” she admonished herself, sniffing back her tears as she stood up straight. She swiped angrily at her cheeks, clearing her tears. Lesson the first: detached people didn’t cry.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Spike swam up from the depths of his nightmares, clutching desperately for consciousness. He tried to escape the sticky web of sleep, blinking groggily, trying to make his mind and his eyes focus. The dog. He could smell and feel the dog next to him, heat radiated off him like a furnace. Spike tried to make his hand move, to reach out and grab hold, but it seemed beyond his abilities to do even that much. He turned his head and saw two bleary figures sitting, half-facing each other. They were silhouetted against the dim light that bled in through the closed curtains, but he would know Buffy anywhere. He willed his eyes to focus, but couldn’t place the other person – larger than the Slayer, a giant boulder to Buffy’s slender reed.
And then the boulder spoke, “It is imperative that we have a strategy, not simply barrel headlong into negotiations with Travers.”
The Watcher, then. Spike’s eyes drifted closed again and his senses blurred. The voices continued, but sounded far away. The dim light faded to black, and the mat he was lying on turned to a drifting cloud, floating further and further away from the reed and the boulder.
Spike was running, but couldn’t remember why. He slowed, turned a corner, and was met by utter blackness. Not the dark of a night, but the complete and utter darkness of a cave, deep underground, away from even a flicker of starlight or hint of the moon. So dark that it hurt his eyes to even try and see his hand in front of his face. He concentrated harder, willing his demon eyes to see something, anything at all, but there was nothing but the void of a blackhole surrounding him.
Suddenly, a light flashed on with the boom of a stage light that reverberated through the empty space, stunning him momentarily. He lifted a hand to shield his eyes as he recoiled back from the sudden brightness before him. Squinting through his fingers, he saw a huge spotlight in the center of the cavern had illuminated a bistro table surrounded by four chairs. In one chair sat Buffy, in another, Giles, and in the third was Cujo.
Frowning, confused, Spike lowered his hand and walked forward carefully, feeling his way with his feet, unable to see anything but the circle of light a few yards away. Its radiance didn’t leach out into the darkness, it shone only on the table and its occupants, as if contained in a cylinder. He noticed croissants on the table, with butter and jam. Giles had a small cup of espresso while Buffy had a cappuccino. The dog had a bowl in front of him with what looked like gravy in it. None of them looked up as he approached, all far too engrossed in their conversation… in French. So not a cappuccino, a café crème, then.
Spike shaded his eyes as he stepped into the light, but was surprised to find it not as blinding as it had looked from the outside. Still no one, not even the dog, acknowledged him.
“Je souhaite que les cercueil cessent de chanter,” Buffy complained. “Ils ne dansent jamais en harmonie.”
“Le tueur ne peut pas exiger les faveurs des cercueil,” Giles informed her in his most authoritative voice.
“Oi,” Spike interrupted. “You lot need to speak sodding English.”
“Les cercueil s'en moquent,” Buffy shrugged, waving a dismissive hand.
“The bloody coffins may not care, but I dunno why you’re talking about coffins in the first place,” Spike argued.
“Coffins?” Buffy frowned, looking up at him. “We were talking about the Council.”
“And you wish they’d stop singing since they never dance in tune?” Spike wondered, arching a brow at her.
Buffy’s brow furrowed. “Is that what I said?”
Spike rolled his eyes. “Yeah, blondie, that’s what ya said… and ya said it wrong. And what’s with you, Mr. McGee?” he asked, turning to Giles. “That bonnet doesn’t suit,” he informed the Watcher, reaching over and pulling a jaunty beret off Giles’ head. “Everybody knows raspberry berets are for girls who come in through the out door.”
Spike settled the beret on Buffy’s head, fixing it just so, before pulling the fourth chair out and spinning it around. He sat down, straddling it, folding his forearms across the back, and looking at his companions. “So, what’s the plan, then?”
“You’re not part of the plan,” Giles declared haughtily, running a hand through his hair to help smooth it back into place.
“He’s part of the cheezeburger plan,” the dog reminded them in a deep, rumbling voice. “All the cheezeburgers in town – was a promise!”
“We aren’t discussing the cheeze… err… cheeseburger plan now,” Giles insisted.
“He could be part of the non-cheezeburger plan,” Buffy argued.
“He most certainly cannot,” Giles shot back. “Buffy, Travers despises him. Making Spike part of the plan would do nothing but cause further agitation. It would really be best if he were gone before we even begin speaking with Quentin.”
Buffy’s lips thinned into a determined line. “No. I’m not kicking him out. He’s my friend! He’s had my back through all this, the least I can do is have his. Plus, he’s still healing—from bullets he took for you! You’d think that would mean something.”
“Oh, dear Lord,” Giles sighed, exasperated. “Yes, I am well aware of the sacrifice he’s made on my behalf, but keeping him in your home is not the way to smooth things out with the Council.”
“Maybe I don’t want to smooth things out. Maybe I want un-smoothiness… maybe I’m firmly in the lack of smoothiness camp,” Buffy pouted.
“Woof!” agreed Cujo, looking up from lapping his gravy. “Plus – cheezeburgers!”
“That will do nothing to keep you, your friends, and your mother safe. Or you, you ungrateful hound,” Giles chastised, glaring at the dog. “Eat your consommé and do be quiet.”
“Rather have cheezeburgers,” the dog complained, running is long tongue out to lick some of the soup from his muzzle. “Was promised cheezeburgers.”
“What’s this cheeseburger plan, anyway?” Spike wondered.
“All in good time! Cheeseburgers can wait!” The former Watcher dismissed both Spikes, drawing a huff of indignation from the dog. Giles ignored him, looking back at Buffy across the small table.
“We need to deal with the coffins… err… the Council first. There will need to be sacrifices made in order to assure everyone’s long-term safety.”
“And I’m the sodding sacrificial lamb?” Spike interjected.
“More like the sacrificial annoying vampire,” Giles retorted, frowning. “While we appreciate all you’ve done—”
“Like savin’ your miserable life,” Spike interrupted.
“Yes, thank you, I hadn’t been reminded of that in the last ten seconds or so – I do appreciate it, I shouldn’t want it to slip my mind,” Giles replied acerbically.
“They say the memory’s the second thing to go… but I hear they make little blue pills now for the first,” Spike goaded, giving a smug, challenging little lift of the chin and bob of the head at the older man.
Giles sighed, not rising to the bait, and removed his glasses, rubbing at his eyes wearily. “Do you think we can remain on point?” he wondered with a sigh, putting his glasses back on and looking up at Buffy. “While we do have some leverage with the hostages, it is not as much as one might think. As a rule, they’re prepared to die on a mission – all but the witch. She’s not typically a special operative. She may have some value. The rest are expendable.”
“Then why the fuck aren’t I eating them instead of pig’s blood?” Spike demanded. He stood up, looking around, out into the darkness surrounding their small circle of light.
“We’ve been over this,” Buffy reminded him. “I don’t kill humans.”
“Didn’t say anything ‘bout you, luv. Just point me at ‘em. Might not be what you do, but it’s what I do,” Spike argued, tucking his thumbs over his belt buckle and shrugging his shoulders to re-settle his duster in place. “And I’m bloody good at it.”
A new, sultry, feminine voice broke into the conversation, “Are you?”
Spike turned to see Lisa shimmering into existence behind Cujo. She was whole, healthy, and again dressed in the floral lace, backless, black dress that Dru had found so appealing. The apparition’s emerald eyes bore into Spike’s as she came fully into the ring of light. Her fingers stroked lightly over her bare, unmarred neck as she turned her head from side to side, letting her long, dark hair dance over her soft, tanned shoulders. It would’ve been alluring in other circumstances. It would’ve whet Spike’s appetite, provoked the demon, and aroused the man.
Spike’s mouth went dry, his bulging eyes unable to leave hers. Lisa from Fairplay. ‘It’s not fair!’
He willed himself to move, to look away, but nothing would budge, not his hands, not his feet, not even his eyelids.
“How many times can you kill me, Spike?” she purred as she began making her way around the table toward the vampire.
Finally, Spike took a halting step back, and another, shock and fear coloring his features, his throat constricted. “Didn’t mean… was Dru,” he stammered as he moved nearer the edge of the cylinder of light.
“But you’re soooo good at it,” Lisa reminded him coyly, throwing his own words back at him. “Why don’t you show us?”
Spike looked at Buffy, his eyes wide with terror. She was watching them with a confused expression, her head tilted to one side as if trying to grasp a particularly difficult algebra problem. Buffy hadn’t treated him like a monster, but like a man. She’d called him her friend. She’d thanked him for the things he’d done, the sacrifices he’d made. She’d been concerned about him, genuinely worried about his wellbeing. She’d defended him to the Council and to her Watcher. She’d stood by him. He’d promised – no killing – and she’d trusted him.
“Got a truce, haven’t I? With the Slayer… can’t…” Spike stammered in justification as he took another step back.
“Which you already broke,” Lisa insisted. “Slayer blood thrums inside you, I know you can feel it. You sunk your fangs into her, fed deep from her chalice, draining her life, taking it for your own. Just like you did mine.”
Spike’s eyes darted back to Buffy. Her hand was over her neck now, blood flowing through her fingers, dripping onto the table, pooling there in a crimson puddle. She was staring at it blankly. The Slayer pulled her hand away from her neck and looked at her blood-stained fingers, her expression a mask of bewilderment.
Spike shook his head frantically, his eyes wide with horror. Buffy’s trusting eyes looked up at him as her blood flowed, leaving glimmering, ruby droplets on the white floor. He could taste the tingling sweetness of it on his tongue, feel the slick warmth of it on his lips, hear it singing in his veins. Spike lifted a hand to his mouth. His fingers came back red, stained with the blood of the Slayer.
“No… No… I…” he stammered, his mind whirling, his heart sinking. He could see the Slayer’s expression slowly changing as realization dawned. Her trust withered; her affection died, spilling out like her blood. His friend turned into his enemy once again.
Buffy stood up, a stake suddenly in her hand, the anger of bitter betrayal flashing in her eyes.
Spike took another step back, holding up his hands in surrender. Blood ran from them, coating them like a glistening, liquid glove. Her blood. “Buffy, please… I…” Spike’s foot disappeared into the void beyond the light. Then he was falling. Falling into the utter blackness. Nothing but accusing green eyes filling his vision, glaring down at him as he plummeted into the cavernous abyss.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Buffy was wigging, but trying her damnedest not to show it.
A fancy bone china tea set, with all the accoutrements, sat in the center of Buffy’s dining room table. It was delicate, expensive, and elegant, with hand painted periwinkles, and gilding around the rims. It looked like something the Queen would take her tea from. It wasn’t Buffy’s. It belonged to the man serving the tea: Giles. She was having a hard time wrapping her mind around that. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the wiggy part.
The wiggy part were the ‘guests’ that warranted such fine china.
Buffy raised her eyes to watch Giles pour a cup for each of their ‘guests’. Quentin Travers, sitting directly across from Buffy, took his black—no milk, no sugar, no joy—as did the man to his right, Nigel. The other member of the Council’s negotiation team, Lydia, who was to Quentin’s left, took hers with milk and sugar.
Buffy felt utterly out of her depth. Giles had coached her, explained that this meeting with Travers would be like a chess match. He’d helped her plan out her moves, and she’d thought she’d been prepared to make demands of Travers, even to make concessions. But now, sitting here in her jeans and sweatshirt sipping hoity-toity tea with these people in their tweedy business suits and their haughty attitudes, she wasn’t so sure.
She felt like she was ten years old and had been called to the principal’s office, with her mom on one side and Giles on the other. Even the message on her shirt, which read, ‘As far as I know, I’m delightful,’ wasn’t bolstering her confidence any. Buffy could beat up vampires until the cows turned blue, then she could beat up the cows, but this… this was different. This was adult stuff. And she soooo wasn’t an adult, regardless of the calendar proclaiming her to be twenty-four hours into her nineteenth year.
She really wished Spike was next to her instead of Giles and her mom. He exuded confidence from every pore and peroxided hair follicle. He wasn’t intimidated by anyone. Unfortunately, even if he was conscious and able to be here, he’d probably say something to infuriate these pretentious jerks and upset the whole chess cart. Her lips curved into a small smile at the thought. It would be pretty entertaining… but not productive. Adulting. She needed to do the adulting, productive thing, not the entertaining Spike stuff.
“So, I understand you actually know William the Bloody,” Lydia said in her upper-crust English accent, breaking the uneasy silence as Giles finished serving the tea.
Buffy jerked guiltily, her smile fading, caught thinking about Spike. She looked over at the woman, wondering if she was a witch or something, able to read minds. Lydia’s blonde hair was pulled back into a severe bun at the back of her head and she had bright, blue eyes, but they were mostly obscured by her horn-rimmed glasses. Buffy glanced back at Travers, who was looking distinctly uncomfortable with the topic, then back to the woman. “Yeah, we’ve met,” Buffy said carefully.
“The reports said he helped you… against Angelus,” Lydia continued, sounding… impressed? What’s up with that? “That must’ve been quite exciting. Is he as enigmatic and inimitable as his reputation suggests?”
Now she sounded… smitten? Buffy raised her brows. This was just weird. “Mostly he’s a sarcastic smartass… and shirty,” she replied dryly.
“Do you think I might be able to meet him before we depart?” Lydia continued, undaunted.
Buffy stared at the woman for a long moment. “No.”
The other blonde looked crestfallen. “But, whyever not? I assure you I won’t take much of his time, I simply—”
“Because your goons shot him with wooden bullets and he’s cranky,” Buffy half-lied. Spike would be totally cranky if he wasn’t sedated, she was sure. “You really wouldn’t like him when he’s cranky.”
Lydia persisted. “Perhaps I could have some of your time, then? You must be familiar with his fighting style. I’d love to know how many times you’ve encountered him in hand-to-hand combat, and how you’ve managed to survive. He’s a most intriguing vampire, a Promethean overachiever, by all accounts, but I’ve only been able to interview one Slayer who’s actually faced him in battle. They don’t generally survive the encounter, you see. Most of my information comes from Watcher’s diaries, including Mr. Giles’, of course. And if you have any current photographs we could incorporate into our records, that would be most helpful, as well. Face and full body… in color?”
Buffy blinked at her. Spike had a fucking groupie. And she worked for the Watcher’s Council. “Did you want the tasteful yet revealing nudes or are the ‘day in the life’ candid shots with his clothes on okay?”
Lydia’s eyes widened eagerly. “I, uh—"
Travers cleared his throat. “While this is all very fascinating,” he cut in before Lydia could say anything else. “I believe we have more pressing matters to discuss. Such as the location and welfare of my operatives.”
Giles and Joyce looked at Buffy, waiting for her to take the lead. This was it. The game was on. She cleared her throat and sat up straighter in her chair, trying to keep her fluttering stomach from making a run for it. God, why couldn’t she just hit something!? She was so much better at hitting things.
“They’re fine, for now,” Buffy replied, trying to sound adult-ified. “They’re not here, if that’s what you were wondering. We’ll return them to you as soon as we have an understanding that we’re satisfied with.”
“And if we do not come to an understanding?” Nigel asked, setting his teacup down in its pretty little saucer.
Buffy pictured one of Spike’s smirks – one that conveyed a deadly sort of smug confidence – and tried to paste it on her own lips. If she could just fake it a little while, maybe they could get through this without her getting detention or, you know, being hunted for the rest of her probably very short life or hauled off to England for rehabilitation. She just needed some of that confidence that Spike had in her, some of that belief that she was smart and sneaky and strong and… glorious. God, she’d give all the Manolo Blahnik shoes in the world if she could just be glorious for the next half-hour.
“Well, I hope their life insurance is paid up,” Buffy replied casually, doing everything in her power to channel the shirty, enigmatic vampire.
Travers tsked his tongue. “Come now, Miss Summers, I don’t believe you have it in you, my dear. To kill humans? It’s quite different than slaying a demon, I can assure you,” he chided.
“I’m not ‘your dear’,” Buffy retorted sharply. “And I won’t harm a hair on their pretty little heads. I will tell you that they’re in a notoriously dangerous part of town, right in the middle of a cemetery… tranquilized and tied up. Do you know what happens in cemeteries around here when the sun goes down? As one who frequently hangs out in them, I can tell you it’s kind of a feeding frenzy if there isn’t a Slayer around to, you know, slay.
“I’d say we have…” Buffy raised her arm and twirled her watch around to look at it. “An hour tops before the fledges start rising.”
Buffy saw Lydia look down at something in her hand beneath the table. “Put the phone away, toots, before I take it away… along with most of your fingers. No calling in the cavalry to go look for them. It’s just us – finding them in time depends on what happens here.”
Travers shifted uncomfortably in his seat while the other two Watchers, well, watched him, looking a bit worried. He gave a short nod and Lydia slid the phone back into her bag. It wasn’t a big win, but it was something – she was making them nervous. Buffy felt a surge of confidence bubble up from deep inside. ‘Bloody glorious!’ Spike’s voice rang in her head, steeling her nerve even more. She smiled at Travers innocently, waiting for the Council Head’s next move.
“Be that as it may,” Travers replied after a moment, sounding dismissive. “They are all prepared to give their lives for the cause. I’m afraid this really does not give you quite the advantage in this discussion as you might’ve hoped, Miss Summers.”
“Are they all prepared for that, though?” Buffy wondered, furrowing her brow theatrically, as if in deep thought. “The witch, for instance? What was her name? Mallika? Melinda?”
“Malvina,” Giles supplied stoically, keeping his gaze trained on Travers.
“Right, Malvina. She’s your great niece, isn’t she?” Buffy asked sweetly. The Slayer was pleased to see Travers stiffen then, his whole body going still and rigid beneath the tweed. Another infusion of belief swelled in her, knowing she’d hit a nerve. For the first time since sitting down at this conclave, she actually thought she could do this – pull this off, do the adulting, win the game, check the mate and all that stuff. ‘Bloody right, you can! You’re magnificent!’ Spike’s voice chimed in her mind, making her sit a little taller, feel a little stronger.
Buffy had been a little afraid that move would backfire. The fourth member of the wet works team – the witch – had been the only operative they hadn’t had any information on prior to the assault. Giles had contacted his friend at the Council the previous night, and his friend had come through. From Travers’ reaction, the intel had been accurate. Score one for the home team.
“Wow,” Buffy continued in a worried tone, too cloying to be authentic. “Talk about some awkward family picnics if she met an untimely end. I understand she was raised by your sister after your niece died in the field. Killed by a vampire, wasn’t she? It would be really hard on your sister, if she lost her granddaughter like that, wouldn’t you say? Especially if you threw away a chance to bring her home tonight.”
Travers’ lips thinned into a hard line, his jaw clenching, his eyes turning stormy, before he covered his agitation by taking a sip of his tea.
“We do not negotiate with murderers,” Nigel interjected into the silence, clearly repeating the party line. “All our operatives are—"
Travers gave him a hard look, silencing his underling. He turned slowly back to Buffy, clearly struggling to contain his anger. “What is it that you want, Miss Summers?”
Buffy gave him her best Colgate smile. “Nothing much. Leave me alone. Leave my family alone. Leave my friends alone. Leave Giles alone. Leave my dog alone. Leave Spike alone. Leave everyone I know alone.”
“I’m afraid that is not possible. You are the… a Slayer. You are part of something much larger than yourself. It is not something you can simply walk away from,” Travers insisted. “If you cannot comport yourself in the manner of a Slayer, then…”
“I’ve been comporting myself in the manner of a Slayer for nearly three years!” Buffy shot back, cutting him off. “I’ve died – literally died – with the comporting. I’ve saved the world so often I’m starting to need a scorecard. I’ve sacrificed everything for this… this Calling.”
“And yet you continue to consort with vampires,” Travers pointed out, disgust tinging his features, if not his ‘superior’ tone.
“I use every weapon at my disposal to get the job done. If that means working with vampires to save the world, then yeah, I do that. It’s not like you don’t have killers on the payroll – I’ve seen them in action. Did you see our staircase?! See the bullet holes? They could’ve killed all of us! They absolutely would’ve killed Giles if one of those vampires you’re so upset about hadn’t intervened. So, I’m failing to see how you’re any better than me,” Buffy retorted angrily.
Giles, seeing the possibility of the situation quickly escalating out of control, jumped in. “Perhaps we should all just take a breath and calm down.”
Travers and Buffy both glowered at him, then mirrored each other by folding their arms over their chests in defiance, but stopped talking.
“Wonderful,” Giles continued. “As I see it, what Buffy wants is not unreasonable, and it would be in the Council’s best interest to listen. While the Council is not without substantial funding, that funding is not inexhaustible, and sending teams after her, only to have them captured, or heaven-forbid, killed, again and again, is quite expensive. As I recall the previous head of the Council was dismissed for mishandling of resources, was he not?”
Travers huffed out an irritated breath. “I am far from that point.”
“Perhaps,” Giles agreed. “But do you really want to test the Board of Governors’ patience? And to what end? What precisely is it that you hope to accomplish?”
Travers narrowed his eyes, looking at Buffy. “The Slayer and the Council work hand-in-hand to keep this world safe from the forces of darkness. We risk the entire world’s safety if you are roaming around unsupervised and uninformed. The Slayer is severely hindered if she doesn’t have the full knowledge and backing of the Council at her disposal. This idea that you can step away from the Council is imprudent, dangerous, and completely unacceptable. The Slayer may be a formidable weapon, but she needs the expertise and wisdom of the Council to be wielded in the most effective manner.”
Buffy’s eyes narrowed, pretty sure she’d just been called a ‘tool’… and a not very sharp one, at that. “You have Faith – wield her,” she suggested acerbically.
The reactions of the three people across the table from her, all trying a little too hard to look nonchalant, gave Buffy pause. “Unless you don’t. Do you even know where Faith is? ‘Cos, gotta say, she goes on more walk-abouts than Crocodile Dundee.”
Travers gave her a sour smile. “We are aware of Miss Lehane’s location.”
Buffy raised her brows, waiting, but no further information seemed forthcoming. “Well, where is she? We have a pool going. My money was on Tijuana. So, do I win?” she asked looking from one to the other of the Council members in turn.
Travers cleared his throat uncomfortably. Lydia looked anywhere but at Buffy, straightening her glasses and smoothing her perfect hair nervously. Nigel sipped his tea, not meeting anyone’s eyes, either.
“You’ve lost her, haven’t you?” Giles asked, sounding half-pleased and half-disgusted.
Travers bristled. “Not precisely.”
“But you don’t know precisely where she is, either?” Giles pressed. “Just where, pray tell, did you lose her?”
Travers and Giles stared at each other for several long, tense moments, but finally the Council head gave in. He looked over at Lydia and gave her a small nod.
The blonde Watcher cleared her throat and straightened her glasses yet again. “Last report had her at the Monterey Music Festival. She was last seen leaving with someone called… Limp Bizkit yesterday. Our operatives lost her in the crowd. The coven should have an updated location for her later this evening.”
Buffy’s brows went up. “Shoot! I guess I’m out that five bucks,” she complained. “By the way, Limp Bizkit isn’t a someone, it’s a something.”
“A demon?” Lydia asked, concerned.
Buffy snorted. “Sort of. It’s a rock band.”
Lydia’s lips formed an ‘O’. She nodded and took a sip of tea, presumably to get the taste out of her mouth from just saying the name.
“As you can see, Miss Lehane is proving to be problematic,” Travers admitted grudgingly.
“You can’t lock us both up. Who would you have to chop all the demons into cute little pieces for you?” Buffy pointed out.
Travers frowned. “Who, indeed,” he muttered. “But you left us little choice…”
“There’s always a choice,” Buffy countered. “So, now it’s time for you to decide. Are you going to leave me and my friends alone?”
“Are you going to agree to work with the Council, here on the Hellmouth with a new Watcher?” Travers retorted.
Buffy felt her mom stiffen next to her. “Here on the Hellmouth?” Buffy asked, glaring at Travers.
“That is where you are needed, my de—Miss Summers. As you said, Miss Lehane is even less reliable than you. If you wish to be left alone, to have your allies left in peace, then those are the terms,” Travers insisted.
Buffy turned her gaze on Giles, who looked a bit green. He cleared his throat. “I m-may have mentioned in my diaries that you were c-considering relocating for university,” he admitted.
Buffy’s expression of dismay didn’t change, but inwardly she felt a wave of relief pass through her. She wouldn’t have to leave her dog, the healer of her heart, with Faith. She wouldn’t have to be the one to let her mom down by not going off to college, it would all be the Council’s fault. Of course, no need for Travers to know that, make him think he was asking the impossible.
“Aren’t there other Hellmouths?” she asked. “Maybe near Pittsburgh o-or Rhode Island?”
Travers smirked. “I’m afraid not. There is one in Cleveland, but it is minor in comparison to Sunnydale. This is where you are needed. This is where you will stay if you wish to have our teams stand down.”
Buffy turned to her mom. Joyce longed to speak up, to tell these Council monsters to do some rude and physically improbable things to themselves, but bit down on her tongue. She knew Buffy and Giles had a plan, and she didn’t want to ruin it, but, damn it! They’d taken Buffy’s teenage years and turned them into a deadly battleground, and now they were going to take her chance at a normal college experience away from her, as well.
“I hear that UC Sunnydale is actually a pretty good school,” Buffy related to her mother, repeating what that guy had told her in the bar that night of her horrid date with Percy. “They have smaller classes so each student gets more attention and stuff.”
Joyce gave her daughter a tight smile and a nod, knowing that Buffy needed to handle this how she saw fit. Despite Joyce’s distaste with their ‘guests’, she couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride in her daughter. Buffy was stepping up to battle in a way that, for once, didn’t involve bloodshed—in theory, at any rate. Buffy wasn’t a girl anymore, she was a young woman; a confident, strong, intelligent young woman.
Buffy turned then and leveled her gaze on Travers, her eyes as hard as agate. She didn’t want to work with them. She didn’t want to break in a new Watcher. She didn’t want their rules or their help, but she and Giles had talked about this and she knew this was something she might have to give in on. She may have to sacrifice her knight in order to capture Travers’ Queen. “Okay, I stay on the Hellmouth, but if I don’t like whoever you send, I get to send them back until I get someone I like.”
“That is preposterous,” Travers scoffed. “You will take who we deem to be a suitable—”
Joyce couldn’t stand it another second, her ire boiling over. “What is preposterous, Mr. Travers, is that you feel that you would know who or what is suitable for my daughter. She’s the one facing all the danger while you and your cronies rattle around in your ivory tower moving pieces around on a map, playing games with her life. If it were up to me, she wouldn’t be working with you at all. You certainly wouldn’t be sitting in my home trying to intimidate and belittle my daughter. If Buffy decides that someone is unsuitable, then it is because they are a danger to her and the world, and you should accept her judgement as truth. My daughter has been in the trenches, fighting the demons and saving this world for three years. She’s sacrificed her life for the world. She’s sacrificed the last vestiges of her childhood and now you’re taking her chance to attend a prestigious university, as well. I suggest you rethink what is preposterous here. She knows what she’s doing, and you would be wise to take her opinion seriously, or your precious tower might crumble with the rest of the world.”
Buffy couldn’t stop a pleased little smile from quirking her lips, her heart swelling with the confidence that her mother had in her. Travers, however, looked like he’d swallowed a lemon. Whole. Possibly with razorblades embedded in it.
“I can certainly see where Miss Summers gets her… fire,” Travers grated out.
“Yes, well, there’s a long line of strong women in our family. I suggest you not underestimate any of us.” Joyce gave Travers a withering smile. “If anything happens to Buffy due to your incompetence, well… keep in mind that I know a vampire or two myself.”
Buffy covered her mouth with her hand and bit down on her lip to keep from laughing at the appalled look on Travers’ face. Nigel and Lydia weren’t looking too much happier. None of them seemed to know what to say next. After a couple of uncomfortable moments of silence, Buffy saved them. “So, veto power?” she reminded them of the issue.
The Council Head cleared his throat. “Up to three – no more.”
“Seven,” Buffy countered.
Travers shook his head in agitation. “Five, that is my final offer.”
Buffy looked at Giles who gave her a small shrug of the head.
“Okay, five,” she agreed. “Next point, I’m not going to change the way I do my job,” Buffy informed him. “I have friends, they help me.”
“And one of these friends you plan to continue working with is the vampire, William the Bloody?” Travers asked bitterly.
Buffy glanced at Lydia who seemed quite interested in the answer, and not in a disapproving way like Travers. What the hell was her deal?
Looking back at Quentin, Buffy shrugged. She didn’t know what Spike would do when he recovered. If he had any brains at all, he’d hit the road, get as far away from her as he could. She’d done nothing but cause him pain pretty much since the second he’d arrived. But Travers didn’t need to know any of that and neither did Lydia. “If it weren’t for him, Giles would be dead, and I probably would’ve had to kill your wet works goons for that. So, yeah, he’s part of my team. Which means you leave him alone. I know you don’t like him much…”
Travers snorted inelegantly. “You, my dear, are a master of understatement.”
“But you don’t have to work with him. He’s been an asset before. Like Lisa said—”
“Lydia,” the woman corrected, but Buffy just kept talking.
“—he helped avert an apocalypse, helped me stop Angelus. He protected my mom from your crazy, mother-obsessed vampire, and he’s my friend. We have an understanding.”
“What is that understanding, exactly?” Lydia wondered.
Buffy turned her eyes on the other woman. “We don’t stab each other in the back. Which is more than I can say for you people.”
“He’s a vampire, Miss Summers. When he gets the opportunity, he will turn on you,” Travers insisted.
“Yeah, maybe, but it’ll be a fair fight and, if that happens, I’ll take care of it. Until then, why don’t we let him help us save the world?” Buffy challenged.
“It is not a matter of ‘if’, but rather ‘when’ he turns on you,” Travers corrected. “Do you really believe you are capable of ‘taking care of it’? You seem… overly friendly with the vampire.”
Angel’s confused and horrified expression as Buffy shoved the blessed sword through his body and into Acathla flashed in her mind. The pain he’d felt had radiated out of his soulful eyes directly into her, nearly crushing her in that horrible moment. The Slayer swallowed hard, her gaze sharpening, landing on Travers like a razor. “I. Will. Take. Care. Of. It,” she ground out, enunciating each word precisely. She looked at her watch again. “Time’s up. You need to decide.”
“You will work with a new Watcher here on the Hellmouth—with dismissal power up to five—and endeavor to fulfill your Calling to your fullest abilities?” Travers asked.
“If you leave all my friends and family alone, don’t attack us, don’t try to kidnap anyone or rehabilitate anyone, including me. Don’t do anything, you know, underhanded and evil, like drug anyone, take their powers away, and set monsters loose on them,” Buffy stipulated.
Travers didn’t look entirely pleased, but he finally nodded. “Fine,” he said, rising from his seat. “Please let us know where we may find our people now.”
Everyone else followed his lead and stood up. Buffy dug into the pocket of her jeans and produced a keychain with a single key on it. She tossed it to Travers. “They’re in your armored truck in the middle of Shady Hill Cemetery.”
The three Council members began to splutter incoherently. “You said they were in danger!” Quentin exclaimed.
Buffy smiled devilishly. “No, I didn’t. I said they were tranquilized and tied up in the center of a cemetery. Which they are. I said cemeteries in this city are dangerous places to be after dark, which they are. It’s not my fault you added two and two and got four-hundred and sixty-three.” Buffy smirked, taking pleasure in her victory. “I’m the Slayer. Not a murderer. I’m not you.”
The Council head narrowed his eyes, then turned his accusing gaze to Giles. “I assume this was your doing.”
“I may have offered some advice,” he admitted.
“I told you, I use all the weapons available to me, no matter how distasteful,” Buffy reminded Travers, making Giles wince at the barb.
“Indeed,” the Council head ground out as he turned away. “Let’s go. I’ve had quite enough of this American hospitality.”
As soon as the front door closed behind the three Council members, the doors to the living room, which had been closed, were flung open. Willow, Oz, and Xander spilled out, accompanied by Buffy’s furriest friend, Spike.
“You did it!” Willow exclaimed, practically throwing herself at Buffy and hugging her hard. Spike interjected himself into the hug by bulldozing between the two girls’ legs, his entire body wagging along with his tail, his mouth lolling open in a doggie-grin as he looked up at them.
“You heard?” Buffy wondered, staggering back a step while still holding Willow around the shoulders. “How could you have heard?”
“Oz heard, he told us what was going on—you know, werewolf hearing,” Willow explained struggling to keep hugging Buffy as Spike bashed them with his tail. “It’s all over. It’s gonna be all right.”
“Should we join in with the hugging?” Xander asked, looking at Oz.
Oz furrowed his brow. “I think we’re too manly.”
“Right,” Xander agreed. “But, yay! Go Buffster!” he cheered, jabbing a fist in the air.
“Look at you with the adulting!” Willow gushed, pulling back a bit to look at her friend. “You were all large and in charge... totally rocking the age of consent and kicking old man butt.”
“I do feel pretty adultified,” Buffy admitted, smiling proudly.
“Now you just need a soul-stealing, poverty-level job, suffocating debt, and a bar tab to truly join the ranks of postpubescents the world over,” Oz observed.
Buffy snorted as she and Willow stepped back, releasing the hug. “Can I turn back now? U-turn on the adult train?” she quipped, drawing somewhat wistful looks from Joyce and Giles. If only it was that easy.
Joyce sighed and shook that thought off. There are no off-ramps or U-turns. “Is it really over?” she wondered as they all stood in a circle in the warzone formerly known as the foyer.
“Well, they will send a new Watcher, and Buffy will be expected to work with him or her,” Giles reminded them. “But, I believe that the worst is over, yes. Travers will keep his word, even if he was… coerced into it. It’s all part of the game.”
“Some game,” Buffy muttered dourly, looking into the living room at the supine vampire still unconscious on the floor. “Maybe next time we can play Chutes and Ladders instead.”
STORY BOARDS
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link: https://flic.kr/p/2kUNnUB
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link: https://flic.kr/p/2kUDemE
End Notes:
All4Spike pointed out that the hostages probably need to use the bathroom... Yeah, um... they probably do. They’ve been tranqed now for several hours at the start of this chapter, and many more by the end of it. Maybe, when moving them from the house to the truck, they were taken to the bathroom? But, as they were so apt to do on the show, we’re gonna just skim over that. Although I didn’t mention it, I’m going to assume that more tranq darts were retrieved and they’ve been kept well sedated the whole time.
The photo in the story board for African Proverb: The axe forgets, the tree remembers is from this artist: https://twitter.com/MariaBertosh/status/907767244452536320?s=20
Raspberry Beret by Prince: https://youtu.be/l7vRSu_wsNc
I was working part time in a five-and-dime
My boss was Mr. McGee
He told me several times that he didn't like my kind
'Cause I was a bit too leisurely
Seems that I was busy doing something close to nothing
But different than the day before
That's when I saw her, ooh, I saw her
She walked in through the out door, out door
She wore a
Raspberry beret
The kind you find in a second hand store
Raspberry beret
And if it was warm she wouldn't wear much more
Raspberry beret
I think I love her
Monterey has various music festivals (several Jazz festivals), but perhaps the most famous was the Monterey International Pop Music Festival, a three day event which launched 1967’s “Summer of Love. It was a success, with the event being marked as inspiration for future festivals to come, including Woodstock, just two years later. The song "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)" was written by John Phillips to promote the event. The 1967 festival featured iconic groups like: Jefferson Airplane, The Who, Simon and Garfunkel, The Grateful Dead, Steve Miller Band, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Janis Joplin, Eric Burdon and the Animals, Otis Redding, and The Mamas & the Papas. As far as I know, Limp Bizkit has not ever played a Monterey festival. It’s my world; I do what I want.
Chapter 25: Hemorrhaging Slurpee
Chapter Text
Chapter Notes:
Thanks to all of you for reading! It means so much to me, like Butter Pecan ice cream for my muse! Sending all the sloppy, joyful doggie kisses to everyone who has left a note, a like or a kudo. I’m working on replying to all your lovely comments and treasure every one of them.
Thanks also to my other wonderful beta readers and friends: All4Spike, Paganbaby, and TeamEricNSookie. Holi117 has switched to a pre-reader, which I’m so happy she’s finding time for that. All mistakes are mine because I keep fiddling with stuff. If you see any, PM me and I’ll fix it.
Chapter 25: Hemorrhaging Slurpee
The small group of friends and allies stood in the destroyed foyer, the impromptu celebration over, unsure what to say or do next. A little under twenty-four hours since the wet works team arrived, the Council was apparently gone, for now, anyway. Of course, they’d left a mess in their wake in the form of bullet-ridden flesh and plaster, broken windows, and splintered wood. Spike, the vampire, was healing, but Buffy was still afraid to let him wake up fully, so she kept him on the heavy painkillers, though they wouldn’t last too much longer. Spike, the dog, had healed quicker than the vampire from the one bullet that had passed through his haunch. Though the wound still looked inflamed, he was already walking on it without a limp. The poisons he’d been given seemed to be out of his system now, too, based on his appetite and energy level, allowing his preternatural constitution to speed his healing.
Buffy was feeling stronger, as well, but still not at full strength. She was battered and bruised from all the fights she’d been in over the last few days, and her jaw ached from the punches Weatherby had delivered just the previous night. Buffy’s friends seemed to be recovering from the magical sleep they’d been in, though Willow looked worse than the others. She seemed tired and achy, with dark circles under her eyes and an unnatural pallor to her already pale skin. Xander and Oz appeared to have fared better. Giles had said it was likely because Willow was the conduit and therefore took the brunt of the counter-spell Malvina had sent back at her, and that, combined with being recently concussed by Kralik, was taking its toll on her.
The worst of the human casualties, by far, was Giles. With a bullet wound in his leg, several cracked ribs, and a bruised liver, he looked like death had come for him but had decided he was too mangled to bother with and just left him.
Joyce broke the silence that followed their short celebration of ‘victory’ with a sense of practicality and pragmatism that only the mother of a Slayer could have. “I’m not sure how to get all this fixed. After paying for Spike’s vet bills—”
Giles cleared his throat, ducking his head and looking ashamed. “I believe those are my responsibility.”
“Like, literally,” Buffy muttered bitterly.
Giles stiffened from the barb, but continued speaking with Joyce. “If you would allow me, I’ll reimburse you for those expenses... and anything you incurred taking Buffy to hospital, as well.”
“What about the Jeep?” Buffy interjected. “Shouldn’t that be classified as ‘damaged weaponry’, like a cross bow o-or a stake, and the Council get us a new one?”
Giles tugged at the collar of his shirt, apparently finding it difficult to breathe. “Perhaps I could file a claim with the Council for it… o-or have Nigel to do so, since I am no longer employed there,” he offered. “If they will not cover it, I will... err... yes, of course, I’ll pay for the repairs. But I take immediate responsibility for the medical bills,” he added, looking at Joyce.
Joyce nodded. “I’ll get you the total,” she assured him, then turned her attention back to the ravaged foyer and stairs. “That’ll certainly help, but this... this is a lot of damage. And I don’t think I can report it to the insurance company,” she revealed. “Certainly not without filing a police report, and I don’t want to bring any more attention to Buffy than we already have. I’m not certain all the police officers really believe she was innocent of Kendra’s death, and all these bullets … well, it doesn’t look good, does it? It could open a whole new can of worms.”
“I’ve had my fill of worms for a while,” Buffy agreed sourly. “I’m all wormed out.”
“Funny that the police never showed up – you know, with all the bullets and screaming,” Xander interjected.
“I believe that Malvina cast a suppression spell before the battle began,” Giles explained. “I doubt anyone outside of the yard heard or saw anything unusual.”
“Handy,” Oz droned, putting an arm around Willow, who seemed to be flagging after all the earlier excitement.
“Quite,” Giles agreed before addressing Joyce. “The Council may cover this. They do have a fund to assist with catastrophic damage to the Slayer’s property, and since it was the Council inflicting the damage, I’d say this should certainly qualify.”
Buffy turned disbelieving eyes on him. “Are you telling me I could’ve been filing for wardrobe damage all this time?”
Giles cleared his throat. “I, errr… don’t believe damage to your attire could be considered ‘catastrophic’.”
Buffy glared at him. “You’re joking, right?”
Joyce was giving Giles the evil eye, as well. “What other ‘benefits’ should we be filing for?” she demanded. “Health care? Dental? How about a salary since, clearly, Buffy can’t even get an after-school job, she spends all her time in cemeteries.”
“I... that is... the Council considers slaying a Calling, not a... err, profession,” Giles replied feebly.
Buffy and Joyce both snorted their contempt at that opinion.
“But you get paid,” Joyce pointed out.
“Y-yes, I do... or, I did,” he confirmed.
“We should’ve demanded that in the negotiations,” Joyce realized. “Salary and benefits... and an expense account. What do other young women who live through this test do to support themselves? The Council should provide a decent living wage and adequate benefits. You can’t tell me they don’t have the money.”
“I... I can certainly inquire,” Giles offered, but he didn’t sound very confident.
Xander saved Giles by changing the subject and volunteering, “I’ve helped my Uncle Rory repair damage to his rental units before, you know, when I stayed with him over the summer. Maybe I could give fixing it a shot. I’ve got some tools at home. It’s amazing what a little spackle and paint can hide. I’m sure bullet holes aren’t that much different than nail holes… just, you know, bigger and weirdly deadlier.”
Joyce gave Giles one more hard glare, before turning her attention to the boy. “That’s sweet of you, Xander. Are you sure you don’t mind?”
Xander waved the worry away. “Nah, happy to help. I might even be able to replace the glass,” he continued, looking at the blanket-covered sidelight windows. “I haven’t actually done it before, but I watched a couple of times. It didn’t look that hard. Just need to get some glass and glazier’s points and…”
Joyce held up a hand to stop him. “Let’s start with the spackle and see how that goes,” she suggested.
“Sure.” Xander nodded. “I can get the supplies and tools tonight and get started on it tomorrow, if you want.”
“Are you sure you’re feeling up to it? You’ve been through a trauma as well,” Joyce asked, concern creasing her features.
“Just a little headache… and some odd bruises on my butt.” Xander made a face, looking confused a moment before shrugging. “I’ve had worse. I’m alright.”
“That sounds like a brilliant plan,” Giles said hastily, taking the opportunity to escape the daggers Buffy was shooting at him with her eyes. “I’ll drive you, shall I?”
“Are you sure you’re okay to drive?” Joyce asked Giles as Xander pulled the door open. “You’re on pain killers, remember?”
“I can drive,” Xander offered. “I watched all the gory ‘death-by-moving-vehicle’ films and passed the test and everything.”
“You do realize those films were not meant as examples of what to do, but rather what to avoid, aren’t you?” Giles asked, looking at Xander dubiously.
Xander rolled his eyes. “C’mon, G-man, when have I ever let you down?” he asked brightly, heading out the door.
Giles sighed. “When, indeed,” he muttered, following.
“I’m gonna take Willow back upstairs to lay down, if that’s okay,” Oz said, as Willow leaned against him heavily, one hand massaging her forehead. “I think she overdid it earlier with the hug-a-thon.”
“Yes, of course,” Joyce agreed immediately. “Is there anything I can get you, Willow?”
The redhead shook her head, then winced in pain. “No, thank you… I think I just need to rest a little more. I’ll be okay,” she assured Joyce as Oz turned her and began helping her up the stairs, leaving Joyce and Buffy alone.
Joyce steeled her nerve, clasping her hands in front of herself nervously. Now that they were alone, she needed to talk to Buffy about Spike, about him moving on as soon as he could, before Buffy got even more attached. She needed to try and save her daughter from the inevitable heartbreak that would come when Spike returned to his normal life with Dru, or at least do her best to minimize it. With a tight smile she asked, “Can we have a talk?”
Buffy was pulled from her calculations of how much money she’d spent on clothes the last three years due to ‘catastrophic damage’. “Uh, yeah, sure… What’s up?”
Joyce started for the couch and motioned for Buffy to join her. “Let’s sit down.”
Buffy’s brows rose, but she followed her mom, looking over at Spike as she did, making sure he still looked comfortable and sedated. The big dog followed the two women, but went over to lie down near his namesake as Buffy and Joyce sat down on the couch, not far away.
“A talk requiring sitting? We’ve already had the birds and the bees one, and the not taking candy from strangers one, the inappropriate touching one…” she mused. Her eyes widened as another topic came to mind. “I didn’t drink your scotch! That was totally Spike, I swear.”
Joyce gave her daughter an indulgent smile as they sat down on the sofa. “It’s not that, honey, but it is about Spike.”
Buffy’s flippant mood sobered as her eyes darted to the blond’s still form. He was looking better—the blood was helping—but his chest and stomach were still a mottled map of blacks, blues, and purples with highways of red crisscrossing the landscape.
“You know that Spike will be leaving when he’s able, right?” Joyce continued gently. She didn’t mention Dru, Spike’s enteral love, not wanting to rub salt into what she was realizing would be a painful wound for her daughter.
Buffy felt the tears threaten again, guilt and disappointment pressing against her battered heart. ‘Of course he’ll leave – all he gets around me is beat up, shot, and nearly dusted.’ She swallowed hard. ‘Detach, detach, detach,’ she admonished herself silently, forcing the tears back. “I know,” she agreed, looking down at her hands which she’d clasped in her lap. “I know he won’t stay.”
** X-X-X-X-X **
Spike fell through the blackness, the accusing green eyes growing smaller and smaller, further and further away. He landed with a thump, bouncing twice before coming to rest on the Summers’ living room floor. He pushed up to his feet, brushing dust from his clothes and looking around. Joyce and Buffy were sitting on the sofa, talking earnestly, while Cujo was sitting on the floor nearby, watching TV.
“What’s goin’ on?” Spike asked the dog as he walked over, looking at the television.
“Shhh! ‘Passions’ is on,” the dog replied with a little growl.
Spike looked at the telly. “Seen that one, I have. Dontcha have any new ones?”
“I’m catching up. Don’t tell me what happens to Timmy or I’ll bite you,” Cujo threatened.
Spike held up his hands in surrender. “Lemme know when you get t’ the bit when…”
“No spoilers!” the dog snarled at him, baring his fangs.
“Fine! Bloody hell,” Spike muttered, looking at the two women. “What’s going on there?” he asked the dog, jabbing a thumb at Buffy and Joyce.
“Gettin’ rid of you. Only room in this house for one good boi, and you ain’t it,” Cujo replied, baring his teeth, this time in a cocky grin.
“Sod that,” Spike grumbled, walking over to Buffy and Joyce, who didn’t look up as he approached. They were putting a jigsaw puzzle together on the coffee table as they talked.
“You know that Spike will be leaving when he’s able, right?” Joyce asked Buffy as she put the last piece that made up the outside border of the puzzle in place.
“I know,” Buffy replied, starting to fill in the center of the puzzle, picking up pieces and turning them this way then that, trying to find where they go. “It’s too confusing have two Spikes in the house.”
“Change the sodding dog’s name, for fuck’s sake,” Spike protested, waving a hand back at his namesake. “Seems t’ like ‘Cujo’ well enough.”
“Yes, there’s that,” Joyce concurred, not seeming to hear Spike. She fit a piece into the puzzle and picked up another one as she spoke, never looking up. “But, really, he’s quite dangerous, don’t you think?”
“Dangerous?” Spike blurted out incredulously. “I saved you from the bloody monsters. I’m not dangerous to you lot. Followed the truce… kept my word. Buffy, tell ‘er!”
“Yeah, I guess. He did bite that Council goon,” Buffy conceded, never hearing Spike, pressing three pieces in place on the puzzle at once.
“I… what?” Spike asked.
“Don’t you remember?” the dog asked from behind him. “Sucked him down like a hemorrhaging Slurpee.”
Spike whirled to face the dog, then back to Buffy and Joyce. “Not bloody likely! I’d remember if I’d…” He went still then, running his tongue over his teeth and lips, a hazy memory of blinding pain and blazing hunger ghosting through his mind. Then the taste of blood, rich and hot filling his mouth, cooling his senses, relieving the emptiness inside. “Balls! Didn’t kill ‘im, did I?” he asked, turning back to the Guardian.
“Shhh, show’s back on,” Cujo replied, looking at the TV.
“Buffy!” Spike spun back around to her and Joyce. “Buffy! Didn’t kill ‘im, did I? Tell me I didn’t break my bloody promise! Buffy!” he screamed, reaching over to grab her shoulders, trying to get her attention, but his hands went right through her, and she never looked up from the puzzle.
The vampire growled in frustration and turned to Joyce. He waved his hand in front of her face and snapped his fingers, but there was no reaction. “Bloody hell! Tell me what I did!” he begged as he tried to kick the coffee table over and spill the puzzle to the floor, but his foot just passed through it and the two women continued calmly putting the pieces in place.
Nothing worked for Spike. Not stomping or shouting or jumping up and down. Not screaming or cursing or howling. He couldn’t make them see him or hear him. He tangled his fingers in his hair and pulled at it in utter frustration as an angry growl tore from his throat.
Spike didn’t want to leave. He’d sacrificed himself for the Watcher, scratched and clawed and fought every baddie the Council sent after Buffy—for her. To stay with her. To make sure she wasn’t hurt, emotionally or physically. He’d protected them all as best he could. For her. Even if all they’d ever be was friends, that would be enough, just to be near her would be enough. But all that would be ripped from him if she decided he couldn’t stay, if he’d broken the truce, if he’d broken his word.
“Oi! Cujo! Get over here and talk to ‘em for me!” Spike demanded.
The dog looked away from the TV. “They’ve never been able to hear me. And if they did, I’d just ask for cheezeburgers.”
“Arrrgh! I’ll buy you a bloody McDonald’s franchise, you mangy mutt! Just try—"
“Rather have Burger King,” the dog replied, cutting him off. “Flame broiled. Have it your way.”
“Fine!” Spike agreed hastily. “Just talk to—”
“Yes, that’s true,” Joyce resumed their conversation, interrupting Spike, unaware of the frantic vampire in their midst. “But I was thinking more about how much blood he took from you.” She was still calmly placing puzzle pieces onto the table, the picture beginning to take shape.
Spike froze, his eyes going to Buffy’s neck and the two puncture wounds that suddenly appeared there. His bite. There was no doubt. “No, no, no… didn’t… wouldn’t. Slayer said no. No blood… couldn’t have her blood. Got a truce, we do… wouldn’t break it. Wouldn’t…”
“I really don’t think we can allow him to stay under the circumstances,” Joyce continued, looking up at Buffy. “Is that ever going to stop bleeding?”
Buffy put her hand up to her neck, touching the wounds gingerly. When she pulled her fingers away, they were coated in blood. “Probably should ask her,” Buffy replied, looking down at the nearly completed puzzle.
Spike followed her gaze, looking down at the picture just as Joyce put the last piece into place. Dead green eyes stared back at him from a pallid face. Dark hair splayed out, framing her slack features, covering the filthy cobblestones of the alley. Bright red blood stained her neck, dribbling from those same puncture wounds that were on Buffy’s neck. Spike’s bite. The blood glistened in her hair, soaking into the grime of the deserted Mexican street. Lisa, from Fairplay. Nothing but a drained husk of humanity he’d left behind like so much trash.
‘It’s not fair.’
Spike jerked back, his face awash with horror. He stepped on his namesake’s tail and the dog yowled. Spike lifted his foot hastily, only to bring his other boot down on the dog’s injured leg. The Guardian jerked and snarled beneath him, snapping at Spike with razor-sharp fangs. The vampire dove away from the raging animal, directly into the TV screen. He plummeted head-first, twisting and turning through open air, falling down, down, down…
** X-X-X-X-X **
Buffy stood outside her closed bedroom door, trying to figure out this detachment thing she’d vowed to do. It would keep everyone safer, she reminded herself, but her heart ached, wanting to go in and check on her best girlfriend, make sure she was okay. She should just walk away, just not care how Willow was. She should go live in a cave or something, away from everyone, somewhere that she couldn’t hurt anyone and they couldn’t hurt her. That’s what she should do. She’d do that any minute now. Walk away.
Her feet refused to move. Dammit. She’d never been detach-o-girl. This was going to take some real effort. Maybe she didn’t have to totally disengage; maybe keeping a couple of friends would be okay. Spike said that was what made her different, made her better than the others—having friends and family. He should know, right? Slayer of Slayers and all. Buffy would just have to do a better job of keeping them safe. Somehow. Buffy sighed, losing the detachment battle with herself, if not the war. She knocked on the door. A soft, female voice from the other side bid her to, “Come in.”
“Hey,” Buffy greeted the two redheads, who were lounging comfortably on her bed.
“Hey, yourself,” Willow replied, pushing up to a more seated position. She winced and rubbed her temples. The change in elevation obviously increased the pain in her head.
Buffy grimaced in sympathy. “Still bad, huh?” she asked, sitting on the edge of the bed next to her friend. Oz began massaging Willow’s neck gently and the witch closed her eyes, letting him work the tension out.
“Mostly only when I move my head too fast,” Willow replied. “I probably shouldn’t have gotten so excited earlier, but I had been feeling better when I first got up. Now, not so much,” she revealed. “I’m sorry for taking over your room.”
Buffy waved a dismissive hand. “That’s okay. I need to keep an eye on Spike anyway, in case he makes with the wakefulness.”
“And decides to start eating people?” Willow wondered.
Buffy wrinkled her nose. “Yeah, not sure how Mom would feel about him snacking on non-baddies.”
“I would vote against it,” Oz interjected dryly. “I mean, if there’s a referendum.”
“Spike wouldn’t mean to do it,” Buffy defended quickly. “He takes the whole truce thing pretty seriously, but…”
“He’s in pain and healing and that makes him hangry,” Willow filled in. “Who hasn’t felt like devouring the whole donut shop before?”
“It’s actually worse than that,” Oz put in. “The demon… it’s… it’s a different kind of hunger. You need to feed it like you need air, like you’re suffocating and you’re underwater and can’t breathe. It’s like this frantic, desperate need pushing you.”
Willow and Buffy both looked at him a moment, astonished. Oz shrugged. “Werewolf,” he reminded them laconically. “When the demon comes on, it’s pretty intense.”
“Is that how you feel the whole time you’re wolfy?” Willow wondered as Oz went back to massaging her neck.
“I don’t remember much when I’m wolfy, but that’s how it feels when it’s taking over, when I’m still sorta me. The hunger’s copious in the extreme. Control is scarce.”
“Thus, the caging,” Buffy interjected.
“Thus.” Oz shrugged again. “Oddly, it seems most vampires are suffocating, like, pretty much always. Not a lot of control over the demon. Spike’s different, though. He seems to have it on a fairly tight leash.”
Buffy snorted. “Didn’t feel that way when he was trying to kill me. I felt an extreme disregard for the leash laws.”
“Yeah, but… truce-y Spike is all with the demon obedience training,” Willow put in. “I mean… usually— when he’s not full of bullets and stuff.”
“It’s pretty amazing, really,” Oz agreed. “Can you imagine trying to call a truce with my wolf on the full moon?”
Willow shuddered, remembering some close calls, while Buffy frowned in thought. “Well, he’s been a vampire for a long time,” Buffy pointed out. “I think they get more control as they get older.”
“Like Angelus?” Willow interjected, frowning.
Buffy scrunched up her face. “Or not.”
“I was just thinking, maybe he could give me some pointers, you know?” Oz suggested. “Something to help put the wolf on a leash… or at least get a collar on it. I know our demons aren’t exactly the same, but, worth a try.”
Buffy chewed her lip nervously. “You better talk to him as soon as you can… I mean, as soon as he’s awake and not cranky. Mom thinks Spike will leave as soon as he’s able. I think she’s right.”
“Oh, Buffy… but why?” Willow wondered, her voice surprised and sympathetic. She reached a hand out and placed it over one of Buffy’s where it rested on the bed, offering a bit of comfort to her friend.
Buffy gave Willow a tired smile. “Wouldn’t you, if you could? I mean, since getting here, he’s been beat to shit more than once, staked in the back, shot with wooden bullets and real bullets, almost staked again in the heart, and been operated on without anesthetic in the mud. I mean… why would he stay? It hasn’t exactly been a fun-filled trip to Disney around here.”
Willow tilted her head slightly, her expression sad. “But, what about our scientific experiments and him maybe staying long enough to… you know… change his mind about the heart thing?”
Buffy sighed, her gaze wandering over to the mirror and postcards decorating it. Her eyes stung with the heat of tears, but she blinked them back. The silent chant of ‘detach, detach,’ helping her to rein in the disappointment and ignore the pang in her chest. “The curse of the Slayer strikes again,” she muttered dourly. “Driving men away since 1996.”
“Maybe I’m interpreting the text wrong,” Oz said. “But I thought you liked him, you know… liked-liked.”
Buffy shifted her gaze to Willow, who widened her eyes and gave a slight shake of her head. She hadn’t told Oz. Buffy cleared her throat and asked Oz, “Liking Spike. That would be kinda… ummm… reckless, wouldn’t it?”
“Reckless?” Oz shook his head. “Not in you.”
Buffy frowned. “It’s, like, totally in me. I’m a wreck of recklessness…”
“Have you consulted the OED on that?” Oz challenged.
“OED?” Buffy’s brows furrowed in confusion.
“Oxford English Dictionary,” Willow supplied. “The definitive record of the English language.”
“Uh… no?” Buffy answered, though she sounded unsure about how that was relevant.
“Do you know what ‘reckless’ means?” Oz clarified, catching her confusion.
Buffy blinked. “Stupid Buffy doing stupid-ness.”
Oz sat forward from where he leaned against the headboard and looked directly into Buffy’s eyes, a grand gesture in the world of Daniel Osborne. “Reckless means, ‘without thinking or caring about the consequences of an action’,” he informed her seriously. “In no universe is there any resemblance between you and ‘reckless’. If anything, you’d have to look at the antonyms to find a picture of Buffy.”
Buffy bit her lip and lowered her eyes from his steady gaze. “What about Angel… setting Angelus free.”
Willow piped up. “You couldn’t have known that would happen,” she defended. “Of all the things to think about, that wasn’t even a blip on anyone’s radar.”
“And you fixed it,” Oz added. “Check out the lack of Angelus lurking at our windows.”
Buffy sighed. She’d ‘fixed’ it, but only after Angelus had killed Jenny and who knew how many others, and tortured Giles and nearly ended the world.
“For the record,” Oz continued. “Spike’s not Angelus or even Angel.”
Buffy snorted and looked back up at her friends. “So I’ve heard.”
Oz shrugged and leaned back again, resuming the gentle massage of Willow’s neck. “Just sayin’, didn’t see any truces with Angelus. Didn’t see him bagging it. Pretty sure he wouldn’t have jumped in and helped us against the Council. And the taking of a belly-full of bullets to save Giles? Totally not on the Angelus menu.”
Buffy raised her brows. “So, the liking of another vampire… not reckless?”
“Not even a little bit,” Oz assured her.
For a moment, Buffy took in everything Oz had said, her gaze dropping to her lap. The knowledge that at least two people thought she wasn’t being reckless by liking Spike was a balm to her heart, but then she sighed. The recklessness of liking Spike was mootness. Her heart couldn’t take another blow without it shattering her completely. Even if Spike stayed, she needed to detach, to forget her girlish idea of how love should be, because it wasn’t like that. Even if he did change his mind about her heart, she couldn’t go there. It never worked like that for her. Love and Slayers were clearly non-mixy. ‘Detach, detach, detach.’
Buffy cleared her throat and put a too-bright-to-be-real smile on her lips before she turned back to Willow and Oz. “Well, he’s probably leaving anyway, so reckless or anti-reckless, it’s no big,” she dismissed, standing up and pulling her hand from beneath Willow’s. “I hope you feel better, and don’t worry about anything. Stay here as long as you need. I know Giles didn’t want you too far away, in case of relapse or something. I guess he and Xander should be back soon from the tool retrieval mission.”
Willow looked as dejected as Buffy felt. “Okay, thanks… and I’m really sorry, Buffy. If there’s anything I can do...”
Buffy waved a hand, heading for the door. “Pity party when you’re feeling better. Lots of ice cream and Spike cuddles.”
Oz arched a brow.
“Doggie-Spike,” Willow clarified to him, giving Buffy a nod and sympathetic smile. “It’s a date.”
Buffy gave her friend a grateful smile, though her heart ached. How was she supposed to stay detached… get detached? It sounded simple in concept, but the execution was proving to be as difficult as a triple salchow on thin, uneven ice.
** X-X-X-X-X **
STORY BOARDS
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link:
End Notes:
Thank you so much for reading and for your patience as I try to catch up with your wonderful comments! I thought things would slow down a bit for me, but so far no luck with that. But I’ll get there – I love reading all your notes!
** X-X-X-X-X **
Chapter 26: River of Dreams
Chapter Text
Chapter Notes:
Thanks to all of you for reading! It means so much to me, like Fortune Cookies for my muse! Sending all the sloppy, joyful doggie kisses to everyone who has left a note, a like or a kudo. I’m working on replying to all your lovely comments and treasure every one of them.
Thanks also to my other wonderful beta readers and friends: All4Spike, Paganbaby, and TeamEricNSookie. Holi117 has switched to a pre-reader, which I’m so happy she’s finding time for that. All mistakes are mine because I keep fiddling with stuff. If you see any, PM me and I’ll fix it.
Chapter 26: River of Dreams
When Buffy came out of her bedroom after leaving Willow and Oz, she heard the shower going—her mom must be in there. This was her chance. With Willow and Oz ensconced in her bedroom, her mom in the shower, and Giles and Xander out, she could give Spike some more of her blood. A voice inside her head sniggered, snidely mocking her, ‘This is detached? Better consult the OED.’
Buffy clenched her jaw. This wasn’t un-detachment; it was just... just fair. Spike gave all this blood to save Giles, who ended up saving everyone with the magic dust. It’s only fair that Spike be given blood in return.
Another helpful voice in her head wondered how much she’d already given him, but Buffy dashed it aside. It didn’t matter. After what he’d done, he deserved it. Another voice reminded her that by giving him her blood, he’d heal faster and, thus, be able to leave faster.
Where the hell were all these voices coming from and why wouldn’t they just shut up?
But that last one had her steps faltering on the stairs as that thought rattled around in her brain. Maybe instead of giving him Slayer blood, she should give him watered-down pig’s blood, slow his healing instead of speed it up. It would still be blood… sort of.
She came around the splintered banister and turned into the living room, chewing her lip in consideration, but when Buffy saw the mangled vampire lying on the floor, her heart took over. She couldn’t let him be in pain any longer than necessary just because she was selfish and wanted him to stay. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. And it wasn’t who she was. She’d been fighting to stay true to herself the last few days, battling with everything she had to be Buffy—and Buffy took care of her friends, no matter what.
Except she was supposed to be detaching from her friends. Argh! This was all too confusing, and too hard, and she was too tired right now to sort it out. She’d… she’d do the detaching thing later, after she had some sleep. There. She had a plan. A solid plan for disengagement. Do it tomorrow. That’s always a valid life choice.
Her dog looked up from where he’d been guarding the vampire, making sure he didn’t wake and try to move, as Buffy dropped to her knees on the sleeping bag at Spike’s head. She quickly retrieved the scalpel she’d been using from the first-aid kit and slashed a deep cut into her forearm, keeping an ear out for Giles and Xander returning or her mom coming out of the shower. Buffy held her arm over Spike’s mouth and let the thick stream of blood flow from her veins to his lips.
Spike’s demon sprang to life beneath the dripping blood, fangs extending, forehead wrinkling. Buffy thought she saw his eyes flutter open, a flash of gold in the darkened room, but it was gone before she could be sure. Spike’s tongue darted out, capturing the falling manna, swallowing desperately. But then, as before, he began shaking his head, trying to turn away from the life and healing Buffy was offering.
“Damn it,” she hissed, pressing her free hand down on his forehead trying to hold him still. “You need this. What is wrong with you, you crazy vampire?” Buffy shifted and got his head wedged between her knees as she knelt on the floor above him, her free hand shifting to hold his jaw still as her blood fell in a waterfall of crimson, splashing over his lips and tongue. But instead of swallowing, he had begun trying to spit it out and it ran over his face, his chin, down his neck.
“Fuck,” Buffy growled as she heard the water upstairs shut off. “Eat, you goddamned stubborn, shirty, smartass vampire.”
** X-X-X-X-X **
Spike fell through the TV and landed in a pool of velvety, liquid warmth. He floated in the comfort of it, drifting on softly lapping waves. He couldn’t ever remember being so warm. William had been warm, of course, he still had memories of that, but since his heart had stopped beating, Spike couldn’t remember being this perfectly, wonderfully warm. As he savored the pleasure of it, his mind went back to those summer holidays with his parents, ‘taking the air’ at the seaside. The sun had been bright, the air had been humid, the sand had heated his bare feet, but the water had been what everyone called ‘bracing’, not balmy like the ocean he reclined in now.
This was perfection. The thick, red liquid surrounded him, supported him, embraced him in its elegance. He blew out all the air in his lungs and sank into it, into what turned out to be a flowing river of blood. He drank deeply, the taste of it as close to heaven as he’d ever hope to come. He swam beneath the surface, his bare body diving and twisting, as he gulped huge mouthfuls of the sweet, coppery nirvana. He laughed gleefully, swimming against the current, his lithe form undulating, strong legs kicking, propelling him forward to the source of this manna.
It was heaven. It was the stars and the moon and the sun. It was as red as rubies and as thick as warm honey. It tasted of strength and power with a light dusting of hopeful innocence atop it all. It was at once familiar and foreign. It was something he’d longed for but had never hoped to touch, a forbidden fruit, a faraway dream—of that he was certain.
The river narrowed and grew shallower as Spike swam beneath the glittering surface. He emerged to find it dwindling down into a stream, then a brook, then nothing more than a tiny rivulet. Its source was a blur in the distance, obscured by the shimmering heat and brightness of the sun overhead. The river of red cut through dunes of bone-white sand beaches, which rose high on each side. He stood and began to walk, the dazzling sun above tingling his blood-soaked skin. His bare feet splashed through the thick, red liquid, moving toward the source, staining the pure white sand along the banks. Crimson droplets rolled from his chiseled body as he prowled forward, the drops rejoining the river beneath him as it flowed to the sea.
And then it was there, coming into view as he crested a dune: the source. The source of all this joy, all this beauty, all this warmth, all this life.
He stiffened, his eyes widening into disbelief, his dead heart clenching in his chest.
“Buffy,” he muttered, standing atop the rise, his feet trapped by the shifting sand, unable to move. Spike stood there, frozen in place, staring at the small form of the girl, her body limp, crumpled, her face buried in the sand. Her chest didn’t rise and fall, her heart didn’t beat. The only movement was the flow of blood from two punctures on her neck. The source of the river he’d been reveling in.
The blood he’d swallowed returned, burning like holy water as his muscles spasmed and expelled it from his stomach. He folded over at the waist, clutching his middle, as wave after wave of nausea gripped him, spewing the thick crimson liquid onto the dry, white sand. He gasped in unneeded breaths of overheated desert air between each wracking contraction that forced the Slayer blood out of him.
‘No means no.’
He stumbled forward, his stomach still twisted in knots, the burn of the disgorged blood still stinging his throat, mouth, and lips. And then he was running, struggling through the deep sand, his feet sinking to the knee with every futile step. A heart-wrenching panic ripped at his guts, knotting them even tighter. The warm blood that remained in his veins turned to shards of ice. The joyful laughter turned to howls of terror.
“Buffy!” Spike’s scream rolled over the barren landscape like a bomb blast, flattening the dunes and sending a plume of dust into the bright sky, blotting out the sun.
Spike fell to his knees at her side, his arms reaching for her, gathering her against him like a ragdoll. Cold. Lifeless. Lost. “Buffy!” he cried again, cradling her to him, rocking back and forth as if trying to comfort a child. Tears rolled down his cheeks and dripped from his chin, leaving streaks in the blood that coated him—her blood. Her life. “Buffy… no, no, no… please, no,” Spike croaked, his unbeating heart shattering as he turned her face up to his.
Spike’s blue eyes widened to saucers as her lank, disheveled hair fell away, revealing golden eyes and deadly fangs. Spike shook his head violently, disbelief warring with horror on his features. His mouth gaped opened, but nothing came out. He wouldn’t… he couldn’t… not Buffy. Not anyone. Not after his mother.
“You promised you wouldn’t,” Buffy lisped around her fangs before lunging for his throat.
** X-X-X-X-X **
Spike jerked awake with a yowl of shock that quickly became one of pain as newly healed flesh ripped apart. Above him, Buffy jumped back in surprise, falling onto her butt, clutching her bleeding arm with her hand and holding it against her chest. The dog lurched to his feet, ready to fight or restrain the vampire, whatever proved to be needed.
“Spike! You’re okay! Stop!” Buffy shouted, the shock passing quickly. She lunged for the vampire who was trying to rise, his blue eyes wide but somehow lost and unseeing, the demon suddenly gone. “Spike!” she cried again, as she pressed down on his shoulders, doing all she could to keep him still. He was determined, but still disoriented and woozy with drugs and pain. He fought against her clumsily and with far less than his normal strength. Still, he didn’t stop trying to get up as more and more gashes and wounds opened all across his torso.
“William!” she tried in desperation as the dog flung himself across the struggling vampire, pressing the smaller Spike down with his considerable weight. The vampire writhed beneath them, but, finally, most of his motion was arrested by the Slayer and the Guardian.
Spike’s vision whirled with images blood and death, of accusing green eyes turned to the molten gold of a demon that matched his own. Buffy the Vampire Slayer now a vampire… his childe, his doing, his horror, his promise broken. His head spun, disoriented and confused, as images blossomed like fireworks then faded, one atop the next. Nothing seemed real and yet it all did, swirling like a vortex in his mind. Spike’s ears rang with remembered words—Buffy defending him, saying he was part of her team, her friend, that she trusted him, then turning around and agreeing with Joyce that he had to go. But the worst was her accusing him of breaking the truce, of taking her blood, of killing her, of turning her.
His nostrils flared with the sweet, heady scent of Slayer blood, he was sure he could taste it, hot and ripe on his tongue, feel its heat and strength in his veins making his demon sing. But he wouldn’t! Would he? His stomach began to churn again, twisting and writhing like a basket of angry snakes. What had he done? What the hell had he done!?
“Nooo! Please!” he begged, still struggling to get free. But his limbs were leaden, weighed down by injury and drugs and something heavy pressing down on him. “Buffy, no!”
“Spike! I’m here! Stop! Please stop,” she pleaded as blood ran down her arm coating her hand and his shoulder, dripping onto the bedding beneath.
Was this real or another hallucination? Spike couldn’t tell the difference, it all felt real, and it all felt like a faraway dream. He blinked, once, twice, trying to clear his foggy vision, and recognition began to creep into his gaze as their eyes met.
“God, Spike… don’t move. You’re ripping everything open,” Buffy gasped, letting up a bit on the pressure against his shoulders when his struggling subsided.
“Buf—” Spike began, but was cut off by a coughing fit which sent blood spilling from the freshly opened wounds on his torso and spluttering from his lips.
“It’s okay… shhh… it’s okay,” Buffy cooed, reaching for a bottle of water that someone had left on the nearby table. She opened it and held it out, offering it to the vampire, but he wasn’t looking at it— he was looking at her. When his hands came up, Buffy tried giving him the bottle, but he brushed it aside, instead cupping her face with his palms.
“Buffy…” he rasped through the end of the coughs, taking her face in his hands and turning it from side to side, examining her. He ran his hands down to the pulse points on each side of her neck and sighed in utter relief as he felt the warm, steady rhythm of her blood beneath his fingers.
“Bloody hell,” he muttered, letting his head fall back, and his eyes drift closed in relief. Was it all a dream? She’d been speaking French... badly. Did Buffy speak French? Another vision surfaced—a dream or a memory, he couldn’t tell, fading almost as quickly as it had come. Buffy at the Bronze. La vache... doit me... touche... de la... jeudi. What happens on Saturday? I kill you.
Spike shook his head, trying to get all his marbles to fall back into their proper slots. It didn’t really work—they just kept rattling around, clacking against each other in a whirl of disorienting chaos. “You’re alive… bloody hell…” he repeated after a moment, giving up on trying to sort out dreams from memories. “I thought… thought I’d… blood… there was blood. So much blood.”
Buffy grimaced, extending her arm to the dog so he could close the wound before Spike opened his eyes again. The Guardian took the cue and quickly licked the slash in her arm, sealing it well enough for now. She pulled back and grabbed one of the rags left over from earlier and began wiping the vampire’s face and shoulder, using the bottled water to rinse away the evidence of her reckless behavior. No, not reckless, not according to Oz’s definition anyway. She revised it to ‘un-slayer-like’ behavior. Extremely un-slayer-like.
“Mostly, it was your blood,” she informed him, trying to sound casual, even as tears of relief pooled in her eyes. He was awake, he was semi-lucid, he was going to be okay. They turned bittersweet when she remembered that also meant that he’d probably leave soon… as soon as he was coherent enough to remember that she was the cause of all the pain he was in. ‘Detach!’ “Welcome back, you stubborn vampire,” she murmured, wiping the last of her blood from his neck and shoulder.
Spike’s head was still spinning, dreams and reality melding in a confusing mash in his mind. He blinked his eyes open just as she dropped the rag onto the floor behind her. He reached up again, skimming his knuckles lightly over her cheek then down the side of her neck, double-checking, not trusting himself to know what was real and what wasn’t. Warm. Breathing. Heartbeat. Alive. Not bleeding.
“Are you real?” he asked in a husky voice, his eyes searching hers, trying to see the truth.
“Is that an existential question? Cos, not sure I’m up for that right now,” Buffy replied, giving him a wan smile.
Spike’s brows furrowed as he tried to pull free from the web of painkillers, pain, and exhaustion that clung to him, keeping his mind slightly submerged beneath a veil of uncertainty. “Serious…”
Buffy snorted. “Whether I was real or not, I’d probably say I was, so I’m failing to see the point of telling you that I’m real when you probably won’t believe me anyway.”
The knot in his stomach eased and his splintered heart began mending, knitting back into one cohesive piece. “Only the real you is this bloody annoying,” he croaked, looking around with just his eyes for that bottle of water she’d had a minute ago… or was it an hour ago, or had he just imagined it?
Buffy seemed to know what he wanted because it appeared, almost empty. She opened it and tipped a bit into his mouth and he swallowed it gratefully. As he licked his chapped lips, he still thought he could taste the river of blood… Slayer blood, Buffy’s blood. He shook his head again, trying desperately to sort out fact from fiction.
“Says the reigning champion of Sunnydale’s ‘Most Annoying Vampire’ contest for two years running,” she retorted.
Spike snorted. “Guess that means we won, eh? Otherwise you wouldn’t be here t’ give me shite,” he observed, suddenly realizing he was being held down by a heavy, hot, shaggy weight. His gaze shifted to the dog and he frowned. “Let off, Dumbo. Bloody hell, weigh as much as a sodding wooly mammoth.”
The dog huffed out a breath and pushed himself to his feet, backing carefully off the supine vampire. He paused then and began licking the wounds that had reopened on Spike’s torso between the wrappings that held his ribs in place, closing them again.
“Oi, what the buggering fuck...?” Spike started, lifting his head, but then subsided, realization dawning.
“He’s healing you… again,” Buffy provided belatedly, placing a hand on Spike’s bare, clean shoulder, stilling him. “You need to try and be still.”
Spike settled back down, the soft weight and warmth of her hand on his shoulder allowing him to ignore the slick, hot goo the dog was coating his stomach with. “How long was I out?” he wondered, looking up at her. She was too thin. Too haggard, with dark circles under her eyes and a very un-Buffy-like pallor to her normally glowing skin, making the swollen bruises he could see stand out vividly.
“Uh…” Buffy shook her head, looking around for a clock, trying to think, trying to remember. “Almost a full day... twenty-four-ish hours.”
Spike shook his head. “Seems longer.”
“Yeah, well, that’s probably what happens when you get shot with a whole bunch of non-vampire-friendly bullets,” Buffy replied more harshly than she’d intended. “What the hell were you thinking?” she demanded, her green eyes suddenly blazing with anger, but something else too. Fear? Worry?
Spike laid one hand over hers were it still rested on his shoulder. “Was thinking you couldn’t bear to see the Watcher bleeding out on your front walk. Was I wrong?”
Buffy’s lips compressed as she shook her head. “Not wrong.” ‘But seeing you bleed out… seeing you almost dusted, it wasn’t any better,’ she thought, but didn’t dare say. She needed to detach. This was not detached. “You’re still a stupid vampire… but… thank you.”
Spike shrugged a shoulder and gasped as pain radiated out from his chest.
“I told you to not move,” the Slayer chastised again, pushing down on his shoulder harder. “You have shattered ribs and your whole chest and stomach were nothing but a super-gross mess of blood-soaked maggot bait. I thought I told you before I never wanted to see your intestines again. You are soooo unattractive with your guts hanging out.”
“Impossible for me t’ be unattractive,” Spike chided dryly, doing his best to remain still.
Buffy rolled her eyes with an exasperated sigh. “Going for the ‘Most Modest’ crown, too, I see,” she snarked back, looking down at him. Their eyes met and Buffy felt a wave of gratitude wash over her. He was okay… or would be. Even if he left—when he left—at least he was okay. She hadn’t killed him. He wasn’t dust. “Some of those bullets were wooden,” she revealed in a solemn tone. “Giles had to get them out.” She reached down and touched a finger to a couple of the angry, red ‘X’s on his stomach where there was no gauze or tape.
Spike’s brows rose, taking that in as his eyes followed the track of her hand on his stomach. He wished he hadn’t when he saw the barely healed gashes and too-thin flesh in a mottled kaleidoscope of reds, purples, blues, and blacks. It was evident that some areas were being held together with little more than crepe paper and a prayer.
“The Watcher? So, he’s alright then?”
Buffy shrugged. “Better than he would’ve been with twenty-five bullets in him. He had to cut you open more to get all the splinters out. That’s what all these ‘X’s are,” she continued, her fingers a feather-light touch, jumping from one wound to the next across his stomach. “But he got them… finally.”
“Wooden bullets. Whoever heard of such bollocks? Bloody Council…” Spike grumbled. Then realization hit him—why would the Watcher be taking the bullets out? Why not the Slayer? “Were you hurt, pet? Shot?” he asked hastily. ‘Bitten?’ his mind added, but he dared not say, as his eyes darted back up to hers, concern evident in his gaze and tone. He was unable to think of any other reason she wouldn’t have done the honors herself and was suddenly aware that he hadn’t really checked more than her neck and that she was breathing.
“I’m fine… fine-ish. Not shot, just hit by flying glass and beat up a little,” Buffy told him, holding up her arms which still had red marks from the shards of glass.
Spike reached a hand out to touch one that seemed fresher, redder, more inflamed than the others. His brows furrowed as he tried to sort out dreams from reality, and utterly failing. He could feel the demon’s healing power tapping his energy to restore his muscles and knit everything back into place. But it would need blood for that. Where had the blood come from? His eyes skimmed over Buffy. Nothing looked like a bite mark, not on her neck or her arms, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he had Slayer blood coursing inside him, fueling his body’s restoration. But that was impossible. If he’d broken the truce, taken her blood, the Slayer would’ve staked him on the spot… right?
Buffy pulled her arm away and tugged the long sleeves of her shirt down to cover the marks, unable to meet his eyes.
“What about the others? Yer mum… the wolf and the witch?” Spike asked, his eyes searching her face. He’d promised to protect them. Had he failed? Had he somehow hurt them? Was that what those dreams and visions had been about?
Buffy shook her head, her eyes shifting around the room, looking at anything but Spike. “They’re all okay. Giles got the guys de-spelled and woken up, but they’re a little hungover, I guess, from the magic. Well, mostly Willow is. Giles and Xander went to get some stuff to try and patch up all the holes in… well, everything, and Mom’s in the shower… or she was. Maybe she laid down. Oz and Willow are in my room, resting.”
Buffy kept fidgeting with the cuffs of her sleeves, pulling them down further, stretching them until they covered her palms and part of her fingers. She still couldn’t meet Spike’s eyes, so, instead, she watched her dog, who had just finished healing the opened tears on the vampire’s abdomen. He sat back on his haunches, looking extremely pleased with himself, thick, ropey tendrils of drool hanging from his jowls.
Spike followed her gaze, a memory surfacing. “Do you speak French?” he asked out of the blue, looking back up at Buffy who was kneeling above his head.
Buffy blinked. “Wow, random much?”
Spike raised his brows, looking at her upside down from where he lay on the floor, urging her to answer.
She shrugged. “Uh… well, not sure you would call it speaking French as much as mangling it. Why?”
“Were you speaking French in the last few hours?” he continued, not answering her question.
“Noooo…” she drawled. “Spike, what’s…”
“Is there a… cheeseburger plan?” he wondered, cutting her off.
She arched a brow, but gave up trying to figure out why Spike was asking such weird questions. Drugs. Must be the drugs. “Not exactly a plan. I told Spike that I’d buy him all the cheeseburgers in town… and that you’d drive us.”
“I don’t get a cheeseburger?” the vampire wondered, looking at the dog.
“You can have the onion rings,” Buffy offered with a sly half-smile.
“Ungrateful lot, you are,” Spike complained, his mind working, trying to sort out what had been real and what hadn’t. It was all too confusing and too mixed up in his mind.
He looked down at the very red blood that had seeped onto the gauze and tape that was holding his ribs in place. It was too fresh to be from before the fight with the Council. A memory or a vision of his fangs sinking into flesh flashed through his mind. A vivid image of Lisa from Fairplay jumped to the fore of his thoughts, but he shook it away; she wasn’t here, of that he was certain. “What about the berks from the Council? Are they…?” He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing nervously in his throat. “Did I… bite them?” he asked, searching her face for the answer, fearing what he’d see. Had he killed any of them? Is that where this blood was from?
Buffy cleared her throat and looked off into the distance, not meeting his eyes. “We captured them… used them as leverage like we planned. Traded them back to the Council in exchange for them promising to leave us alone… or mostly alone. They’re sending a new Watcher; I have to work with them, but we sort of knew that might happen. One of the few things that actually went to plan.”
Spike furrowed his brows, his heart sinking. She didn’t actually answer his question. “Seem t’ have some fresh blood in me,” he pointed out carefully, worry tightening his throat.
Buffy continued tugging nervously at the long sleeves of her shirt. “Uh, yeah,” she stuttered, shifting uncomfortably. “We… that is, Mom, got you some blood from the hospital. I got you to swallow it. Knew you’d need it to heal.” Buffy pushed herself to her feet, bringing the rag with her blood on it with her, surreptitiously stuffing it into the waistband of her sweats and covering it with her shirt.
Her body protested the sudden change in elevation. She grabbed onto the edge of a table for balance, the other hand going to her head, which seemed to be floating off all on its own, detached from the rest of her. How much blood had she given Spike? Enough to make her dizzy? Apparently. “I’ll just… I’ll get you some more. I’ve been giving you Giles’ pain killers, but…” She made an apologetic face. “I sorta, kinda, nearly used them all up already. I probably need to leave him some. He’s pretty beat up.”
As the Slayer hurried toward the kitchen, the vampire looked over at the dog sitting beside him. “What the bloody hell was that, about, Cujo? Something she’s not tellin’ me, I can feel it.”
The big dog sneezed, rattling his tags and flinging slobber all over Spike, the bedding, and the floor beyond.
“Bloody hell!” Spike complained, wiping hot, sticky goo from his face. “Next time, just say ya dunno, for fuck’s sake.”
The Guardian huffed out a breath before walking his front feet out and settling onto his belly, resting his head on his paws and coating them with a liberal sheen of slobber, as well. His big brown eyes were pleased and unapologetic as he gazed over at his counterpart.
“Fat lotta help you are,” Spike grumbled, laying back and letting his eyes fall closed. “You could speak perfectly respectable English just a bit ago. Need t’ work on that.”
The dog huffed indignantly and just continued watching the vampire with wary concern.
Spike once again tried sorting through everything he could remember, but parts of it were fading and what was left was coming in fits and starts, flashes of images or snippets of conversations. He couldn’t tell what was real and what wasn’t… though, come to think of it, anything with the bloody mutt talking was likely not real. Likely. There was a cheeseburger plan of sorts, and it was the mutt who’d been talking about that, sooo…
Spike sighed. Must’ve been some good drugs the Watcher had. Or maybe Buffy had just overdosed him on them… she’d used nearly a whole bottle in a day? Even for a vampire, that would likely do it.
Spike heard the microwave ‘ding’ and began to sit up. He rolled to one side and tried to push up to a seated position, gritting his teeth against the wave of pain that surged through him with the movement. He could feel the ribs that Buffy had mentioned, they ground against their neighbors with every move and every breath he took, so he stopped breathing, but continued trying to rise. Down in the muscle and sinew, the bullet wounds burned like fire. Sharp jolts of pain radiated from them with any small move he made. Buffy’s advice to not move was starting to sound better and better, but he was determined to sit up and drink the blood she was bringing.
The dog stood up and started whining in protest, his cold nose snuffling along Spike’s shoulders and back, as if he could sniff out a way to stop the vampire without hurting him.
“Spike! What are you doing?!” Buffy demanded as she came back into the living room to find him struggling to sit up.
“What’s it bloody look like?” he ground out through clenched teeth, reaching for the arm of a chair to try and haul himself up with.
“God dammit,” Buffy growled, putting the mug of blood down on the coffee table and hurrying over to him. “If you screw your ribs up again, I’m not putting them back in place!” she threatened. “Lay back down,” she ordered, pressing a hand down on his shoulder.
“No! Not gonna have you feed me like a sodding invalid,” Spike protested, a growl slipping through his control as the pressure she applied blanketed his body in a fresh wave of misery.
“Dammit,” Buffy muttered, pulling her hand away. “You stupid, stubborn vampire. What do you think I’ve been doing the last twenty-four hours?”
Spike’s arms quivered with the strain, one trying to push and one trying to pull him upright while his ribs creaked and newly formed scabs cracked open again. He swore under his breath, struggling valiantly—or was it foolishly?—to sit up.
“Are you done yet?” Buffy wondered, standing over him with her arms crossed.
Spike let out a cry of defeat and pain and dropped back down onto the sleeping bag, panting in unneeded air and clutching at his ribs.
Buffy sighed and rolled her eyes. “Why can’t you just do what I say for once?” she wondered, picking up the mug of blood and the turkey baster from the table. “Would that be so hard?”
“All I bloody do,” Spike gasped out, his arms wrapped around his torso as he held himself unnaturally still.
“Not hardly,” she argued. “Case in point,” Buffy continued, waving a hand at him as she settled down again on the floor above his head. She set the mug of blood down as she gently lifted Spike’s head and scooted forward until it was pillowed in her lap. “Pretty sure I also told you to not go out the door and get yourself shot.”
“Was me or the Watcher,” Spike replied, finally getting his breathing and the pain under control. “Did it for you.”
Buffy felt hot tears spring to her eyes and she blinked, trying to keep them back. “I know,” she whispered, picking up the mug and the baster. “You’re hurt because of me, all of this is because of me, so do me a favor and let me help you.”
“Not because of you, pet,” Spike assured her, reaching a hand up to stop her motions. “Was the Council and their bollocks. Not your fault.”
Buffy snorted her disagreement. “If I hadn’t called you, you wouldn’t even have been here and none of this would’ve happened to you. It’s my fault… just please let me try and help. I know it’s not enough… not enough for you to forgive me, but—”
“Buffy, luv, there’s nothing to forgive,” Spike began, hating that he couldn’t sit up, wasn’t on level ground with her, but he reached up and touched her face, urging her to look at him. “Would’ve been here anyway. Was on my way here when I got your message.”
Buffy stared down at him with shimmering eyes, disbelief evident in her gaze. She clenched her jaw determined not to cry. Detached people didn’t cry.
“It’s true, pet. I… I’d left Dru and… needed a friend. I was on my way here, to you… a-and yer mum,” Spike added self-consciously, not wanting to admit that Buffy was the one he had really wanted to see. No need frightening the girl off when all she saw him as was a friend.
Buffy closed her eyes tightly against the flood of tears that pressed against the back of her eyes, her resolve for detachment faltering. “Friend,” she repeated softly, clenching her teeth over the word. All he wanted was a friend. All he needed was a friend. He didn’t want her heart. That was good. That was detached. That would keep them both from getting hurt. He would get well, and he would leave. He’d send her postcards and… and she’d be detached and no one would get hurt and it would be better. It would all be better.
So why did it hurt already? Why did she keep hoping that somehow he’d change his mind or suddenly see her as someone he could love? As more than a friend. It happened in the movies all the time. Where was the magic of a Julia Roberts rom-com when you needed it?
Buffy cleared her throat and swallowed the hurt, forcing the tears away. She put a feeble smile on her lips and opened her eyes to look down at him. “Then let me be your friend and help you before this blood gets cold and even more gross,” she insisted, pulling her arm away from his hand where he’d stopped her earlier. She dipped the turkey baster into the mug and filled it with the warm human blood. “Do I need to make choo-choo train sounds or are you going to open your mouth like a good boy?” she wondered, arching a brow down at him.
Words rang in Spike’s ears, ‘Gettin’ rid of you. Only room in this house for one good boi, and you ain’t it.’ Spike scowled, cutting his eyes at the dog lying next to him. He quickly opened his mouth, suddenly feeling the need to show the stupid mutt that he, the vampire, was the best good boi.
Buffy carefully shifted the end of the baster from the mug to his lips and squeezed gently, letting the blood flow in. Flashes of memory or dream—Spike still wasn’t sure—came back to him with each mouthful she fed him. The feel of the plastic against his lips, the way his mouth filled with the blood, the taste of it, the feel of it—they’d done this before. Yes, she’d said she had, but it hadn’t seemed real to Spike until then.
A warm glow suffused him, beginning in his chest and spreading through his body, and it wasn’t from the blood. Buffy had taken care of him, cleaned him up, set his ribs, had the hound heal his wounds, and given him blood. He remembered Dru tossing him onto their bed at the factory when he’d had his back broken and leaving him there all alone for hours at a time, unable to move, not even turning the telly on for him. He’d been starving as his body tried to heal all the damage and wild with hunger when she’d finally remember to send a minion in with someone—or something—for him to eat. But Buffy… she’d been taking care of him herself, giving him blood, setting the breaks so they’d heal faster and less painfully. He reminded himself that even as a friend, Buffy was better to him than Dru had ever been. If that was all he could ever have, it would be enough.
As she continued filling his mouth with helpings of the blood, memories of Buffy urging him to swallow, begging him to, surfaced. But then the memory shifted, and it was Slayer blood dripping into Spike’s mouth, coating his lips and tongue. Another feeling emerged, his fangs sinking into flesh as hot, thick blood flowed into him. He shook his head, trying to sort through the images and sensations, trying to make them make some kind of sense.
“Spiiike,” Buffy chastised, drawing his name out, as the last of the blood splattered over his face when he moved. She pulled the baster back and set it in the empty mug on the floor, reaching for a towel to wipe it up. “I swear, you’re the messiest eater ever. Not even Spi—the dog spills this much.”
The vampire grabbed her wrist, stopping her from finishing wiping up the blood that had dribbled down his jaw. “Buffy, did I bite you?” he asked, his tone hard and serious. “And no dancing about this time. Tell me the sodding truth.” His eyes bored into hers, looking up as she looked down, demanding honesty.
“No, you didn’t bite me. I told you before—”
“Who did I bite?”
Buffy clamped her lips together, trying to look away from him, but Spike’s gaze held her trapped with their intensity. “One of the goons… you bit Weatherby, the one that shot you. But it wasn’t your fault and he’s not dead!” she added quickly when his eyes widened in surprise and confusion. “In fact… it was my fault. I… fed him to you.”
“You what?” Spike spluttered, his confusion growing. The memory of what had to be a dream flashed through Spike’s mind. ‘Sucked him down like a hemorrhaging Slurpee.’ He shook it off, focusing on Buffy. “You said—"
“I know what I said,” Buffy ground out. The next words came out in a rush, one long breath, “But you were in pain and you had wooden bullets in your chest and you were too strong, I couldn’t hold you down and you could’ve dusted and Weatherby was all tranquilized and I knew the tranquility would transfer and it was the only thing I could think of and—and I couldn’t let you dust because I… because I… because we’re friends and this is my fault and I should’ve probably just let you do it your way to start with and none of this would’ve happened and… and…” Buffy’s throat constricted and no more words would come. She stared down at him, willing herself to find some small fragment of detachment that would keep her from bursting into tears.
“Bloody hell, pet,” Spike sighed when she faltered. “You did that for me?” His heart swelled again, a glow as warm as the sun suffusing him with a feeling he knew too well, one that he couldn’t express to her lest he scare her away. He wouldn’t be able to stand it if that happened.
Buffy bit her bottom lip and nodded, swallowing the lump in her throat. “Of course I did. What do you think, I’d just let you dust? You’re my vampire… no one else gets to dust you,” she answered, trying to sound irritated.
A smile quirked Spike’s lip. “Gonna get me some tags like the mutt’s? ‘If found, return to owner: Buffy Summers, the Slayer, from Sunnydale.’”
Buffy rolled her eyes. “I might tattoo it on your smartass,” she snarked, regaining her composure.
Spike’s grin widened. “Say the word, Slayer. I’ll drop trou right now if you—”
“Yeah, yeah… you talk big for someone who can’t even sit up,” she dismissed airily.
“Raincheck then,” he promised with a smirk. Then another thought came to him. “Anyone else see the show?”
Buffy sighed. “Mom and Giles. Giles wasn’t thrilled,” she admitted with an eyeroll.
Spike snorted, releasing her wrist and taking the cloth from her hand. “Suppose not,” he agreed as he finished wiping his face and neck. “Sorry… sorry I put ya in that position, luv. Know it’s not your nature.”
Buffy huffed out a disgusted breath. “I don’t know what my nature is anymore,” she admitted dourly, taking the rag back from him and setting it and the mug off to the side. She began to lift Spike’s head but he took the hint and held it up until she could slide out from beneath him and slip the pillow back.
“C’mere, pet,” he requested, tugging at her arm and indicating the empty space between him and the shaggy lump sharing the sleeping bag with him.
Buffy looked at the blood coagulating in the bottom of the mug. “I need to clean this up,” she protested.
“Later. C’mere, need to talk to you.”
“That’s all you’ve been doing,” she complained. “Geez, I’m gonna have to steal more of Giles’ pills just to shut you up.”
Spike gave her one of his looks. One of those looks that spoke volumes—like Encyclopedia Britannica volumes—a look that conveyed more than he could ever say with a million words. A look that said he was serious, that he wasn’t just taking the piss or being piggy, that what he wanted to say was important—at least in his mind. A look that both begged and demanded. A look that was impossible to ignore.
Buffy sighed, shifting around to lay down next to him on her side, her head propped up with one hand.
“Closer,” Spike requested, opening his arm for her to slip beneath.
Buffy hesitated. This was not detached. This was sooo far from detached she couldn’t even see it on the horizon… with the Hubble Telescope and binoculars. Her eyes met his. There was that look again. She felt like she could fall into the blue ocean of those eyes. Every emotion Spike felt shown in their bottomless depths. Right now, they were earnest, caring, sincere. Then Buffy remembered that she was starting detached tomorrow. Not tonight, tomorrow. Right. She carefully slid against him, pillowing her head on his relatively uninjured shoulder, trying to avoid jarring his broken ribs.
“Want me t’ tell you your nature, luv?” he asked when she was curled against his side, her long hair draped over his bare chest and arm like a fine, silk scarf, her warmth like a balm down the length of his body. He breathed in the scent of her—the sweet fragrance of her shampoo and soap mingling with the tang of barely contained tears and the hint of earthy perspiration that touched her skin. It was heaven.
“Is this gonna be like a fortune cookie or something?” she wondered, her breath tickling lightly over his skin. “’Life is a series of choices. Yours suck.’”
“No, don’t speak Chinese, so no fortune cookies, just someone who knows Slayers and who knows you, telling you the truth.”
“This should be good,” Buffy groused, trying to sound put out, while at the same time enjoying the feel of Spike’s arm around her, of his body next to hers, and the deep rumble of his voice in her ear. She wanted to enjoy this now, while it lasted. Tomorrow she’d be detached and soon he’d be gone. As soon as the drugs wore off and he was thinking straight, he’d realize this was all her fault and leave her staring after his taillights as he sped away to somewhere safer—like a nuclear bomb testing site.
“You’re a hero pet—that’s your nature,” he continued, ignoring her sarcasm.
Buffy scoffed, but didn’t move. “You clearly haven’t been paying attention,” she suggested. “Or maybe those drugs have fried what few brain cells the peroxide missed.”
“Been payin’ attention, and my brain cells are still spry enough to suss out what you are. You take the weight of the world on your shoulders every sodding day, Buffy. Everything that goes wrong, you feel responsible for. If you can’t save everyone by yourself and keep your hair lookin’ like a shampoo commercial, then you think you’ve sodding failed.”
“You think my hair looks like a shampoo commercial?” she asked, lifting her head from his shoulder and looking at him.
Spike rolled his eyes. “Yer missin’ my point.”
“I’m ignoring your point because it’s pointless,” she contended, settling her head back down.
“Not pointless—pointy as one o’ your deadly bits of wood and bloody true. You’re a hero, pet. You walk into a world full of greys, into the fog of uncertainty, and your heart leads you to the right path. Maybe not the path those old geezers in tweed would choose, but the path that saves the world, the path that keeps your mates safe… the right path, the best path for you.”
Buffy shook her head against his shoulder, closing her eyes against the guilt that brought tears up. “My heart’s got a horrible sense of direction. It’s the last thing I should be following,” she contended.
“Bollocks. Your heart’s what makes you shine, what makes you glorious and bloody magnificent. It’s what gives you your fire and burns away the fog, it’s what shows you the way, Buffy. The right way… the righteous way.”
She snorted derisively. “My heart set Angelus free,” she reminded him.
“Fuck that. Sodding Angelus set Angelus free—he just used you to do it. Wasn’t your fault,” Spike insisted vehemently. “Not saying every turn along the path will be perfect, pet, but you find your way out of the fog and into the light in the end, and that’s what matters. You’re able to sort out the right from the wrong, improvise and adjust. You need to forgive yourself for missteps along the way, Buffy. No hero is perfect. What makes them a hero is they never give up, they keep fighting, keep trying, keep caring. Never knew anyone with a heart like yours, who cared like you do. No one’s ever…” Spike cleared his throat uncomfortably.
Buffy frowned, raised her head, and looked into his eyes. “No one’s ever what?”
Spike’s teeth closed over his bottom lip as he met her eyes, gathering his strength. “No one’s ever been as kind to me as you have, pet.”
Buffy tilted her head, the look in her eyes softening as she remembered Dru on the road trip, how she’d seemed unable or unwilling to help him when he’d been hurt. She gave him a sympathetic smile. “That’s what friends do… right?”
“Friends,” Spike repeated hoarsely, blinking back a sheen of moisture from his eyes, not sure if it was joy or disappointment that brought it up. Spike reached over and brushed her hair back from her face with a finger, trailing it down her temple and slipping the golden lock behind her ear tenderly.
“Friends,” Buffy echoed in a whisper, a tingle of warm pleasure rolling down her body from the spot where Spike’s fingers lingered on the nape of her neck.
Their eyes locked together, neither willing nor able to look away.
Spike licked his lips, his tongue darting out nervously, hopefully.
Buffy leaned closer, her own tongue moistening her soft, pink lips.
Spike’s hand slipped behind her neck, cradling her head in his long fingers.
He turned his head, bringing their lips even closer.
He could feel her breath on his mouth coming in soft, little gasps. Her heart was beating like a stampede of unicorns against his side. Her eyes were sparkling, the irises dilated, swallowing the shades of amber and green.
Spike’s breath caught as he tilted his mouth to hers.
Buffy bowed her head, matching his slow, tentative movements.
Their eyes fluttered closed just as their lips touched.
“I’m telling you, we’re gonna need more spackle. We should’ve gone to the store,” Xander declared as he opened the front door and stomped in.
“We can go tomorrow, Xander. This day has been difficult enough without a trip to the DIY center,” Giles argued, limping in behind him, supporting himself with the cane.
Buffy and Spike jerked apart. Spike yowled in pain as his ribs shifted and daggers ripped through his torso. Buffy scrambled back, bumping against the dog behind her before changing directions like a pinball. She was on her feet in the next instant looking flustered, her flushed face burning as hot as coals.
“Xander! Giles! You’re back!” she announced too loudly. “We were just… uh, blood! There was blood… for Spike… cos vampire and – Hey! Look who’s awake!” she stuttered, waving a hand at the vampire who really wanted to writhe in pain but arrested the motion since it only brought more pain.
Xander and Giles looked at Spike, then at Buffy like she’d lost her mind.
“Right, I’ll just take this back to the kitchen, which is what I was about to do right before you walked in,” Buffy declared, picking up the mug and the turkey baster from the floor and fleeing for the kitchen.
“She needs to lay off the caffeine and get some sleep,” Xander decided, trudging down the hallway with a toolbox in each hand.
“Indeed,” Giles concurred as he began working his way painfully up the stairs to check on Willow and Oz.
Spike tried to get up again, to follow Buffy. His broken ribs shifted, grating against each other, and the freshly resealed wounds tore open again. He gasped against the pain, but endured, pushing up nearly to a seated position with quavering arms before his strength and determination gave way to the agony. He flopped back down onto the pad, which had him biting back curses and clutching his ribs.
The dog was already up, standing over him, looking down at him with an odd mixture of scorn and compassion shining in his chocolate-brown eyes. The dog sighed, apparently resigned, and began healing the reopened wounds.
Spike dropped his head back and let his eyes fall closed, equally resigned to his fate—at least for now. What the bloody fuck had just happened between him and the Slayer? Or didn’t happen? Or almost happened? Was he dreaming again? If he was, it was a damn sight better than the dreams he’d been having. He licked his lips. The barest taste of Buffy lingered on them, warm and sweet.
“Friends. Like sodding Pooh and Piglet,” he muttered dourly. Spike didn’t reckon Pooh and Piglet had ever kissed though... or almost kissed. And which was he in that scenario? Piglet, o’course. Always calling him piggy, wasn’t she? His mind whirled, scrambling his thoughts more, as a fresh wave of exhaustion suffused him, the demon once again demanding its due for the healing. Spike’s head swam, whether from the tang of Buffy on his lips or the strain he’d put on his body and brain since waking, he didn’t know. He tried to fight the haze that was dragging him under, but found he had no choice but to give in to the fatigue. He floated away again, back into the abyss, clinging to the hope that this hadn’t been a dream.
** X-X-X-X-X **
STORY BOARDS
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link: https://flic.kr/p/2kW83gz
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link: https://flic.kr/p/2kW6pHq
End Notes:
Spike's awake! Yay! There was a kiss... kind of? What does it mean? What will happen now? Will things **gasp** get less frustrating? (Don't bet on it!)
Thank you so much for reading and for your patience as I try to catch up with your wonderful comments! I thought things would slow down a bit for me, but so far no luck with that. But I’ll get there – I love reading all your notes! They keep me inspired!
Chapter 27: Sprinkle n' Splash
Chapter Text
Chapter Notes:
Check it out! Not only before midnight, but before NOON!
Thanks to all of you for reading! It means so much to me, like Beignets for my muse! Sending all the sloppy, joyful doggie kisses to everyone who has left a note, a like or a kudo. I’m working on replying to all your lovely comments and treasure every one of them.
Thanks also to my other wonderful beta readers and friends: All4Spike, Paganbaby, and TeamEricNSookie. Holi117 has switched to a pre-reader, which I’m so happy she’s finding time for that. All mistakes are mine because I keep fiddling with stuff. If you see any, PM me and I’ll fix it.
Chapter 27: Sprinkle n’ Splash
Buffy ran into the kitchen and straight out the back door, never setting the dirty mug or baster down. She hit the back porch and then her bare feet were thumping down the steps into the cool grass of the backyard. Though she didn’t leave the yard, she didn’t stop moving, her legs carrying her in frantic circles around her dog’s old agility training equipment.
“What the hell are you doing?” she hissed to herself, keeping her voice low enough that even the supernatural occupants of the house couldn’t hear her. “Are you out of your mind?” Buffy continued chastising, her breaths coming in short, panicked gasps. “Buffy the Relationship Slayer… remember? Broken heart, betrayal, abandonment… He doesn’t want your crappy heart! He’s already told you that! Argh! You are so stupid.”
She stopped pacing near the porch steps, her adrenaline-fueled alarm beginning to subside, though her heart was still beating a staccato rhythm against her ribs. Her body thrummed, and she knew it wasn’t just from Xander and Giles walking in on… on whatever that was with Spike. It was from… whatever that was with Spike.
Buffy touched her fingers to her lips. She’d barely kissed him, but she could still feel the tingle of his breath and the spark of desire that shot through her, lighting up every nerve ending with the contact. Just that small touch was better than anything she’d ever imagined it could be. Even those times she’d brought herself to orgasm with his name on her lips didn’t compare.
This was badness. This was so much badness.
A sudden flash of rage boiled up and over in an instant. Why couldn’t she be a normal girl with a normal life? Someone who could be loved—truly loved—by a man. Why couldn’t she be someone who didn’t drive everyone away? Someone who didn’t always end up alone? The one girl in all the world?
Buffy drew her arm back and hurtled the mug in her hand at the oak tree at the back of the yard. To her immense satisfaction, it flew across the intervening space like a rocket and shattered against the rough bark, the plastic baster falling harmlessly to the ground amid the shards of pottery. She looked around for something else to break and found an ashtray her mom must’ve put out for Spike. She hefted the heavy green glass in her hand and dashed it against the tree, as well. Another rewarding explosion hit her ears as it splintered into a thousand pieces. Then her eyes landed on the crystal vase that still lay in the grass, the flowers from her father little more than dried twigs next to it. Buffy snatched it up and flung it at the tree. The crystal sparkled in the moonlight as it shattered, the pieces falling like stars to land amidst the other debris.
All shattered. Just like her heart would be if she didn’t stop this right now.
Detached. It was the only way she could survive.
All Buffy’s emotions coalesced into a painful sob, which exploded from her throat. She covered her face, trying to stifle the sound, and moved away from the house. She dropped down onto her knees in the soft, damp grass beneath the oak, close enough to touch all the glinting fragments of glass. Fragments that could just as easily be her heart if she didn’t back away from Spike, and now.
* X-X *
Buffy groaned in the pre-dawn light, curling into a tight ball, in an attempt to stave off the cold. Where was her quilt? Where was her pillow? She blinked her tear-crusted eyes open. Where was her bed? Where was her house?
She pushed up to a seated position as everything came rushing back to her. Spike. The kiss-not-kiss. Her flight from the house. Her raging emotions. Crying herself to sleep on the cold, hard ground.
She scooted back against the trunk of the oak, carefully avoiding the shards of broken pottery and glass. She drew her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, dropping her face down to rest atop her knees. She took a deep breath and let her eyes fall closed, trying, once again, to sort through everything.
Her world had been turned upside down in the last few days. Had it only been a few days? She’d gotten beat up by that big carrottop vamp and called Spike that same night, then had the dream with Dru, which had turned out to be scarily accurate. Being soul-sisters with the looney vamp was a whole other ball of smelly cheese that she couldn’t even think about right now. The next day her mom told her about the poisons and took Spikey back to the vet to confirm it, which they did. Then that night Kralik had put Willow in the hospital and Giles had admitted he’d been the one making her weak as they waited in the hospital to hear how Willow was. Spike had shown up that same night and fought to protect her mom, though Kralik still managed to kidnap her dog. She and Spike had no sooner dusted the crazy-ass vampire and his Council fledge, than another threat appeared on the horizon. Two nights later, the Council’s wet-works team arrived to wreak havoc on what remained of her life. And now the Council had left—not for good, of course—but for now.
And Spike had woken up.
Buffy counted on her fingers... five days and nights of hell. Going on six now that the sun was rising on another day. It felt like six hundred... years.
And then Spike had kissed her... or she’d kissed him? Or almost kissed. She licked her dry lips, remembering the feeling. Even that small contact had been... yowza!
Vampire kisses were bad, reckless!
No, not reckless. Oz said the liking of Spike was non-reckless. Spike could follow the leash laws. Willow even agreed.
So, Spike kisses were good.
No, Spike kisses were bad!
He’s still a vampire. You’re still the Slayer. Pretty sure the Powers That Be don’t care about leash laws. Apocalypses ensue when the streams cross.
But you don’t know that for sure! That’s what the science was for, to figure that out. Do the science!
How can you expect to ‘science’ with someone whose gotten nothing but pummeled into very bloody hamburger around you?
Maybe if you help him heal and be his friend, then you can try the science thing, and who knows where it could go?
Even if that happens, you’re forgetting Buffy the relationship slayer! Taillights driving away, heartbreak, remorse, misery.
But maybe this one time it could work?
How many times do you have to be eviscerated to get the idea? He doesn’t want your heart! He just wants to be your friend.
But... kisses!
He was just... just grateful for your help. Like he said, no one had ever been that kind to him before.
Which is so sad! I should be more with the kindness! I should go in and cuddle him and...
NO! No Spike cuddles. See above re: heartache, misery, and apocalypses.
But Spike said I should trust my heart, that it takes me to the right path... and even Giles said my heart was magnificent!
Spike and Giles agreeing on something? If that’s not the first sign of an apocalypse, I don’t know what is!
Buffy groaned aloud as her mind started back through its unending litany of arguments and counterarguments yet again. She lifted her face and scrubbed her hands over her tired eyes, trying to wipe away all the confusing thoughts and emotions.
“Facts,” she croaked through her tear-and-sleep-roughened throat. “One. Spike is your friend. Two. Spike has a lot of healing to do. Three. Spike is a vampire. Four. Spike needs blood. Five. You can’t keep giving him your blood; he was totally freaked when he woke up and thought he’d had your blood. Six. We need more human blood for him to make with the healing. Conclusion: Operation ‘Continuing Kindness’ requires more human blood for Spike.”
Buffy nodded to herself resolutely. Now she had a plan. The fact that the plan would take her out of the house and away from a certain vampire that stirred up Sybil-esque voices in her head was just a quirky coincidence.
* X-X *
Buffy knocked on Angel’s door a little after dawn. A kink had settled in her neck from sleeping on the cold, hard ground. In truth, she felt achy all over, most especially on the inside, but she was determined to stop that ache before it turned into full-blown agony. She’d just keep her distance from the blond vampire, help him get healed up, and then force herself to be happy when he moved on to greener pastures, or, you know, less hazardous ones.
Her dog leaned against her legs, making her take a step to the side lest she be knocked over, but she appreciated his strength next to her. She scratched his ears lovingly. At least she’d have one Spike left when this was all over, and she was sure the furry one would never break her heart.
Buffy knocked again, rolling her head around on her shoulders, trying to get the knots out. This was ridiculous. Where was Angel, anyway? She looked around as the courtyard lightened with the rising sun. It wasn’t like him to cut it this close.
“What do you think, boy?” Buffy asked the dog, looking down at him.
Spike shook his head, his big ears flopping, then looked back up at her with an uncertain expression in his soft eyes.
Buffy sighed. “Yeah, weird, right?”
Spike huffed out a breath in agreement.
The Slayer tried the handle and the door swung open easily. “Angel?” she called stepping into the high-ceilinged living area, Spike right at her side. There was no fire in the grate and the familiar scent of melted candlewax was also missing. “Angel?” she tried again, coming in further and looking around.
“No peeing on anything,” she admonished her companion, frowning, taking everything in.
Spike whined petulantly, but stayed next to her, not straying or sniffing around to find a wayward pair of shoes the brown rabbit had foolishly left out.
“Seriously, you never pee in Spike’s boots,” Buffy observed as she checked the kitchen.
The dog’s mouth fell open into a doggie grin, his pink tongue lolling out happily.
Buffy rolled her eyes. “I know… he buys you cheezeburgers,” she muttered. The kitchen was spotless. Not a dirty mug left soaking in the sink or a clean one left drying on a dishtowel. There wasn’t even any blood in the fridge, though there were a couple of packs of human blood from the hospital in the freezer. She took them out and examined them. There were expired, but only a few days. “So, Spike was right about Angel taking the expired blood,” she mused, putting them back. She’d actually had no doubt that Spike had been right—in fact, that was why she was here. Spike needed blood to heal—good blood, human blood… and not Buffy blood. Buffy blood led to a distinct lack of detached-ness. If Angel had a deal with the hospital, then Buffy wanted in on it, at least for as long as Spike was in Sunnydale.
The Slayer continued calling Angel’s name as she and the dog checked the rooms on the first floor. Buffy started with what she knew was his bedroom, only because she’d seen him come out of it before. She’d never actually been in there. The room was neat, the colors subdued, the bed made. A book in some language other than English sat on the nightstand with a bookmark about halfway through. All the furniture, art, and sculptures he’d had in his pre-Angelus, small, underground apartment were in there, set up almost exactly the same. It was the same bed, possibly the sheets were the very ones... An icy shudder ran down Buffy’s spine, the room conjuring too many painful memories. She pulled the door closed.
“That’s not creepy at all,” she muttered as she headed for the next door.
Spike pressed against her again, lending some comfort. Buffy gave him a grateful smile and buried a hand in his thick mane as they made their way from room to room.
After checking the entire mansion and not finding Angel or any sign of where he might be, she decided to just leave him a note. After rummaging through the kitchen drawers for five minutes, she finally found a broken pencil and an old, faded receipt. She knew he had writing paper and fancy pens in the desk she’d seen in his bedroom, but she was not going back in there.
Buffy wanted to tell him to call her, but she hadn’t seen a phone anywhere in the house, and he’d never called her before. She sighed and scribbled a brief note for him to come by and see her when he got back. She debated where to put it so he’d see it, finally deciding on looping it through the handle of the microwave, since she couldn’t find any tape to stick it up anywhere.
On her way out, she took the two pints of blood from the freezer; a down payment on whatever deal they struck.
* X-X *
Spike woke to a herd of elephants stomping around and sounding much too close. He blinked his eyes open but found no elephants, in fact, for a moment, he saw no one at all. Then the clomping started again and Xander came into view in the foyer, his boots heavy on the wood floor.
“Bloody hell,” Spike complained. “Ever heard of respect for the dead?”
Xander stopped whatever he was doing and came into the living room, still making enough noise for the dead man on the parlor floor to wince. “Aren’t you just a big bowl of sunshiny-goodness this afternoon?” the brunette taunted, sliding a pencil behind his ear as he clipped a chunky yellow tape measure to the tool belt around his hips.
“Vampire, you pillock, not a bloody Care Bear,” Spike retorted. “What the fuck are you doin’?” he wondered, as he tried to push up to a seated position without really thinking. It only took a moment for him to remember—shattered ribs and shredded guts. Spike gasped and stopped moving about halfway up, not wanting to either drop back down and appear weak in front of the boy, or keep going and rip everything open again.
“Helping Mrs. Summers repair all this damage,” Xander explained, waving a hand around.
“And that requires you clomping around like a three-hundred-pound troll?” Spike ground out through clenched teeth. He pushed up a tiny bit more. Something tore in his abdomen and he stifled a curse and once again halted his motion.
Xander scowled at him. “Excuse me, Sleeping Beauty. I did all the quiet, spackle-y stuff down the hall this morning,” he defended. “I thought you’d be awake by now… and, look! You are!”
Spike rolled his eyes, the muscle in his cheek twitching from holding back the howl that wanted to erupt. “Well, there’s a self-fulfilling prophecy if ever I heard one,” he grumbled through his teeth.
Xander frowned. “Do you need some help?” he asked, tramping his heavy size-twelves across the floor to the vampire.
“See why Buffy keeps you around—got the observation skills of a blind ostrich with his head in the sand.”
The Scooby’s frown turned into a scowl, as he got to the vampire and pushed him the rest of the way to a seated position with one fast shove against his back.
Spike growled and gasped but held back the shriek that wanted to come out as more things inside him shifted and ripped and otherwise protested the movement.
“You all right?” Xander asked as Spike panted for unneeded breath, clutching at his ribs and abdomen.
“Bloody perfect,” Spike hissed, looking for something he could lean back against. The chair he’d tried using to pull up on the previous night was to one side, but he needed to shift around for it to be of any use, and he wasn’t sure that was possible. At least not without screaming like a git, which Spike wasn’t prepared to do in front of Buffy’s boy.
“Can I…?” Xander began.
Spike gave up trying to maintain any semblance of dignity. “Get the sodding chair and put it behind me,” he gasped, his muscles beginning to spasm as he tried in vain to hold everything in place.
Xander shifted the heavy chair, sliding it around so that Spike could lean against it. Spike sighed in relief, letting his head fall back against the cushions as he slowly released the iron grip he’d been holding on his torso.
“You’re welcome, Rip Van Winkle,” Xander mocked, moving back over to the foyer and the work he’d been doing.
Spike bristled, finally getting his breath back. Having something to lean on relieved most of the pressure on his abused body. “Should be thanking me, you pillock. You snoozed through the whole sodding fight! Left it all t’ me and the Slayer to take care of the berks.”
Xander stopped and turned back to the vampire. “The way I hear it, Giles stopped them with some kind of magical mystery dust. All you did was turn yourself into one of those silhouettes they use for target practice,” he observed.
“Pffft!” Spike disagreed. “Saved the Watcher’s life, didn’t I? Means anything he did goes on my scorecard. Sounds like I’m a bloody hero,” he asserted cockily.
“’Bloody’ being the operative word,” Xander snarked. “Mrs. Summers says you left half your blood on the ground outside and the rest is soaked into that sleeping bag you’re sitting on. They kept refilling you and it just kept squirting out, the Hellmouth’s version of a ‘Sprinkle n’ Splash’.”
“You’re just jealous wasn’t you being the big hero,” Spike asserted with a contemptuous sniff.
“Oh, right, since it’s always been my life’s ambition to be a leaky pincushion,” Xander shot back, gesturing at Spike’s stomach.
Spike looked down. ‘Bugger.’ He’d managed to rip some of the wounds open again. Blood trickled from the gashes, rolling down his abdomen to be soaked into his already blood-soaked jeans.
“Where’s Buffy?” Spike asked the boy, who had taken the pencil back out and had starting writing something down on a pad of paper.
Xander looked up from recording the measurements for the new glass. “She and Spike—you know, the less grumpy one—left before anyone was up. There was a note saying she had some errands to run. She left you some blood there,” the brunette pointed out, lifting his chin to indicate a thermos and a mug on the floor, luckily still within Spike’s reach.
Spike frowned, looking at the thermos, and only then noticing the mutt was also missing. Double bugger. The fleabag could’ve fixed this in a blink. Spike scowled, looking around the floor and finally finding one of the rags that Buffy had used to wipe him up with. It wasn’t exactly clean, but it was dry. He pressed it against the oozing wounds; at least they weren’t gushing. “What kind of errands?”
“Dunno,” Xander replied, slipping the pencil back behind his ear.
“Where did she go?”
“Dunno.”
“When will she be back?”
“Dunno.”
“Anyone ever tell you you’re about as useful as a condom machine in the Vatican?”
“Yeah, but I’m so pretty, no one cares,” Xander replied with a chuckle as his heavy boots plodded back down the hall.
Spike sighed, rolling his eyes. He reached for the thermos, opened it and sniffed. Human, and still relatively warm. He didn’t bother with the cup, but just drank directly from the container, his mind wandering back to the previous night. Buffy’s lips on his. Soft. Feather-light. Sweet as honey. Where would that have gone if Tweedledee and Tweedledum hadn’t walked in at that moment? He felt a familiar stirring below the belt as his imagination took over, and was happy to know that some parts of his anatomy were still in perfect working order.
Spike shook his head, trying to sort out everything that had happened over the last couple of days. Had he been dreaming about Buffy saying he needed to leave? Or had her calling him a friend been the dream? She’d allowed him to feed off a human—not a very upstanding human, as it went, but still—human. And she’d taken care of him afterwards, giving him blood, setting his ribs, cleaning him up, having the hound slobber on him. And that kiss that didn’t happen? It wasn’t the kiss of a ‘friend’.
What the bloody fuck did it all mean? She’d been very clear about them just being friends. Had something changed?
Spike finished about half the blood and put the cap back on the thermos, setting it back down next to him. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the cushions of the chair, wanting nothing more than to get his ass up and go find the silly chit and find out what the fuck was going on. He pulled the old rag away from his abdomen and looked down. The bleeding had stopped again, but if he tried to get up to his feet, he knew there’d be a whole new geyser of blood dripping down his body. Blood he needed to heal. Not to mention if he tried to get up now, he’d probably fall on his ass and need the handyman to help him… again. ‘Sod that.’
The vampire sighed and closed his eyes. He’d just have to wait for Buffy to get back. “Wait,” he muttered to himself dourly. “One o’ your favorite pastimes.”
* X-X *
“It’s good to see you up,” Giles commented as he limped into the living room, waking Spike from his doze.
Spike blinked his eyes open and looked up at the former Watcher, then down at himself. He was still seated on the floor, the easy chair at his back. “For someone with ‘Watcher’ on their CV, your skills of observation seem t’ be a bit off.”
Giles settled down gingerly on the sofa, wincing as he bent his wounded leg and put pressure on his cracked ribs. He gave Spike a stiff smile. “I simply meant awake and coherent,” he explained. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I had a sodding clip o’ bullets blasted into my body at point-blank range, how do you reckon I feel?” Spike snarked back. “Bullets that were meant for you, I might add.”
“I-I do seem to owe you a debt of gratitude.”
Spike snorted. “See your next poor career choice will be working for Hallmark, writin’ heartfelt thank you cards,” he snarked, patting down his jeans pockets to see if he had any fags on him. Of course, he didn’t.
“Point taken,” Giles admitted. “I suppose it means I owe you my life, but since you have a truce with Buffy, I’m uncertain how you will collect.”
“Pfft. Got no use for old Watcher’s blood. Tastes like mothballs an’ desperation, and the tweed gets stuck in my teeth,” Spike scoffed.
Giles scowled. “I can assure you that my blood does not taste like mothballs,” he defended. “I’m far from needing eldercare or having Friday night bingo be the highlight of my week.”
Spike smirked. “Well then, only one way to know for sure. If you’re offering, I’ll have a taste and let you know.”
“I can assure you that I am not offering,” Giles corrected immediately. “You may choose some other… dispensation as a token of my gratitude. Perhaps I could get in touch with Drusilla for you? Have her retrieve you from this… situation?”
Spike arched his scarred brow. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were trying to get rid of me, Rupert. Not very hospitable, seeing’s how I saved your life and all.”
Giles removed his glasses, retrieved his handkerchief, and began scrubbing them as he spoke. “I simply assumed you’d want to get back to your life, out from under the Slayer’s thumb and the constrictions of the truce, as soon as may be.”
Spike wasn’t under the Slayer’s thumb, more like wrapped around her little finger, even if she had no idea—but he wasn’t about to mention that to anyone, especially her Watcher. And he certainly wasn’t going to let on about him and Dru being on the outs. “Not in any hurry. Dru’s having her ‘girl time’… you know women, needin’ space to indulge in their female falderols and trumperies.”
“I see,” Giles replied dryly, replacing his glasses, and looking over at Spike. “In that case, is there anything else I could offer you?”
Spike smirked. “Well, for starters, a pack o’ smokes and my lighter,” he suggested.
“I don’t suppose either of those things would be downstairs,” Giles replied glumly, eyeing the stairs with dread.
“Likely not. Probably in m’ room, upstairs… you know, the one next to Buffy’s.”
Giles huffed out a breath. “I’m sure you mean the guest room… which is for temporary guests,” he pointed out. “As in people who are not staying beyond the accepted polite limits of a guest. Namely, a few days at most.”
Spike’s brows went up. “Debts of gratitude don’t go far these days, do they?”
“It would likely go much further if the bearer wasn’t a dangerous vampire with an open invitation and an unknown agenda.”
“Unknown agenda?” Spike repeated incredulously, leaning forward with an effort and wishing he could get to his feet and loom over the older man. “Told ya I’d protect the Slayer and I did. There’s no other bloody agenda.”
“Oh yes, I’d forgotten—you’re a regular Gandhi,” Giles scoffed. “May I point out that your rash version of ‘protection’ nearly got her abducted!” he continued. “Did you know Weatherby was about to dust you? Had the stake raised, ready to plunge into your heart? That Buffy had to save you… take on Weatherby on her own? How do you think she got those bruises on her face, or hadn’t you noticed them?”
Spike hadn’t actually known that, only that she’d let him feed off Weatherby at some point, but he wasn’t backing down now. “Well, it seems like it worked out all right—Slayer and her mates are all safe and sound, tottering about, not letting dead men sleep.”
“Only because the dog managed to get Weatherby off her and I was able to employ magics to subdue them,” Giles retorted.
“Which you wouldn’t have been able to do if I hadn’t saved your ungrateful arse,” Spike reminded him. “So that all comes onto my side o’ the ledger, doesn’t it?”
“Fine, then, just how many points do I get for removing the wooden bullets from your heroic self?” Giles wondered, his eyes shifting to Spike’s torso.
Spike’s brows went up as if in surprise, though Buffy had already told him about that. “Oh, so it’s you I have thank for all these crosses getting added to the damage? Forgot that crosses burn a vamp, did you? Can see why Council of Old Wankers sacked you,” he contended haughtily, waving a hand down at all the X-shaped marks on his ravaged torso.
Giles frowned. “They’re not crosses, they’re ‘X’s,” he countered skeptically.
“You say po-tay-to, I say po-tah-to,” Spike tossed back. “Bloody bushel o’ fun having all these branding irons sticking into my guts. Slows down the healing process, I can tell you. Could give you a demonstration if you’d get my sodding lighter.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Giles asserted. “You’re simply taking the piss now. Crosses have a vertical length longer than the horizontal. Those are equidistant, clearly ‘X’s.”
“That’s the Roman cross you’re talking about. Ever heard of a Greek cross or a saltire?” Spike asked, giving him his most innocent look, the one that had even the most jaded native New Yorker inviting him into their home. “Council’s really falling down on the job with their book learnin’.”
Giles paled slightly, his eyes traveling to the vampire’s stomach. The ‘X’s he’d made were still quite red and inflamed. Could Spike be telling the truth? It was preposterous… and yet.
“Pro’ly have to extend my stay a bit longer than a polite guest might,” Spike suggested smugly, clearly pleased with the ex-Watcher’s reaction. “You know, to get over the trauma o’ your gratitude.”
Giles’ eyes snapped up to Spike’s and hardened. “Don’t push your luck, Spike. Joyce and Buffy may be taken in by those puppy-dog eyes, but I can assure you I am not,” he asserted, pushing up to his feet with the aid of his cane and a small grunt of effort. “While I am grateful for your assistance in this matter, and for the part you played in gaining a positive outcome, I cannot help but wonder what is behind all your heroic actions. Vampires do not simply perform selfless acts for no good reason.”
Spike smirked up at the man. “Maybe I was just bored and wanted a bit of the rough and tumble,” he suggested.
Giles huffed out a breath as he began hobbling away. “Or, perhaps, you are simply biding your time, waiting for an opportunity to turn on Buffy and kill your third Slayer.”
Spike snorted. “Could’a done that when I first arrived, you pillock! Buffy was ripe for the picking, thanks to you! Not even the bloody mutt could’a stopped me,” he called after the man. “Just sodding jealous that your little plan to win the Slayer back and be the big hero backfired and I had to save your sorry arse.”
Giles’ back stiffened, the words hitting too close to home, but he continued making his slow way toward the kitchen. He knew that Spike was right—there had been nothing stopping the vamp from killing Buffy, Joyce, and the Guardian. For that matter, all Spike would’ve had to have done was sit back and let Kralik take Joyce when the insane vampire first showed up, and things could’ve turned out very differently. But years of training and first-hand experience told Giles that vampires didn’t just fall in on the side of the Slayer with no ulterior motive—he simply didn’t know what Spike’s was… yet. Of course, it was at least partly the fault of those years of Council training that Buffy had been put in the position to call the blond menace in the first place. Giles sighed. One thing was certain, Buffy’s feelings for the vampire were growing and for that reason alone, Spike needed to be on his way as soon as possible.
“Oi!” Spike shouted as Giles’ back retreated. “What about my smokes and lighter, you ungrateful git?”
“Buffy doesn’t allow smoking in the house,” Giles called back over his shoulder and kept walking.
“Buffy’s not sodding here!” Spike tossed back, but the ex-Watcher ignored him, turning the corner and disappearing from view.
“Bugger,” Spike groaned, leaning back against the chair again with a sigh. He could really use a smoke right about now.
* X-X *
“Spike looks better,” Willow whispered to Oz as they stopped in the foyer, looking in at the sleeping vampire, not wanting to wake him.
“Seated instead of prone is always a bonus,” her boyfriend agreed. “Probably be on his feet in a day or two.”
“Yeah,” Willow agreed sadly. “Then it’ll be, ‘Adiós Hellmouth’ for him, according to Buffy.”
“She did seem pretty decided about his imminent exit,” Oz agreed.
“Yeah, you know, being the Slayer and all—kinda comes with the territory, I guess.” Willow sighed as the two redheads turned and headed for the kitchen.
Spike blinked his eyes open, his brow furrowed. Not just the Watcher trying to get rid of him, but the Slayer, too? What the bloody fuck was goin’ on around here? Could understand the Watcher being suspicious, but Buffy? He thought they’d been getting on right nicely, of late. She’d sodding kissed him just a few hours ago—or nearly had—and now? Now what? Now she wanted him gone as soon as he could walk?
Spike’s mood, already low, darkened even more. She’d run off and not come back during the night, then had been gone all bloody day. What had he done to send her scurrying for the hills and wanting him to do the same? Was it that almost-kiss? Bloody hell! He hadn’t started it, she had! He’d been perfectly happy with ‘friends’, she’s the one who’d taken it beyond that… or at least hinted at it with that kiss.
Spike licked his lips. He thought he could still feel the tingling sweetness of her lips against his, just barely a touch, soft as lamb’s breath. He shook his head and let his eyes fall closed again. Just when he thought he had the girl sussed out, she went and did a 180, making his sodding head spin.
* X-X *
The aroma of fresh, warm blood made Spike’s nostril’s flare and pulled him from his slumber. He blinked his eyes open, only then realizing he’d nodded off. Next to him, Joyce was setting down a tray. There was a mug of blood and one of cocoa, along with a few biscuits on a plate. The cocoa was covered in mini-marshmallows and the blood was human. The biscuits seemed to be from a tin, but looked appealing all the same.
“I thought you might be getting hungry,” she explained backing up to sit down on the couch nearby.
“Ta… appreciate it, pet,” Spike replied, reaching for the blood.
“How are you feeling?”
Spike tilted his neck back and forth on his shoulders, working out the kinks with audible pops. Sleeping sitting on the floor wasn’t really the most comfortable thing he’d ever done, but he dreaded the thought of trying to lie back down now that he’d managed the challenge of being somewhat upright. He continued to loosen up by rolling his shoulders a couple of times, then lifting and lowering them. Finally, he gingerly sat forward, straightening his back, which elicited more pops from his spine, and used his decimated abs to hold the position without aid of the chair behind him. Nothing started bleeding, which was a plus, though he could feel things in his stomach stretching and straining with the motion. He held his breath, waiting for the excruciating pain, but it didn’t come—just mild discomfort punctuated by the occasional stab of a dagger into a particularly tender spot.
He nodded and looked up at her. “Seems a bit better. Thanks for asking,” he replied, taking a sip of the blood. “Buffy around?” he asked causally.
Joyce shook her head. “She came back for a few minutes but took off again with Oz. She said she was trying to get you some blood, since you seem to be going through quite a bit, you know, with the healing. She said the more you were able to drink, the sooner you’d be back on your feet.”
Spike stiffened. ‘And the sooner she’ll have me gone.’ “None at the hospital?” he wondered.
Joyce crinkled her face up guiltily. “I think I maybe took too much the other night. There was a news report this morning that they were running low, asking for donors to come down. Buffy says that since she hasn’t been out patrolling for a few days, probably the vampire population is up and… well, I’m sure you know what that means.”
Spike took another sip of the blood, feeling an irrational mixture of jealousy and anger about that. Sodding fledges running about, having fun, doing as they pleased, causing neck trauma and cutting the blood supply short—blood that he could be drinking. Wankers.
“But clearly you needed it. It seems to be helping,” Joyce continued when Spike didn’t say anything. “You’ve been sitting up all day... maybe tomorrow you could even stand up. I’m sure you’d like to get out of those grimy jeans and get a shower. I bet you’d feel like a new man.”
Spike looked down at the stiff, mud-and-blood-crusted jeans he was wearing. He hadn’t really paid much attention to them, but now that Joyce mentioned it, they were pretty disgusting. He doubted even she could salvage them. “Standing’s one thing. Not sure I’d be able to make it up the stairs,” he pointed out. “Maybe if Buffy was here to lend a hand…” he posited.
Joyce frowned. “Oh, I hadn’t thought of that,” she admitted. “I think everyone’s going to try and go back to school tomorrow… but maybe tomorrow night.”
Spike’s brows furrowed. He’d lost track of what day it was in the tumult. Apparently, it was a weekday. “So, everyone’s feeling alright, then? Up for a full day o’ lectures and whatnot? Back to normal.”
Joyce gave him a small smile and nodded. “I think so. Buffy’s still not at full strength, but she says she’s better—stronger—and certainly good enough for school. Thanks to you.”
Spike shrugged, finishing the last of the blood and reaching for the cocoa. “Apparently, I wasn’t as clever as I’d imagined. Watcher said she had t’ save me.”
“Well, you had been shot full of bullets, so I think it’s understandable,” Joyce reminded him. “Buffy was pretty upset when she realized some of them were wooden.”
Spike perked up at that. “Was she, now? Worried ‘bout me, eh?”
“Yes, worried… and exhausted, too. That’s why Mr. Giles had to finish taking them out. She just… she was just spent. The, um, wounds from getting them out… the ‘X’s… do they really burn you?”
Spike smirked at her over the rim of the mug, his blue eyes twinkling mischievously, before taking a large sip of cocoa and marshmallows.
Joyce gave him a reproachful look. “You really should try being nicer to Mr. Giles,” she admonished him. “He has been trying to make amends with Buffy, trying to help make up for his mistakes.”
Spike snorted. “A mistake is nicking regular smokes when you wanted mentholated. What he did wasn’t a sodding mistake. It was a decision. A decision to turn on the Slayer, to fill ‘er and the mutt with poisons, make her weak and scared and vulnerable. It could’ve cost Buffy her sodding life—could’ve cost you yours, for fuck’s sake! A mistake! Pfffft!”
Joyce sighed and sat back against the cushions. “I know… I just… he’s really sorry and…”
“Oh, well, that makes it all peachy, then doesn’t it?” Spike shot back.
Joyce bristled at the harsh tone of sarcasm dripping from his words. “No, it doesn’t, but he’s trying and Buffy’s… well, she’s trying too, so, as a guest here, I’d appreciate it if you’d give him a break,” she chastised.
Spike froze, the mug nearly to his lips. There was that word again: guest. When she’d first said it—when he’d first arrived—it had chuffed him to no end, but now it sounded more like a deadline, almost an ultimatum.
“I know it isn’t easy,” she continued, her tone softening. “Believe me, I understand your perspective, but it won’t be for too long. I mean, I’m sure Dru is waiting for you and you’ll want to be going as soon as you can, anyway.”
Spike’s chest constricted, his heart twisting with guilt for lying to Joyce about Drusilla. But it didn’t seem worth setting the record straight now—he was clearly getting the boot soon regardless of his relationship status. Words—real or imagined, he had no idea any longer—came back to him. Joyce asking Buffy, ‘You know that Spike will be leaving when he’s able, right?’ And Buffy replying, ‘I know.’
Apparently, there was a limit to friendship—even if you had taken a fuck-ton of bullets and saved their sodding lives. And clearly, the expiry date on his with Buffy and Joyce was fast approaching.
Spike swallowed the rest of the cocoa and marshmallows in one long pull and put the mug back on the tray, banging it down a bit harder than necessary. “Right, not long,” he agreed, crossing his arms over his cracked ribs and leaning back against the chair again. “Best get some rest… help with the healing so I can get outta your hair,” he said gruffly before closing his eyes.
“William, I…” Joyce began apologetically.
Spike waved a hand in the air, never opening his eyes, forestalling her. “No worries… you’re right, need to be moving on. Got places to go and neck trauma t’ inflict.”
Joyce frowned, feeling bad for even suggesting he had to go, but she reminded herself that it was for Buffy, to protect her daughter from getting too attached to what amounted to a married man. She stood, picked up the tray, and took it back into the kitchen without another word to the sullen vampire.
Spike clenched his jaw, trying to suss out what he’d done wrong to make even Joyce turn on him, want him out. She had called him, after all, just as Buffy had. All well and good to turn to the soulless demon in a time of dire need, he supposed, but when the threat was over, then he was no longer fit to be in the same town, let alone the same house. His heart ached, feeling betrayed and scorned, but he should’ve known this would happen. A vampire and a Slayer being allies, being friends… or more? That just wasn’t how things worked, was it? He’d been a fool to think otherwise. An utter fool.
Spike slid sideways, lowering his right shoulder gingerly to the musty, stained sleeping bag. Once down, he grabbed one of the pillows and curled into a ball on his side, hugging the pillow against his ravaged torso, but more importantly against his aching heart. How could things have got so cocked up in such a short time? Last night he’d felt cared for beyond anything in recent, or even distant, memory. And now… now he felt abandoned, utterly alone.
Spike buried his face in the pillow and gave up trying to stop the tears that had been threatening. At least when you were alone, there was no one there to see you cry.
* X-X *
STORY BOARDS
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link: https://flic.kr/p/2kWUK3G
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link: https://flic.kr/p/2kWY8xQ
End Notes:
Oh, poor Spike! Feeling like everyone is ganging up on him. What will happen when Buffy is forced to finally stop avoiding him and comes home? We’ll find out on Saturday!
Will Spike EVER come clean to Joyce about breaking up with Dru? Yes. I promise you, he will. Eventually. Hang in there! And where is Angel? Still off trying to prove Spike is the one who did this to Buffy and the doggie? Well, yes, yes he is.
Would it kill Giles to give Spike some credit? Apparently so. Grrrr! Also, not really his business anymore, but clearly he's not figured that out.
References:
Sybil is a 1973 book by Flora Rheta Schreiber about the treatment of Sybil Dorsett for dissociative identity disorder (then referred to as multiple personality disorder) by her psychoanalyst, Cornelia B. Wilbur. The book was made into two television movies of the same name, once in 1976 and again in 2007.
'Don't let the streams cross' is from the movie Ghost Busters
A Sprinkle n' Splash is an outdoor play mat for kids (and adults! come on!) that you hook to a garden hose. It squirts water up from holes in the base. Kind of like a fancy sprinkler that you can run through or splash about in. I put a picture of one in the first story board.
Thank you so much for reading and for your patience as I try to catch up with your wonderful comments! I thought things would slow down a bit for me, but so far no luck with that. But I’ll get there – I love reading all your notes! They keep me inspired!
Chapter 28: Say Something
Chapter Text
Chapter Notes:
Thanks to all of you for reading! It means so much to me, like buttery popcorn for my muse! Sending all the sloppy, joyful doggie kisses to everyone who has left a note, a like or a kudo. I’m working on replying to all your lovely comments and treasure every one of them.
Thanks also to my other wonderful beta readers and friends: All4Spike, Paganbaby, and TeamEricNSookie. Holi117 has switched to a pre-reader, which I’m so happy she’s finding time for that. All mistakes are mine because I keep fiddling with stuff. If you see any, PM me and I’ll fix it.
Chapter 28: Say Something
Say something, I'm giving up on you
I'm sorry that I couldn't get to you
Anywhere, I would've followed you
Say something, I'm giving up on you
And I am feeling so small
It was over my head
I know nothing at all
And I will stumble and fall
I'm still learning to love
Just starting to crawl
~A Great Big World, Christina Aguilera - Say Something
* X-X *
The big dog settled onto the floor next to the vampire as Buffy set the mug of blood down on the coffee table. She silently lowered herself onto the couch, watching the blond as he slept. He’d been sitting up earlier when she’d stopped in, but now he was back down on the floor on his side, curled around a pillow. Everyone had gone home—Willow, Oz, Xander, and Giles—and her mom had gone to bed. The house was shadowy and quiet. She’d spent the entire day trying to get blood for Spike. Human blood had been her initial goal, but both the blood bank and the hospital were running low. That gave her pause. Was it really fair to take blood that people needed—human people—and give it to Spike? She’d been firmly against it when he’d first arrived, but then had softened her stance after he’d saved her mom. If there hadn’t been a shortage, she wouldn’t’ve thought twice, but there was, and she did.
Spike was ‘people’ now. She supposed he’d been ‘people’ for a while, but this moral quandary brought that fact home to her. Spike hadn’t been inflicting any neck trauma while he’d been in town. By not taking any straight from the tap, didn’t he deserve some from the human donations? On the other hand, he could live on non-human blood, while humans needing blood couldn’t get transfusions from pigs or cows.
So, because of the shortage, Buffy had changed tack. She’d checked at the butcher shop in town to see if they had any pig’s blood that was fresher than their normal fare, but they didn’t. She remembered that Spike had done well on the fresh animal blood she’d gotten him on their road trip after the bear had ripped him open. It had come from an actual butcher/meat processor—a place where hunters took their prizes for cutting and packaging—rather than a meat cutter and reseller like they had in Sunnydale. With that in mind, she’d gotten Oz to drive her and her furry companion east, past the desert and into the mountains and forests, through small agricultural towns that dotted the interior of the state.
After their first stop, she’d learned that January wasn’t a big hunting season, so there were no deer or elk being brought in by hunters. The only thing anyone had were wild boars, which apparently were fair game any time of the year. Unfortunately, no one had brought one in to be dressed in the last few days. They got lucky at the third place they’d stopped though. A farmer had brought in a steer to be butchered—the thing was standing there in a small paddock mooing and chomping grass.
After a few suspicious questions from the butcher, ‘This isn’t some ‘Carrie’ thing, is it? Because I’m not fond o’ that sort of chicanery,’ and Oz explaining it was for their Advanced Bio class at UC Sunnydale, the grizzled old man was more than happy to sell them the blood.
There was a LOT of blood! More than Buffy had been prepared to deal with—almost ten gallons. But Oz, once again, saved the day by running to the store and clearing the shelves of Ziploc freezer bags while the butcher took care of the unfortunate steer.
Now, not only was Buffy’s freezer full of blood, but so was Xander’s, Giles’, Willow’s, and Oz’s. She’d even dropped some off at Angel’s, replacing the human blood she’d taken that morning.
Buffy hated to wake Spike up for the blood, but she knew he needed it to heal. He’d need even more of it than he would human blood. ‘Or Slayer blood,’ she added with a sigh. But that couldn’t happen again. That way led to near-kisses and badness. With a determination she hadn’t known she’d had, Buffy had kept her distance from him all day, relying on her mom to bring him what he needed. But there was no one else up now that she could pawn this off on. It was up to her to keep her emotional distance while being un-distant in the physical sense.
Buffy took a deep breath to calm her nerves. ‘Detach, detach, detach,’ she reminded herself before standing up and going over to the slumbering blond. She touched his shoulder lightly. “Spike, wake up a minute. I got you some blood.”
The vampire burrowed his face deeper into the pillow, shrugging off her touch.
She tried again a little harder. “Spike, you need to eat something,” Buffy admonished, shaking him, but trying to be careful not to jar him too roughly.
His eyes blinked open, the light from the foyer catching the blue as he turned toward her.
“Hey,” Buffy said softly, giving him a small smile. “I got you some blood.”
Spike blinked again, raising one hand to rub at his swollen eyes. “Buffy?”
“No, it’s the blood fairy,” she corrected lightly. “Can you sit up?”
Spike shook his head to clear the sleep from his brain, but had already started pushing up. He winced and stopped when he got about halfway, daggers of fire searing into his abdomen with the motion as barely healed muscles and tendons were wrenched apart again.
“Here, let me help you,” Buffy offered, pressing her hands against the tight muscles of his upper back, and gently raising him to an upright position. She pulled the chair around so that it provided a backrest for him again and stepped back.
Spike squinted up at her, still trying to clear the fuzz from his brain and the goo from his eyes. “Where ya been all day?”
“Getting you blood,” she replied, retrieving the mug from the coffee table and turning to offer it to him. “I couldn’t get any more human blood,” she excused apologetically. “They’re running low and—”
“I heard,” he interrupted her, taking the warm cup from her. His fingers brushed over Buffy’s as she passed off the mug. Spike heard her heart rate jump as she yanked her hand back as if he’d burned her. His brows furrowed. Was she… afraid of him?
Joyce’s voice rang in his mind, ‘But, really, he’s quite dangerous, don’t you think?’ Was that what this was all about? Were they afraid of him? Is that why they all wanted him out?
“Not gonna hurt you, pet,” Spike assured her, his eyes tracking her every move. “Got a truce… not gonna break it.”
Buffy nodded. “Yeah, no. I mean… I know,” she agreed, though she wrung her hands together nervously and moved back, well out of reach. “How is it?” she asked, releasing her hands to wave one at the mug.
Spike sniffed the blood. Bovine. He took a sip.
“I, umm… it’s really super-fresh, like… I mean… I saw the cow being all… cow-y and then… not so much,” Buffy stammered, watching for his reaction.
“You killed a cow?” Spike questioned, arching a brow at her.
“Me?” she squeaked. “No… not so much with the killing of farm animals. I’m more the demon slaying type of girl. But, uh, I was there-ish… not right there, cos… ewww, but, you know, near enough to make me question my dietary choices.”
Spike raised his brows. She was rambling. Why was she rambling?
“So, uh, is it okay?” Buffy repeated. “I didn’t put anything in it, you know, like peppers or anything. Do you want me to? Cos I totally can.”
Spike took another sip and nodded. “Can tell it’s fresh,” he admitted. “Better than the pig swill they sell around here.” He took another, longer pull of it, and nodded again. “Not bad. Not human, but tolerable.” He downed the rest in a few long swallows, not because it was distasteful, but because he’d just realized how hungry he was. The demon needed blood to heal him, and lots of it.
Buffy gave him a relieved smile. “Good, because we have ten gallons of it.”
Spike’s brows raised again as he handed the empty mug back to her. Ten gallons? Even healing, just how much blood did she reckon he could down in a day or three? Cos isn’t that what they all wanted? Him outta here lickety-split? What the bloody fuck was going on?
“Well, maybe not ten whole gallons,” Buffy continued at his look, taking the mug, carefully not touching his fingers. “I dropped some of it off at Angel’s.”
Spike schooled his face into neutrality, though the borrowed blood in his veins was seething. Angel. So, not just for him, then… for sodding Angel.
“We need t’ have a little chat, Slayer,” Spike insisted, trying to keep his voice neutral.
“Yeah, sure! Just let me go rinse this out and I’ll make you a thermos, so if you wake up you can have it right there, all warm and… you know, bloody,” Buffy chirped, already hurrying from the room.
Spike looked down at the dog, a brow arched in question. “What the bloody fuck is going on around here?” he asked his furry friend.
The Guardian huffed out a heavy sigh, his chin never raising up from the pillow of his paws.
Spike sighed too and rubbed at his tired eyes. He was starting to wonder if this was one of his nightmares. ‘Probably not,’ he reasoned. ‘Otherwise the mutt would be talking about cheezeburgers.’
* X-X *
Spike was gonna ask Buffy when she came back. He was going to ask her point-blank about everything. He was going to ask her if she really wanted him to leave. He was going to ask her about the just-barely kiss. He was going to ask her what had changed between last night and today.
He was gonna ask, he really was.
But then, he didn’t.
Because what if she said the kiss didn’t mean anything? What if she said she wanted him gone? What if she said they weren’t friends, after all? What if she said he was beneath her, nothing but a soulless vampire who’d outstayed his welcome? What if she’d just been playing him all along so he’d help her with this Council bollocks and now… now it was over? What if she’d played him for a bloody fool?
All his fears and insecurities choked off his demands for answers, for real answers. He was too afraid of what she’d say.
Instead, when she returned with the thermos, he asked, “How’re ya feeling? Your strength coming back?”
Buffy nodded, curling one hand into a fist. “Little by little. I’m not quite Popeye yet, but I’m not Olive Oyl either.”
“Think yer mum’s getting a bit tired o’ the eau de rancid vampire fillin’ her lounge. Suggested maybe I could get a shower, but not sure I can make it up the stairs,” Spike went on.
Buffy hesitated, looking at the stairs, her heart jumping in her chest then tripping all over itself, as if trying to escape. She swallowed hard before looking back at him. “I’m not sure I can… I mean I don’t think I could carry you—maybe in a few days.”
“Don’t need ya to carry me, just lend a shoulder or whatnot,” Spike clarified, his eyes narrowed, watching her curiously.
She arched a brow, crossing her arms protectively over her chest. “You can’t even sit up on your own, how are you going to walk?”
“Way I been healing, should be walking, or at least limping, by tomorrow,” Spike insisted, still trying to suss out her reaction.
Buffy bit her lip. The way he’d been healing had been on human blood and Slayer blood, not cow’s blood—no matter how fresh. “I could drag you out into the yard and hose you down,” she suggested.
“You don’t even wash the fleabag in the sodding yard,” Spike complained, making the dog beside him let out a small rumble of a growl. “Not asking ya to join me in the bath,” he assured her. Then, lowering his voice to a velvety rumble, “Unless you wanted to, o’ course.”
Buffy scoffed at him, rolling her eyes, her arms still firmly crossed over her chest. “Don’t be piggy,” she scolded, the familiar chant coming out like a recorded message. “I’ll help you, but not tonight. I’m exhausted.” She yawned dramatically and on cue. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow… after school.”
Spike pursed his lips, but nodded. What other choice did he really have?
Buffy yawned again, even wider, and headed for the stairs. “You comin’, boy?” she called back, looking at the dog.
The Guardian looked from Buffy to Spike and back again, clearly conflicted. For a moment the vampire thought the hound was gonna stay with him—male solidarity and all—but then he heaved himself to his feet to follow his master.
“Turncoat,” Spike muttered under his breath as the furball tagged along behind the Slayer, heading up the stairs. Not that Spike could blame him. He was half tempted to try and crawl after her himself, grovel and beg and promise anything if she’d just tell him what he’d done wrong, say that she was still his friend, that she didn’t want him to go, that he was her vampire and she was his Slayer.
Spike clenched his jaw, his hands curling into fists against his thighs. ‘Sod that!’ he admonished himself. Hadn’t he had enough of trailing behind a woman waiting for crumbs, only to be kicked in the balls at every turn? Not anymore. He wouldn’t do it again. As soon as he was able, he’d be gone. Better to be alone than give everything to someone only to be treated like a simpering fool. Been there, done that two too many times.
* X-X *
Buffy closed the door to her room and leaned back against it heavily, her eyes closing. The sigh that came from deep inside her filled the room with relief. Spike hadn’t asked about the kiss. Thank goodness! Maybe he didn’t even remember it—he had been on painkillers, maybe he thought it was a dream or something. She’d been running all her arguments around and around in her head all day, and she’d come back to ‘detachment’ as being the prudent course of action. It would keep everyone safe from the curse of the Slayer, including her.
Buffy had also spent most of the day practicing what she was going to say to him, how the kiss didn’t mean anything, and if that’s what he called a kiss then no wonder Dru cheated on him. She cringed at that, knowing how cruel it would be to say, especially since, as fleeting as it had been, she’d had a hard time putting that kiss out of her mind.
Thankfully, she hadn’t had to say any of it. She’d managed to have a conversation with him and remain firmly planted in the detachment camp.
Well, except for that millisecond when his fingers had skimmed over hers. That had triggered too many feelings to name; they zinged through her, turning her into a tingling lust-bunny and a hopeless romantic all in one fell swoop. There was a definite disembarkation from the detached boat in that moment, but she’d clawed her way back aboard, albeit with plenty of rambling.
And now he wanted to drape himself against her to get upstairs for a shower? Buffy shook her head at the thought. If just that simple touch had her diving overboard back into the dangerous and muddy waters of attachment, what would having his whole body against hers do? And then what if he needed help getting out of his jeans, and into the tub? Her whole body flamed at the thought.
She pushed off the door and began stripping out of her clothes as the dog took his place in the big, soft bed in the corner, turning around three times before flopping down with a thud.
“Maybe you can drag him up the stairs,” she suggested to her friend as she tossed her clothes onto the floor of her closet.
Spike tilted his head, as if considering, then sneezed heartily before setting back down onto the cushion.
“Fat lotta help you are,” Buffy grumbled, pulling on her PJs and climbing into bed. She’d just have to figure out an excuse tomorrow—she had all day. It wasn’t like she actually paid attention in class, anyway.
As true exhaustion pulled her under, Buffy wondered why even the most impossible task always seemed like they would be possible to do ‘tomorrow’.
* X-X *
Next Day:
Faith sauntered down the hall and into the kitchen where Joyce was warming up more cow blood for Spike, as his thermos had been empty when she’d checked it.
“Hey, Mrs. S,” the dark Slayer called in greeting as she leaned her elbows on the breakfast bar. Buffy’s dog, who had accompanied her from the foyer, turned and headed back the way he’d come, apparently feeling his escort duty was complete.
“Faith!” Joyce exclaimed, startled, spinning around to face the newcomer. “I wish you wouldn’t do that. I’m not as young as I used to be,” she informed the girl as she patted a hand to her racing heart.
“Sorry.” Faith shrugged. “I knocked but I guess you didn’t hear me. The dog let me in.” The girl tilted her head toward the radio that played on the windowsill. “Maybe the music was too loud.”
Joyce rolled her eyes, reaching over to turn the radio down. “We were all starting to get a bit worried about you. Where have you been?” she asked, turning back to face the girl.
Faith shrugged again, studying the pattern of Formica on the counter. “Here and there,” she answered elusively, doodling with her finger on the countertop. “Um, I know I’ve been gone a while, but did you know you have a vampire sleeping on your living room floor?” she wondered, finally looking up at Joyce.
Joyce smiled and turned back to the saucepan, taking it off the heat lest it scorch the blood. “Yes, that’s Spike.”
“Spike,” Faith repeated thoughtfully. “The one Buffy ran off with?”
Joyce sighed. “She didn’t run off with him, she went on a mission.”
“Based on what I heard about all the shades of purple Giles turned when he found out, I’d say it was a doozy of a mission.”
Joyce shrugged before pouring the blood into the thermos. “Mr. Giles can be… overly dramatic.”
Faith snorted. “Yeah, huh?” she agreed. “So, what’s the 411? What happened to your house and why’s William the Bloody crashed in the living room?”
“It’s a bit of a long story. Would you like some lunch?” Joyce offered, twisting the lid closed on Spike’s sustenance. “Buffy’s at school. She won’t be back for a while.”
Faith slid onto one of the stools. “I could eat.”
* X-X *
Spike woke to voices. Voices saying the same words, in stereo. One on one side of him, one on the other. They were in near-perfect sync, even down to the mocking tone, “Come out to the coast, we’ll get together, have a few laughs…” One of the voices chuckled, then continued in stereo, “Now I know what a TV dinner feels like.”
Spike blinked, trying to get his bearings and identify the people in the room. One human, one dog, one… television? No, not human—Slayer. And not Buffy. He shot up to a seated position, his eyes wide, searching the dim room for the threat.
“So, you are alive… or, you know, undead. Wasn’t sure there for a while,” the Slayer said in greeting. She was on the couch, her chunky, black boots propped up on the coffee table, a bowl of popcorn in her lap.
“Who the bloody hell are you?” Spike demanded, turning to face her. His eyes scanned the area for a weapon, but all he saw was his thermos and the dog. The dog. Who was snoozing. ‘Guardian, my sodding arse.’
“Faith,” she replied, turning her attention back to the television.
Spike looked at the screen, recognizing the movie, then back to her. “You’re the other one… the other Slayer they’ve been arsed about.”
“And you’re William the Bloody, saving Happy Meals from evil since 1998,” Faith retorted, taking another bite of popcorn.
“Just go by ‘Spike’ now,” the vampire told her, his brow creased, watching her closely.
Faith nodded absently, her focus on the movie. “Mrs. S. left you some blood,” she relayed, tilting her chin at the thermos on the floor near him. “She said she put some hot peppers in it.”
“Ta,” Spike answered, still keeping a wary eye on her while he reached for it. Only then did it register that he had gotten himself into a seated position without help and without mind-numbing agony. He tested his abdomen, twisting a bit in place. Still had some daggers sticking here and there, but not like it had been. Should be able to get to his feet and get his arse into the shower with a bit of help today. Assuming Buffy would help him, of course. Which, based on how she’d hurried out of the house this morning without a word to him, and her standoffish behavior yesterday, he wasn’t too sure about.
Faith started talking along with the movie again, her words and tones nearly perfectly in sync with the television.
Spike arched a brow as he opened the thermos. “You must be right popular in the cinema,” he commented before taking a drink.
Faith grinned wolfishly. “What’re they gonna do about it? Kick me out? Slayer, remember?”
Spike tilted his head in acknowledgement.
“Anyway, it’s not like I know every line to every movie,” she continued.
“Just ‘Die Hard’?” Spike wondered.
“Best Christmas movie of all time,” Faith declared, turning a dazzling smile on Spike before looking back at the screen.
“It’s January,” the vampire pointed out.
She shrugged. “Close enough. Oh, oh, wait! I love this part!” she exclaimed, shushing him with a raised finger.
Spike shook his head and drank more of his blood. The peppers gave it a nice tang, a bit better than cow’s blood alone. When Faith took a break to munch on more popcorn, he asked, “Where’s everyone else?”
“The good Slayer’s still at school. Mrs. S. had her friend drive her to the mechanic’s to pick up the Jeep… which I guess Buffy trashed. Sounds like I missed all the fun,” Faith supplied, reaching for a soda on the table.
“Was a slap an’ a tickle,” Spike agreed, wincing a little as he repositioned himself so he could keep both the TV and the Slayer more easily in his line of sight.
Faith looked over at him. “Looks like you got the slap part of that equation,” she observed. “What was it like getting shot?”
Spike snorted. “Not as much of a dodle as you’d think,” he mocked, lifting the thermos to his lips again.
“Yeah, huh?” the girl agreed. “I’ve never been shot,” she admitted.
“I’d advise against it, as a general rule.”
Faith snorted. “I’ll keep it in mind,” she agreed. “Popcorn?” she offered, extending the bowl out toward Spike.
“Don’t mind if I do.” Spike shifted again, this time sliding over so he could rest his back against the couch, facing the TV. Moving was definitely getting easier, less painful.
Faith shifted over a bit too, still on the couch, but close enough that they could both reach the popcorn.
Spike took a handful, dropping a few kernels into his blood before popping the rest into this mouth. He waited for the ‘Ewww!’ exclamation from the girl, but it never came. He looked up at her, but Faith was already engrossed in the movie again, her lips moving, the words coming out in more of a whisper. He shook his head, finding himself missing his Slayer’s indignation and the eventual snarking that ensued.
As they watched the movie and snacked, he looked down at his grimy jeans. The rank odor coming from them was starting to curl his nose hairs. What were the chances that Buffy would actually give him a hand getting cleaned up? Hell, she might not even come home until late, like she had yesterday, then feign exhaustion, leaving him stewing in blood and mud another day.
Then his mind clicked. Was a Slayer right here, wasn’t there? Didn’t need the one that kept whacking him about like a pinball. A wicked grin spread his lips as he reached for another handful of popcorn. “This part’s brilliant,” he commented, waving a hand at the TV.
“I know, right?” Faith replied enthusiastically, her dark eyes sparkling. “Did you know when they dropped Gruber down the side of the building, that shocked look wasn’t a total act?” she asked. “They were supposed to drop him onto an airbag on the count of three, right? But the director changed it to drop on one, instead. Is that dope, or what?”
Spike smirked. “Bloody brilliant,” he agreed, biding his time, settling in to enjoy the movie and this new Slayer’s enthusiasm for the violence and dark comedy.
* X-X *
Spike leaned heavily on the counter in the bathroom, breathing through the pain that twisted his guts into pretzels. He knew the chit would help him get up here, and he’d been right. There hadn’t been any hesitation after the movie ended. This Slayer certainly didn’t have Buffy’s delicate touch, more like a bull in a Victoria’s Secret, but he’d survived, and he wasn’t even bleeding.
“You gonna be all right?” Faith asked, eying him dubiously as she backed toward the door. “I’d hate to break Buffy’s latest toy. She’s sort of a bitch about that.”
Spike’s body stiffened and he turned to scowl at her over his shoulder, his eyes glittering with flecks of gold. “Not the Slayer’s sodding toy,” he growled.
“Oooo, he has fangs,” she mocked in faux terror. “You tellin’ me you and she aren’t doing the dirty?”
Spiked turned away from her, arms still propped on the counter. “Just friends,” he admitted.
“That right?” she asked, her tone turning thick and sultry.
“Or enemies… depending on the day,” Spike added as he lifted his hands from the counter, testing his balance. His abs ached with the strain of staying upright, and fires erupted beneath his skin, but he only wavered a bit and didn’t fall. Still facing the counter, Spike tugged at his belt, letting the ends fall and hang loose, the buckle jangling. He struggled for a moment with the top button of the jeans. They’d gotten stiff from being wet and caked in mud, and the hole seemed to have shrunk around the brass button. After a few moments battling with the uncooperative fastener, he finally managed to get it undone.
He only then noticed Faith still standing near the open door, unabashedly watching him. He turned his entire body to face her, one brow cocked. “Staying for the show?”
She shrugged one shoulder, arms crossed, a cocky smirk on her lips. “If you’re offerin’.”
Spike bobbed his head in a ‘whatever’ gesture and reached for the zipper. As his fingers closed over the brass pull an uncomfortable feeling settled in his gut—one that had nothing to do with bullets. It only took a moment to recognize the sensation. Standing here with this Slayer, about to drop trou, he felt like he was cheating on Dru. Not that he was in any condition to actually do much cheating… though he supposed if the chit did most of the work…
Just the thought of it made his insides tighten further, wringing them in a painful spasm of guilt. He snorted at how ridiculous that was. It wasn’t anything Dru hadn’t done to him a million times. And they were quits, anyway, what the bloody difference—
And then it hit him.
It wasn’t Dru he was worried about. It was Buffy. Buffy—who had barely kissed him, then run off, virtue fluttering. Buffy, who did nothing but bat him around like a cricket ball. Buffy, who he’d vowed just last night to not follow about like a lovelorn poet waiting for her to notice.
‘Balls!’
Spike ground his teeth together and turned away from the smirking brunette. “Not offerin’,” he growled, pulling the zipper down with an effort. Sand and grit clogged the teeth, making it impossible to get it more than halfway down. He pulled it back up and tried again, but it stopped sooner than it had the first time. “Fuck’s sake…” he muttered under his breath, trying a third time with no better luck.
Spike hooked his thumbs beneath the shrunken, stiff waistband on either side of his hips and tried to push the jeans down. He pushed harder, getting more brassed off with every passing moment, and something in his stomach tore. “Fuck!” he snarled, doubling over as knives of fire danced through his stomach, threatening to engulf him.
“Dude… what did you do?” Faith asked, stepping back into the bathroom.
“Sodding zipper’s clogged, bloody things won’t come off,” Spike ground out, checking his hands for blood to see if he’d opened up one of the gashes in his stomach. “Bugger me,” he snarled when his palm glistened red in the bright bathroom light.
“Anyone tell you you’re kinda high-maintenance for a boy-toy?” Faith inquired as she grabbed a washcloth and pressed it into his hand. “Hold that over it and let me see the zipper.”
Spike took the cloth and pressed it against the open tear in his stomach, trying to staunch the blood flow. Faith had already come around to the front and was reaching for the zipper. “Watch the goods,” he warned, grimacing as he tried to stand up straighter. “Don’t need anything else bleedin’.”
Faith snorted, rolling her eyes. “This isn’t my first rodeo, buckaroo. Unlike some blonde, one trick wonders who shall remain nameless, I know my way around a man’s pants.”
* X-X *
“This isn’t my first rodeo, buckaroo. Unlike some blonde, one trick wonders who shall remain nameless, I know my way around a man’s pants.”
Buffy’s brows furrowed as she closed the front door behind her, looking up the stairs toward the source of the familiar voice.
“Just have a care, will you? Know how you Slayers are—yank first and worry ‘bout Hoovering up the damage later.”
“Shift a little to the right.”
“There?”
“Mmm-hmm, yeah. Wow, your skin is really soft.”
“I moisturize. Get back to business, would you?”
“It’s harder than I thought.”
“Did ya think I was just blowing smoke ‘bout that?”
“Also, totally stuck.”
“Think I saw some baby oil above the sink ‘ere… that help?”
“Just hand me the soap. You want to lather it up, or shall I?”
“Well, seein’s how your down there and all…”
“Wait, I think it’s moving. Just a little bit more…”
“What the hell is going on in here?” Buffy demanded from the open bathroom door. Spike was facing away from her, Faith was kneeling in front of him, her hands and face… well, Buffy didn’t want to think about where her hands and face were.
Spike and Faith both jumped at the sound. Faith falling onto her butt on the cool tiles, while Spike jerked back away from her. More daggers of molten steel ripped through him with the movement, and he bent over with a howl and a spurt of blood from the new tear in his abdomen.
“Christ, B!” Faith cursed, recovering first and scrambling back to her feet. “Ever heard of knocking?”
“The door was open! I could hear you two all the way from downstairs! What the hell—?” Buffy demanded, stepping into the room. She glared daggers at the brunette, then trained those green lasers on Spike.
“Not what you’re thinkin’,” Spike defended, lifting his head to look up at her from his stooped position, still pressing the now blood-soaked washcloth against his stomach. Why was he defending himself? Sodding bitch had no claim on him.
Buffy’s voice dripped with disdain and sarcasm, “Really? Well, please explain… I can’t wait for this one.”
“I was trying to get his pants off—the zipper’s stuck,” Faith explained.
“Oh, well… yeah, nothing at all like I imagined,” Buffy continued acerbically, crossing her arms over her chest as she glared between the two of them.
“Was trying t’ take a sodding shower,” Spike tried. He winced inwardly, annoyed with himself for feeling like he needed to explain anything to Buffy.
“I’m glad to see you two getting along so well—showering together is a wonderful way to get to know people, I guess. Clearly, I’ve been doing it all wrong, being all chatty-Buffy. I guess I should’ve been using my mouth for other things.”
Spike clenched his jaw, the muscles in his cheek twitching as he stood up straighter, looking Buffy in the eye. “Not. Showering. With. Her,” he ground out. “Was just trying to clean up… couldn’t get my sodding jeans off.” He waved his free hand at the offending clothing. “Die Hard here was just trying to help so I could get a fucking shower.” He stopped realizing what he said. “Not a fucking shower… just a shower. Alone. With no fucking.”
“And I’m supposed to believe that… why?” Buffy wondered dubiously.
Spike’s blood started to boil, anger with himself eclipsed by his anger with the glaring blonde. “Believe whatever the fuck you want, Slayer! What the hell do you care anyway, eh?”
“I don’t!” Buffy contended, her anger flaring right along with Spike’s. She took a step toward him, her eyes flashing, her hands down at her sides now, balled into deadly fists. “Do whatever you want… whoever you want! I’m sure Calamity Jane will be happy get your pants off for you and show you all her tricks, buckaroo,” Buffy sneered before turning on her heel and stomping toward the door.
“Yo, B!” Faith called. “You got it all wrong, girlfriend. I’m not trying to poach your pet vampire,” she insisted, hurrying after the other Slayer.
Buffy whirled back around, her anger the only thing holding back the tears that wanted to burst up from her heart. The words, ‘He’s not my vampire!’ formed and rose, ready to explode out, but her throat closed over them, refusing to let them see the light of day. He was her vampire, goddammit. And she was his Slayer. Not Faith—her!
“Honest, B—was just trying to help the dude out. Your mom said he’d been all heroic and shit, and he kinda looked like he could use it, ya know? He’s too beat up for any decent hijinks, anyway.”
Buffy shifted her icy stare from one to the other of them, the atmosphere in the small room thick with the overheated emotions rolling off the two blondes in waves. “Then get the fuck outta here,” Buffy ordered the other girl in a low, level tone, her gaze locked onto Spike.
“Totally gone.” Faith held her hands up, shooting Spike a look that said, ‘You are so screwed—and not in the good way,’ before skirting around Buffy and leaving the room.
For a few moments, the only sounds were Buffy’s ragged breathing and Faith’s heavy boots clomping down the stairs. Buffy curled and uncurled her fists, trying her best to bring her rampaging emotions under control. Some wild, green-eyed monster had ripped the cage of detachment to shreds and taken over her body and mind. Buffy wanted to pummel Spike. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and kiss him. She wanted to heal him and protect him. She wanted to kill him. She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. She wanted to say the three words that kept floating around in her head every time she was near him or thought of him. She wanted to scratch his eyes out for looking at Faith and rip Faith’s fingers off for touching his soft skin. She just plain wanted him.
Buffy didn’t do or say any of that. None of that would lead to anything good. There was no safe detachment there. So, she stood there, clenching and unclenching her fists, glaring at Spike, trying to get some semblance of control over the rampaging monster.
“Buffy,” he began in a carefully moderated tone, one that you’d use with an unfamiliar dog or a Tasmanian devil.
She swallowed hard and blinked, lowering her eyes to his bleeding stomach. “Stupid vampire,” she chastised. “I went to a lot of trouble to get that blood for you, and you just drip it all over the floor like you don’t even need it.” She was moving then, pulling open the cabinet door and dragging out the first-aid kit.
“Got no desire t’ shag the little strumpet. Was just tryin’ to get cleaned up,” he continued speaking to her back as she pulled out supplies.
“I told you I’d help you when I got home tonight,” she ground out, feeling a sharp stab of guilt for spending all day trying to think of a way to keep from helping him. “Oh! What am I doing?” she muttered, mostly to herself, tossing the gauze back into the box. “Spike! Spike, c’mere boy!” Buffy called, moving over to the door.
A flash of coppery fur appeared in the doorway within moments, the dog’s big brown eyes expectant, his mouth hanging open.
“Got a job for you,” she explained, waiving a hand at the blond. “Someone decided to screw up all our hard work.”
The vampire rolled his eyes. “Didn’t do it on purpose,” he grumbled, looking down at the dripping rag in his hand.
The dog wasn’t quite tall enough to reach the reopened wounds with Spike standing, so Buffy helped him sit down on the edge of the tub. Her hands were blazing against his cool skin, her anger still close to the surface. Spike studied her as the dog, once again, used his magic to seal the wounds. She repacked the first-aid kit with sharp, annoyed motions, her shoulders tense, her whole body a coiled wire, ready to spring. But just what was she angry about? Him not waiting for her to help? Him opening up the wounds? Or the compromising position she’d found him and Faith in?
“Do you believe me?” Spike asked her as the dog worked to stop the bleeding.
Buffy pulled out a pair of safety scissors from the kit and set them on the counter next to her before turning around to face him. She leaned her butt against the sink, her arms folded over her chest, still fighting back the avalanche of emotions that swarmed inside her. “That you didn’t rip your stomach open on purpose? Yeah, pretty sure spurting blood is a turn-off even for Faith.” She stopped, screwing up her face in thought, then shrugged. “Or not … honestly, I’m not sure she even has an ‘off’ button.”
Spike scowled. “Nooo,” he drawled out through clenched teeth. “The other bit—that I got no desire to shag her.”
Buffy shrugged, managing to put on an air of nonchalance, masking the turmoil she was feeling inside. “I don’t know why not—she’s the fun-time Slayer. I’m sure she’ll wax your knob or clean your chassis or whatever she does until you cry uncle.”
The vampire growled, a threatening rumble that echoed off the tile walls of the small room. He was on his feet the next moment, shoving the dog away. Before Buffy could move, he had his hands pressed against the counter on either side of her, trapping her between his arms.
He hadn’t touched her, but he was close enough to kiss. Close enough that she could feel the frustration and rage and a hundred other emotions bubbling beneath his skin, matching hers. Buffy swallowed, raising her eyes to his defiantly, both of them challenging the other to either look away or make the next move.
“I don’t want her,” Spike said again, the slight tremor in his voice a stark contrast to the forced calm he was putting into each word. He swallowed hard. The next words on this tongue were a painful admission, one that could get him staked or, at the very least, tossed out on his ear. “I want you.”
Buffy’s breath caught in her throat.
Spike’s teeth closed over his lower lip, a moment too late to stop the words from spilling out.
The words hung in the air between them for endless moments, their gazes never wavering, their bodies not touching but both feeling the other like the hum of high-tension wires vibrating against their skin.
He wanted her. He wanted her. Buffy felt tingling fires erupt low in her belly and begin to spread, suffusing her with heat and desire. All she had to do was lean in. She could kiss him. She could be the one touching him. She could be the one making him cry uncle.
Her jaw clenched, tears burning her throat, threatening to spill from her eyes. He wanted her body. Nothing more. Not her foolish heart. ‘I need more. Please, say more.’ The plea echoed in her mind, bubbling up from the hopeful heart of the girl, the little bit of her that still believed in love, that still wished for a man who really saw her, who understood, who loved her unconditionally... a man who wouldn’t abandon or betray her. It was, she thought ruefully, the same part of her that had believed in the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus… but maybe? Maybe even they existed somewhere, in some universe… right?
‘Say something, Buffy,’ Spike begged silently, his eyes locked on hers. The heated emotions behind the shades of jade and emerald danced and flickered in her impossibly beautiful eyes. She had so much light inside that she glowed with it, like an angel from heaven. He longed to touch it, to hold it in his hands, to feel it in his heart—even if it scorched him. He was drawn to it, like a moth to an inferno. He could hear her heart racing, smell her body’s reaction to his words, sense the barely-bridled electricity jumping between them. ‘Please, pet, say I’m not alone here. I’m begging you.’
Time stopped. The world fell away. There was nothing but them. Nothing but hope—hope for more, hope for reciprocation—in those moments that dragged on for an eternity.
The Slayer broke the trance first, lowering her eyes and shaking her head in a slow, negative motion. He wasn’t going to say more. That was all. That was all he wanted, all he felt—a desire for her body. It wasn’t enough. She didn’t know how to make it enough. “I… that’s not… I’m… sorry…” she stammered, her voice cracking with the strain of holding everything in check.
In a flash of flying golden tresses, she ducked beneath Spike’s arm and slid away. With a quick gesture towards the dog, he followed her, once again looking back and forth between the two blondes, his gentle eyes worried.
Spike didn’t move to stop her, but instead dropped his chin to his chest and let his eyes fall closed as he leaned even more heavily on the counter. The door shut with a soft click and he was alone. She’d told him before, hadn’t she? Told him she just wanted to be friends, not anything more? But the other night with the near-kiss, and the way she’d taken care of him so tenderly, then the way she’d acted with the other Slayer, he thought… he thought there was room for more. That she’d felt more than just friendship… if she even felt that now.
The girl blew hot and cold worse than a dodgy boiler… or maybe that was him reading her wrong. Maybe that was his hopeful heart seeing what it wanted, not what was real. Like shapes in the clouds, a figment of his imagination, here for only a moment, then gone.
“You are such a bleedin’ idiot,” Spike groaned to himself, tossing the bloodied rag into the sink. “This time literally,” he continued as he picked up the scissors and began cutting away his jeans. Scissors. Now that would’a been a handy thing to think of before everything had gone tits up with the Slayer.
STORY BOARDS
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link: https://flic.kr/p/2kXqMF5
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link: https://flic.kr/p/2kXmmep
End Notes:
Oh my gosh, will these two EVER just open up with each other? It’s hard for them—so, so hard!—but they’re getting closer!
References:
Regarding Die Hard: In order to maintain a level of authenticity, director John McTiernan decided that the best way to get emotion out of his actors was to take them by surprise. When Alan Rickman was harnessed for his 40-foot fall during the film's finale, McTiernan had him dropped one second before he was expecting to, eliciting a true look of horror that went on to become the film's most memorable scene.
Thank you so much for reading and for your patience as I try to catch up with your wonderful comments! I thought things would slow down a bit for me, but so far no luck with that. But I’ll get there – I love reading all your notes! They keep me inspired!
Chapter 29: National Hot Chocolate Day
Chapter Text
Chapter Notes:
SURPRISE! A bonus chapter this week! All4Spike has been getting chapters beta’d so fast! I carved out a bit of time today to acknowledge her amazing-ness by posting an extra chapter. Hope you enjoy.
Thanks to all of you for reading! It means so much to me, like hot chocolate with little marshmallows for my muse! Sending all the sloppy, joyful doggie kisses to everyone who has left a note, a like or a kudo. I’m working on replying to all your lovely comments and treasure every one of them.
Thanks also to my wonderful beta readers and friends: All4Spike, Paganbaby, and TeamEricNSookie. Holi117 has switched to a pre-reader, which I’m so happy she’s finding time for that. All mistakes are mine because I keep fiddling with stuff. If you see any, PM me and I’ll fix it.
Chapter 29: National Hot Chocolate Day
Buffy flew down the stairs, barely remembering to grab her coat before racing out the front door, the four-legged Spike right on her heels. Then she ran. She had no idea where she was running to, only that she was running away from the vampire who had her stomach in knots and her heart in shreds.
He ‘wanted her’. Her body, he meant. Not her heart. He’d said as much—he had no use for a Slayer’s heart. The words were like a firebrand, searing into Buffy’s soul with every breath. She wasn’t Faith. She didn’t know how to be like Faith, how to separate the two – heart and body. She didn’t know if she wanted to.
Seeing him with the other Slayer had completely trampled Buffy’s most ardent attempt at detachment. The hurt and jealousy that flared had been immediate and unstoppable, burning away all her attempts to smother the feelings that had been growing inside her. Her stomach had dropped through the floor, and her heart had cracked, spilling her suppressed emotions out like marrow from a shattered bone.
But Spike didn’t care about any of that. How many times did he have to say it before she got it? No need for a Slayer’s heart. How hard was that to understand?
Buffy felt hot tears threatening and savagely fought them back, her feet still carrying her away from the vampire who wasn’t really hers. She had to stop this rollercoaster of emotions that kept drowning her before they left her at the bottom of an ocean with no way to escape. She had to find a way to stuff it all back in and spackle the cracks, just like Xander had filled in all the bullet holes. Then she could slap a bright, shiny coat of paint on it all, and it would look good as new to anyone looking in from the outside.
Buffy didn’t stop running until she got to Restfield Cemetery. As she turned into the familiar gates, the sun dipped below the horizon. The gravestones and mausoleums were cast into deep puddles of shadowy murk in the moments before the scattered streetlights flickered on.
Buffy was breathing hard, as was Spike, his tongue lolling out with the exertion, when she slowed to a walk. Without thinking, her feet found the well-worn path through the graveyard that she’d taken a million times before.
“You and me, Spikey,” Buffy said to her furry friend, already pushing her emotions back behind the fragile façade of ‘I’m-fineness’. “It’s just you and me. No Spike. No Angel. No unknown-future-heart-breaky-guy. No Santa Claus or Easter Bunny. Just us.”
Spike whined sorrowfully, leaning against her hip as they walked along.
“Yeah, I know,” she agreed, resting one hand on his thick mane, taking comfort in knowing he, at least, would always be there for her. “But it’ll be okay. He’ll be gone soon, and everything will go back to normal-ish. We’ll slay, and get cheeseburgers, and go to school, break in a new Watcher, figure out college, and not think about smartass, frenemy vampires with impossibly blue eyes. Until then, I’ll just try to be avoidy-girl.”
Spike let out a deep sigh and licked Buffy’s hand consolingly.
“Eww,” Buffy complained good-naturedly, shaking the excess drool off with a flick of her wrist. “Save the slobber-rama for the stupid vampire who keeps ripping his guts open.”
Spike huffed out a breath, letting his jaws fall open into a smug little doggie grin.
“Don’t look at me like that. The sooner his guts are fixed, the sooner he leaves, the sooner we can get back to life as we know it. There’s no other reason for the concern—” Buffy stopped suddenly, catching sight of a flash of red hair passing beneath one of the glowing amber lights that dotted the area. She ducked down, grabbing Spike and dragging him with her to the cover of some bushes next to one of the larger crypts, a few yards off the path.
Buffy reached into the waistband of her jeans and produced a stake, holding it at the ready as she heard footsteps coming up the same path she and Spike had just been on. Her heart began thrashing wildly in her chest—apparently unaware that it was being held together by nothing but spackle and paint. As the vampire came nearer, she held her breath, gripping Spike’s collar anxiously. Despite his clear desire to chomp on the demon, he didn’t pull away from her, taking his cue to stay hidden.
Buffy could see the vampire now. Male, wavy red hair that fell to his shoulders, freckles peppering his face, even in his demon form, as tall as Angel, maybe taller, and as broad as a barn. His muscles bulged against the fabric of his vintage ‘I want my MTV’ t-shirt, making it strain to contain him. Buffy knew him at once: the vampire who had beaten her when she’d tried to save Allison, the one who had taunted her, saying he could, ‘play for hours’ and how he loved it when she screamed.
The Slayer felt an icy shiver of revulsion slither down her spine with a healthy dollop of terror mixed in. While dangling from that vampire’s iron grip she’d known in her soul that she was going to die. She’d not felt so sure about impending death since the Master, who had, you know, actually killed her. At least that was all the Master did—this one would’ve done much worse.
She could feel the sturdy wood of the stake digging into in her trembling, sweaty fingers. Buffy gripped it even tighter, willing her nerves to abate. She longed to plunge Mr. Pointy into this vamp’s heart but, despite feeling stronger, she wasn’t sure she could take him. Yet.
The vampire passed by, apparently without noticing her thudding heart or adrenaline induced sweat. He was moving rapidly, clearly focused on his destination rather than his surroundings.
Buffy waited, staying in their hiding spot for several minutes after the vampire disappeared from view. With her stake still in hand, she finally stood up and slid out of the thick bushes, Spike right on her heels. He looked at her expectantly, his brown eyes seemingly lit from within with excited flashes of silver lightning.
“Here’s the plan,” Buffy whispered to him. “We’re gonna track him—that’s all. Just see where he came from, see if we can find where he’s staying—that’s it though. Got it? Just track.”
Spike sneezed, apparently not pleased with this plan, but in the next moment, his nose was to the ground and he was following the vampire.
“Spike!” Buffy hissed. “No! Not track him! Track where he came from, as in, that-a-way,” she instructed, pointing in the opposite direction from where Spike was heading.
The dog scowled at her, huffing out an indignant breath, but turned around, put his nose back to the ground, and began following the scent. Buffy had to jog to keep up with him, but was happy to see that she could. Even after her headlong retreat from the house, she was strong enough to keep pace with the big dog. That was a good sign, a definite improvement.
Spike came to a stop at the high wall on the edge of the cemetery, whining and looking up. Buffy tucked her stake away, backed up a couple of steps to get a running start, and leapt. She hit the top of the wall with her stomach, driving the air from her lungs. She gasped but didn’t immediately fall, kicking her legs to try and find some purchase. In the few seconds the Slayer was up there, she was able to see an old house on the other side of the wall—a two-story Victorian with peeling paint, sagging trim, and a rusty tin roof. It was dark, rundown, and obviously abandoned, with plywood covering most of the windows and doors. It also looked haunted—like seriously, a ghost’s wet dream. In the dim light from the distant streetlights, Buffy could only see a single footpath leading to and from the structure through the overgrown yard, and it was right here where the vamp had come over.
Buffy dropped back down to her feet next to Spike. “Good boy,” she whispered, patting him appreciatively on the head. “We’ll get him soon,” Buffy promised as she tugged on his collar, urging him back toward the gate and home. “Very soon.”
* X-X *
As Buffy and Spike returned to the house, butterflies began to flutter nervously in her belly. She wasn’t sure what she’d say to Spike—the other, extra-fangy one—now. What was there to say? She had planned on the whole avoid-y thing, but that might prove impossible with him staying in the same house. But she couldn’t very well stay out all night. Maybe she could just grab a bite of something out of the fridge for dinner and rush up the stairs to her room with it before he saw her.
What greeted her when she came in the back door with the dog wasn’t what she expected. The Scooby gang was there—Oz, Willow, and Xander—all sitting at the breakfast bar. At the stove, her mom was cooking up grilled cheese sandwiches and Buffy could smell tomato soup simmering too. Faith and Spike, thankfully, were nowhere in sight. The little green-eyed monster in her belly snarled, ‘They better not be nowhere together.’
‘Not your vampire!’ she admonished herself, stuffing the monster and the whirlwind of emotions back down behind the rickety, teetering wall she’d propped up like a false front on a movie set. Buffy put on her happiest expression as she closed the door, slathering on the spackle and paint. Her smile was so wide it hurt her face. “Hey guys, what’s the up?” she asked cheerily as she began to shrug out of her coat and Spike trotted over to his water bowl.
“Xander had some wood samples he wanted to match to the stairs,” Willow explained, waving a hand at some small squares of wood on the counter. “And, with the lack of slay-age lately, we thought it would be better if we drove him, you know, with the darkness and all.”
Buffy looked from the small samples of wood up to Xander. “I thought you were spackle-guy; I didn’t know you were carpenter-guy too.”
“I am a man of many talents,” Xander proclaimed. “Or, at least, I hope so,” he hedged. “I’m gonna try one riser and see how it goes.”
“Then the judging of the Sunnydale DIY talent contest will take place,” Oz explained and Xander nodded in agreement.
“Were you out patrolling? Are you feeling better?” Willow asked the blonde.
Buffy cleared her throat. “Not exactly patrolling,” she admitted. “Just sort of… ummm…”
“Checking up on Faith?” Xander filled in, misreading her hesitation. “Cos God knows, she’ll slack on the patrolling for the lamest of reasons.”
Buffy gave him that plastic smile again. “So, you know she’s back too, huh?”
“Your mom told us,” Willow divulged, reaching for a bowl of chips on the counter and taking a couple.
“Then your mom offered sustenance and… well, who are we to say ‘no’?” Xander put in.
“Mostly Xander was the overriding factor in that verdict,” Oz revealed.
“What can I say? Mrs. Summers is the best cook in three counties,” Xander gushed. “How could anyone resist?”
“Wow, it’s getting deep in here,” Buffy muttered as she came over and stood at the end of the counter next to her friends.
“Buffy, why don’t you see if Spike wants to come down and have some of this prize-winning cuisine?” Joyce suggested lightly, turning to look at her daughter.
Buffy paled. This is so not avoid-y! “Uh, I’m sure he wouldn’t,” she excused, crinkling her nose. “He’s not big on cheese.”
Joyce’s brow wrinkled. “I thought you said he liked cheeseburgers.”
Buffy smiled nervously. Oops. “That’s my Spike… the other Spike, not so much. I think he probably needs to make with being restful, if he’s, you know, resting, cos of the needing of it for… healing.”
Joyce still looked confused, but shook her head slightly and turned back to her cooking.
“Need what for the healing?” came a deep baritone from the dining room.
They all looked up to see Spike making his way toward them. The cat-like saunter wasn’t quite there, more like a lame mouse limp, but he was erect, standing and walking, and apparently managing the stairs all on his own. He’d put on a black t-shirt and a clean pair of jeans, though his feet were still bare. Buffy remembered his boots and duster were out on the front porch—both needing to either be professionally cleaned and repaired or taken to a toxic waste landfill and buried.
“Spike!” Joyce exclaimed in delight. “You look so much better. Oh, I’m so glad to see you up and about.”
Buffy gnawed at her lip, dropping her eyes to the bowl of chips on the counter as Willow also gushed over the goodness of Spike’s appearance. Oz and Xander stayed silent, apparently finding it unmanly to do join in on the ‘Spike looks great’ schmooze-fest.
“Buffy thought you might need your rest,” Joyce answered his question. “But I thought you may want to join us for some dinner. Grilled cheese and tomato soup.”
“And chips,” Xander added, grabbing a handful.
Spike looked at Buffy, who was doing her level best to sink into the floor, not looking at him. He turned back to Joyce with an appreciative smile. “Sounds tasty. Grilled cheese is one o’ my favorites.”
Buffy’s head shot up and she glared at him across the counter. He’d heard her say he didn’t like cheese and he was doing this just to get back at her. Stupid vampire hearing! And now… what?
Spike smirked at Buffy and held up a pack of cigarettes and his lighter, before addressing Joyce again, “Do I have time for a quick smoke first?”
“Sure. I’ll get sandwiches on for you and Buffy.”
“A spot of blood wouldn’t go amiss,” Spike suggested as he began making his way toward the back door, his blue eyes dancing with amusement at Buffy’s discomfort.
Buffy gritted her teeth. Fine, if that’s how it was—she could be ignore-o girl, pretend none of that ever happened. Or most of her could. As Spike passed her, he let his arm just barely graze hers, sending sparks of feelings better left buried dancing giddily through her body.
“Be a pet and drop a couple o’ those peppers in it, would you?” Spike asked, looking at the Slayer. “Adds a fiery tingle to the tongue, that,” he explained, running the tip of said tongue slowly across his teeth. “Like a perfect kiss,” he whispered just loud enough for her to hear, though behind him, Oz looked up at the words.
Buffy glared at him. “Whatever you say, buckaroo,” she muttered back before turning to the fridge to retrieve some blood. She felt Spike stiffen behind her and smiled to herself—not as forget-y as he pretends.
* X-X *
On the back porch, it took Spike three tries to get the flint to ignite the flame on his Zippo. His hands were shaking, his nerves decidedly unnerved. He’d pulled his cloak of ‘Big Badness’ around himself when he’d heard Buffy’s voice in the kitchen, but it was all veneer with no substance behind it. He inhaled the calming nicotine, savoring the feel of it in his lungs and the taste of it on his tongue as he mulled over everything that had happened.
Well, that wasn’t hard to suss out—she’d said ‘no’. Well, not exactly, ‘No.’ She’d stammered out an apology—whatever the bloody hell that meant.
The smoke curled around Spike’s head before being borne off on the light breeze as her words swirled around in his mind. She was sorry. He took another drag on the cigarette before clenching his jaw in frustration. Sorry for letting him hope she’d want anything more with him, he suspected. She was the Slayer and he was a soulless demon, with questionable motives, according to the Watcher. He was no Angel, after all. There was no soul guiding his steps. Why did he think she would ever treat him as more than a tenuous friend and a solid enemy?
And yet, she had at least apologized. Which made him think she felt something for him—even if she shouldn’t. Why else would she have tended him so ardently, gone to such great lengths to get him fresh blood, and nearly kissed him? Then there was the scene from Othello in the bathroom. And, judging by her body’s unmistakable reactions to even the most innocent touch, it wasn’t just friendship she was feeling.
But he still didn’t know what to do now. Pretend it never happened? Go back to being ‘friends’? Confront her, let her know that he knew she felt something? Leave Sunnydale and forget the bloody Slayer and her body-and-mind twisting games?
He’d never been in this situation before. Dru had been… well, Dru. There was no way to compare what he’d had with her to Buffy. They were, literally, night and day. And where did that leave him but straddling the line between the sun and the moon, between shadow and light? He wanted so desperately to touch the radiance that was Buffy, to revel in her strength and savor her wit, to drown in her passion and float in her kindness, to be awed by her ferocity and surrounded by her love—but he didn’t know how.
Confronting the Slayer seemed like a bad idea. A pushed Slayer pushes back—with interest.
The thought of leaving Sunnydale made his stomach roil and writhe like maggots on a week-old corpse, leaving him feeling physically ill.
Pretend it never happened? Go back to their previous state of friendship? Well, that was kind of what he’d done in the kitchen, except his stupid mouth had to taunt her a bit. Of course, she’d given back as good as she’d gotten, his fiery Slayer.
His Slayer.
Was she still his Slayer? Or had he cocked that up too?
Spike sighed and flicked the ash from the fag before taking another hit of nicotine. He wasn’t any closer to sussing this out than he’d been an hour ago when the Slayer had fled the bathroom.
He listened to the group in the kitchen talking as he looked around for the ashtray Joyce had put out for him. Not finding it, he stubbed the cigarette out on the underside of the railing and tossed the filter into the shrubs. As he continued listening to the light banter between the friends, an idea came to him—he’d ask one of them what he should do. They knew Buffy, they’d know how to approach her properly, without a stake getting involved. Not the handyman—that one clearly had a severe vampire allergy—but one of the others, the witch or the wolf. As Spike rose from the chair, and despite the pain that shot through him with the motion, he genuinely smiled for the first time in at least two days. He had a plan, and contrary to popular belief, his plans were bloody brilliant.
* X-X *
“Spike,” Joyce greeted him when he came back in. “You’re just in time. Everything’s warm… we were just going into the dining room.”
“Ta, luv,” Spike replied, picking up what he assumed was his plate based on the mug of blood beside it, and following the others into the other room.
“Oh my gosh!” Willow exclaimed, stopping in the doorway and making everyone behind her hastily put on the brakes to avoid a messy collision. “We totally missed Buffy’s birthday!” she declared, gesturing toward the calendar hanging on the wall by the phone. “We didn’t party or do the gifts or anything.”
Buffy snorted. “Buffy and birthdays are unmixy. I’m officially not celebrating birthdays anymore. Ever.”
“Awww, but Buffy,” Willow admonished, turning around and facing the group gathered behind her, her own plate and a glass of soda in her hands. “It’s your birthday… your eighteenth… it’s special and needs a major celebration to mark its passing.”
“I think that was what Kralik and the Council was for. And believe me, they really made me feel super special,” Buffy mocked, rolling her eyes.
“Willow’s right, Buffy,” Joyce interjected. “It isn’t every day my little girl turns eighteen, and I refuse to let the Council and their… their…”
“Bollocks?” Spike suggested.
Joyce gave him a smile and a short nod. “…bollocks ruin it for you.”
Buffy set her food back down on the counter. “Look, I really appreciate all the sentiment, but I’m totally serious about birthdays. No more. Ever again. Zero, zilch, nada…”
“Nonsense,” Joyce interrupted.
“Exactly! Birthdays are nonsense,” Buffy agreed.
“No, I mean not celebrating is nonsense,” Joyce clarified.
“It’s not nonsense, it’s total sense! Have you not been paying attention to Buffy birthday bashes? They’re really heavy on the bashing,” the Slayer continued to argue. “Have you seen Spike?” she went on, waving a hand at the vampire. “And Giles? In fact, my birthdays have escalated from bashing to blasting… next I’m guessing comes blitzes and bombs.”
Buffy looked around at her friends. Willow was about to put on her resolve face. Xander looked like a puppy begging for a Milk-Bone. Her mom was going into her ‘I’m the mother and I know best’ mode. Only Oz seemed unaffected either way—but then, he always looked like that. “I am not celebrating my birthday. End. Of. Story,” she declared, crossing her arms and glaring defiantly at them all.
Joyce moved over next to Willow to look at the calendar, an idea glittering in her eyes. She ran a finger over the dates, starting with the nineteenth. “Okay… how do you feel about popcorn?” Joyce asked, looking back at her daughter.
Buffy arched a brow. “We’ve never dated, but I’m guessing he’s not relationship material. Explodes with the least little thing.”
Joyce rolled her eyes. “January 19th is National Popcorn Day… instead of celebrating your birthday we could celebrate that.”
Buffy frowned. “I think the universe just might see through that guise… being on the same day and all,” she excused.
“Fine,” Joyce continued, undeterred, looking back at the calendar. “January 23rd is National Pie Day. January 30th is National Croissant day. January 31st is National Hot Chocolate Day.” She stopped and looked up, her bright eyes darting first to Spike before settling on her daughter. “You love hot chocolate,” she reminded Buffy. “And it’s not on the same day as your birthday.”
Buffy sighed, her shoulders slumping. They were clearly not letting this go. “Fine,” she ground out, rolling her eyes. “We can celebrate National Hot Chocolate Day.”
“With presents and cake and dancing at the Bronze!” Willow added gleefully.
Buffy sighed again, but heard Spike chuckling behind her. “What?” she asked, glaring at him.
Spike smirked, shaking his head. “Nothing, luv. Sounds brilliant to me. Assume I’m invited to this little shindig, am I?”
“Of course you are,” Willow answered eagerly before anyone else could speak, though both Buffy and Joyce looked discomfited. “You’re a big part of the reason Buffy got to her eighteenth birthday, after all.”
Spike’s grin widened. Well, well, well. Now he had a few extra days at least to get the Slayer sussed out. They couldn’t very well kick his lily-white arse out before the party.
“So, are we going for shindig or the ever-popular hootenanny?” Oz wondered.
“Well, aren’t the Dingoes playing the Bronze that night?” Willow asked, looking at her boyfriend.
“We are,” he confirmed.
“So, you can decide if we’re shindigging or hootenannying,” she suggested.
Oz nodded contemplatively. “I’m thinking hootenanny. We can make it chock full of hoot, with just a little bit of nanny. The perfect blend for celebrating chocolatey beverages,” he suggested.
“Sounds brilliant… wouldn’t miss it, myself,” Spike agreed smugly.
Joyce smiled tightly, but grabbed a pen and circled the date on the calendar. “It’s all settled then—National Hot Chocolate Day will never be the same.”
STORY BOARD
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link: https://flic.kr/p/2kXybcW
End Notes:
Well, at least we know Spike will be in town a while longer, don’t we? And he’s not giving up!
The house I used in the storyboard where our red headed baddie has been living is actually a house very near where I live (Though, of course, I've never been to it). It's called the Frank Saxon House.
"The home sits on the top of a hill at 200 South Saxon Avenue. On November 5, 1998, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. The Frank Saxon House is one of the earliest examples of Frame Vernacular architecture with Queen Anne Revival influence in Hernando County. The house is in an extreme state of disrepair with windows, doors, and parts of the roof missing." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Saxon_House
Chapter 30: Two Birds With One Scone
Chapter Text
Chapter Notes:
Thanks to all of you for reading! It means so much to me, like deep fried Oreos for my muse! Sending all the sloppy, joyful doggie kisses to everyone who has left a note, a like or a kudo. I’m working on replying to all your lovely comments and treasure every one of them.
Thanks also to my wonderful beta readers and friends: All4Spike, Paganbaby, and TeamEricNSookie. Holi117 has switched to a pre-reader, which I’m so happy she’s finding time for that. All mistakes are mine because I keep fiddling with stuff. If you see any, PM me and I’ll fix it.
Chapter 30: Two Birds with One Scone
Spike couldn’t wait for the impromptu dinner with Buffy, Joyce, and the Scoobies to be over. He’d had no idea maintaining his Big Bad air through the meal would be so bloody difficult. Buffy barely looked at him, didn’t speak unless she was reprimanding him for feeding the mutt bits of grilled cheese and, despite the others keeping up a jaunty banter, the whole room felt stifling.
He watched Buffy, only looking away on the rare occasions when she turned her eyes to him. She was smiling and even laughing at things her friends said, but there was something off. Like his own demeanor, hers was a façade. He knew what his was covering up—hurt from her rejection—but what was she keeping walled away? He prided himself on being able to read people, but the more he got to know this Slayer of his, the more of a mystery she became. What the hell was going on inside that pretty little head of hers?
Spike sighed and dunked his sandwich into the mug of blood before taking another bite. Maybe one of the redheads could help him suss her out.
When everyone had finished eating, Buffy, Joyce, and Willow began clearing the plates, while the wannabe carpenter took his wood scraps back to the staircase to double check the color and grain, leaving Spike and Oz alone in the dining room.
“Can I ask ya something, just between you and me?” Spike asked.
Oz gave him a laconic smile, looking around the empty room. “I think you just did. Unless there’s a ghost in here, or you know, an invisible high school student, which, hey, Sunnydale, definite possibility.”
Spike rolled his eyes. “You’ve known Buffy a while, yeah?”
Oz shrugged. “Pretty much since her last birthday bashing. Though that was more of a blast, I guess… with the whole rocket launcher thing.”
Spike suppressed another eye roll. “How would a bloke… what would be the best way… What I mean is, just how…?” He sputtered to a halt, having no idea how to ask his question without sounding like an utter git.
Oz waited a few uncomfortable moments before he nodded knowingly. “Wait for her to come to you,” he advised. “You know how cats are that have been hurt or abused? You try to approach them, they’ll run away; if you corner them, they’ll attack. But if you wait, if you put out saucers of cream, back off, and show them they can trust you, just let them come to you, then they’ll be yours forever.”
Spike’s brows furrowed and protective growl burbled just below the surface. “The Slayer’s been abused?” He’d rip the wanker limb from limb.
Oz shook his head. “Not like that—not on the outside.”
Spike pursed his lips, realization dawning as he began nodding slowly. Her trust abused... her heart. Fucking Angelus, and her pillock of a father, and then her Watcher. So, wait for her to come to him, eh? But wasn’t that what Spike had been doing? Hanging about, helping? How much more bloody cream could he pour on the stubborn bint before she’d realize she could trust him? That he wasn’t going to turn on her like sodding Angel with his detachable soul.
He considered Oz’s words and thought about the scene in the bathroom. He’d certainly had her trapped, not quite cornered, but near enough. Lucky she’d decided to bolt instead’a fight, he reckoned. He would’ve gone down like a dead tree in the shape he was in. He took a deep breath and made a new plan. Set out the cream and back away next time.
A sudden image of Buffy being drenched in a completely different type of ‘cream’ flashed through his mind, making his cock hard in an instant. He nearly moaned aloud, but reined it in, envisioning her smooth, golden skin coated in their mutual bliss, glistening in flickering candlelight. He could almost feel the slickness beneath his fingers as they glided over her overheated flesh, almost taste the salty sweetness of her on his tongue.
Spike swallowed and shook the visions away, turning his attention back to Oz. “Keep this between us, mate? Wouldn’t want to spook ‘er and make her bolt.”
Oz nodded. “Wolf-vampire confidentiality applies.”
“Ta.”
“I would like to ask you some questions one day… if you’re feeling up to it,” Oz continued.
Spike arched a brow.
“It’s about… inner demons and leashes,” the wolf continued.
Spike shrugged. “Know where to find me,” he agreed as the women came back into the room with mugs of hot chocolate.
“I thought we could start the celebration early,” Joyce explained. “Plus, I don’t have anything else in the house for dessert. My cupboards are bare,” she laughed. “I’m not sure where everything went.”
“Cough—Xander—cough,” Willow muttered, making everyone chuckle.
“What’s the joke?” Xander asked as he came back in from the foyer.
“Nothing… nothing at all,” Willow said innocently, passing out the steaming drinks.
When they all had a mug, Joyce raised hers in a toast. “Happy belated not-birthday, Buffy. And thanks to all of you for making it possible. I don’t know what we would’ve done without all your support and sacrifices.”
Responses of ‘cheers’ and ‘here-here’ filled the room before everyone drank, Spike’s eyes never leaving the Slayer, the wolf’s advice slowing turning over and over in his mind.
* X-X *
Willow was waiting for Buffy on the front steps of the high school the next morning. “You’ve been holding out on me, missy!” the redhead accused, pulling Buffy with her into the school and directly into the girls’ bathroom.
“What are you talking about?” Buffy asked, following along in her friend’s wake.
Once assured no one else was in the restroom, Willow whirled on the blonde. “There was Spike kissage? Why didn’t I know about Spike kissage?”
“What? No!” Buffy denied, her face suddenly flaming with color. “There was no kissage! Where did you hear that?”
“Oz told me—he heard Spike say something about a ‘perfect kiss’ and you called him ‘buckaroo’. What does that mean, anyway? Was there more than kissage? Was there… riding?”
Buffy’s eyes went wide, and she began to splutter incoherently. “No, no, no!” she finally gasped out. “No riding!”
“But there was kissage?” Willow pressed. “Cos Oz seemed pretty sure.”
Buffy took a deep, calming breath, her shoulders slumping. She had to start remembering about Oz being able to hear—and smell? Well, that was just disturbing—as well as Spike could. “There may have been a very slight, almost-kiss… b-but it wasn’t kissage in the traditional sense,” she admitted. “And absolutely nothing else.”
“So, the science experiment is back on? And you’re jumping ahead and not telling me?!” Willow accused.
“No, no… there is no jumping and no experimenting,” Buffy claimed. “Spike’s not… he’s... I just can’t.”
Willow’s face scrunched up in confusion and consternation. “But, why? Did he not like the kiss?”
Buffy shook her head, turning away from Willow and moving over to the counter to set her books down. “It’s not that, it’s just, that’s all he wants… you know, the jumping and the kissing and possibly the riding, but not the hearting, and I don’t know how to do that,” she admitted with a sigh, lifting her gaze to look at her friend in the mirror.
“How do you know that? I mean what he wants?” Willow wondered, meeting Buffy’s eyes in the reflection.
“Because he told me…” Buffy began, turning back around and telling Willow the story about Faith and the bathroom and the stuck zipper.
Willow listened, only asking questions occasionally, then finally, when Buffy finished, she said, “So, that’s why you were both so… avoid-y at dinner last night. I don’t think you guys said ten words to each other all night—and four of them were, ‘Stop ruining my dog,’ when Spike gave him some of his sandwich. Which was gross, by the way, cos he’d dipped it in blood. Ewww.”
Buffy rolled her eyes, her arms crossed over her chest defensively. “And now he’s gonna be here another week because someone invited him to my… to our celebration of National Hot Chocolate Day,” she related dourly.
“Oops?” Willow guessed meekly, but then rallied. “But you hadn’t told me about the—”
“When was I supposed to tell you?” Buffy interrupted, flinging her arms out. “There hadn’t been any time.”
“There was time to tell me about the kiss,” the redhead asserted with a pout.
“It wasn’t a kiss… it was just a… mistake.”
Willow sighed heavily, looking at her friend. “Are you sure? Because if it didn’t mean anything, then why all the awkwardness and you sneaking looks when you thought he wasn’t looking at you and him sneaking looks back. If it didn’t mean anything, then why the weirdness?”
“It can’t mean anything,” Buffy whispered, feeling her spackle and paint beginning to peel and crumble as tears threatened her eyes. “If I let it mean something, then what happens when the newness wears off and he moves on?”
“But you don’t know if that will even happen.”
Buffy shook her head, swallowing back her emotions and fortifying her façade. “It’s just better if it doesn’t mean anything.”
“Better for who?” Willow wondered sadly.
Buffy shrugged. “Everyone.”
* X-X *
As she headed to the cafeteria at lunch, Giles called down the hallway, “Buffy!”
Buffy considered acting like she hadn’t heard him and hurrying away, but the sound of his cane striking the linoleum made her stop and turn around. ‘What now? Please don’t let there be an apocalypse yet, I’m so not ready for that.’ “What’s up?” she asked, trying to sound chipper.
“Could you stop in the library after school. We… errr… have some things to discuss.”
At her incredulous look, he added, “Like getting back onto a proper training schedule and your interviews with Angel… I realize I am no longer your Watcher, but I feel obligated to act as such until a replacement arrives.”
So, now, as everyone else was heading home for the day, Buffy was trudging toward the library, Slayer duties back on the schedule. On the plus side, it would be easier to avoid Spike here. As soon as she stepped into the library and the door swung closed behind her, she froze. “Oh, hell no,” she declared, shaking her head vehemently. “Veto—I veto you. Go home. Send someone else.”
Lydia stood up from the research table, her impossibly smooth, blonde hair pulled back into the same severe bun she’d worn at the conclave, her blue eyes shadowed behind horned-rimmed glasses, her storm-cloud grey skirt suit prim and proper.
“Buffy,” Giles said, coming out of his office. He was moving slowly, clearly limping, but had forgone the cane. “I’m afraid you cannot—”
“I am not here in the capacity of Watcher,” Lydia broke in, straightening her glasses as she stepped forward. “I am simply here to ease the transition between yourself, Ms. Lehane, and the new Watcher when they arrive. This will involve reviewing the resources available to you and Ms. Lehane, to assure you are properly equipped and prepared so that you may, as they say, hit the ground running.”
“—exercise your right to veto,” Giles finished with a sigh.
Buffy crossed her arms and fixed Giles with a ‘you have got to be kidding me’ expression. “The Council is nothing but a bunch of lowdown, two-faced, cheating cheaters,” she accused. “I should’ve known.”
He shrugged and rolled his eyes with a sigh.
The woman ignored her, continuing her spiel as if Buffy hadn’t spoken. “In addition to the research library, I will require access to your training facilities, and your armory, as well as your… allies. Including the souled vampire, Angel, and…” The woman cleared her throat, straightened her back, and adjusted her glasses again. “…William the Bloody.”
Buffy’s eyes narrowed as she glared daggers at the woman. What the hell was with her and Spike?
“I assume that will not be a problem,” Lydia continued, meeting Buffy’s icy stare.
“Angel’s M.I.A,” Buffy informed her flatly, ignoring the whole ‘William the Bloody’ request. “I went by his house a couple of days ago and he wasn’t there. I left a note but haven’t heard from him.”
Lydia’s and Giles’ faces turned into twin expressions of concern.
Lydia spoke first, her voice shaky and stammering, “D-do you think… that is, could he h-have… is it possible that Angelus is… back?”
Buffy shrugged. “Knowing Faith, anything’s possible, but I doubt it. If Angelus was back, he’d be here, you know… menacing us… killing our goldfish.”
“Goldfish? Faith? What would Faith have to do with—” Lydia questioned.
“There is a theory…” Giles put in, “…that Buffy is presently working on, which postulates that for Angelus to be set free, he would need to find his… err, ‘perfect happiness’ with a Slayer.”
Buffy’s face suddenly burned in embarrassment and she shifted from foot to foot, clutching her books to her chest like a shield. Of course, this woman likely already knew about that. It was probably in Giles’ diaries. That made her stomach clench. Her love life detailed in someone else’s diaries. That was just wrong. Everyone knew what she’d done by now. God, how mortifying.
“I… see,” Lydia breathed, dropping her gaze uncomfortably. “You don’t think he’s been dusted, do you?”
Buffy took a deep breath, her dignity clutching at the unexpected turn in the conversation. She pursed her lips. She actually hadn’t even considered that Angel could be dust. It was Angel. He, like Spike, just wasn’t that easy to poke sharp sticks into. She shook her head slowly, relaxing fractionally. “I think Spike would’ve known if Angel was dust,” she offered tentatively. “It’s a whole blood-line thing. And no way he wouldn’t have mentioned it… hell, he would’ve crowed it from the rooftops, knowing Spike.”
“So, you’re saying William the Bloody does not get on with Angel?” Lydia asked, suddenly animated. She turned and hurried back over to the table to retrieve her journal and a pen.
“That would be one way to put it,” Buffy agreed. “Hating each other’s undead guts would be another.” Her brows furrowed as the other woman began scribbling frantically in the journal. “What’s with the sudden note taking? Is there gonna be a quiz?”
Lydia started, looking up at Buffy, her eyes wide behind her glasses as if caught with her hand in the cookie jar. “I, err, well, that is to say, I wrote my thesis on William the Bloody. I thought I could confirm some of my conclusions about him and his family, or what’s left of them… Angelus… err, Angel and Drusilla. I understand The Master and Darla have been dispatched.”
Buffy’s brows rose, her arms still crossed over her chest. Spike totally had a groupie—maybe even a stalker—and Buffy, for one, didn’t like it one little bit. “I thought you wanted to talk to Spike because of the truce-y, mortal allies thing we’ve got going on,” Buffy pointed out.
Lydia shifted self-consciously under the Slayer’s scrutiny. “I simply felt I could use this opportunity to update my information for further dissemination to the Council. It’s a purely academic interest. Of course, my primary objective here is to assure that you—”
“Hit the ground running. I know,” Buffy interrupted. “But you Council people never just do one thing when you can kill two birds with one scone. How many other little birdies do you have hiding under your tweed that I need to worry will swoop down and pluck my eyes out?”
The other woman cleared her throat and straightened her spine, meeting Buffy’s gaze levelly. “I assure you there is nothing whatsoever to worry about. I have absolutely nothing beneath my tweed,” she declared, then blinked. “Except perfectly respectable undergarments,” she added with a flush of rose to her pale cheeks. “There are no… birdies.”
Buffy snorted, unconvinced. She looked over at Giles, who shrugged again. “So, is this the reason you wanted me to come by? You don’t have any three-headed acid-snot demons for me to slay, or something else fun like that?”
“I’m afraid there are no snot demons, just Miss Chalmers, who asked to see you as she begins examining our library and… smoothing the way, as it were,” Giles revealed, waving a hand at the table, piled high with books of every imaginable size and shape.
Buffy lifted her chin and fixed the woman with an impertinent gaze. “Well, that doesn’t involve me. I’m the muscle of the operation, in case you forgot. Maybe that hairdo cut off the circulation to your brain.”
Lydia stiffened even more, if that was possible. “Section 4.22.9 of the Slayer Handbook states that the Slayer should be capable of (a) properly interpreting prophecies and devising defenses to thwart them, (b) identifying demons based on physical descriptions and powers, and determining the most expedient method of dispatching them, and (c) researching and performing at least basic magical spells, such as a tracking spell,” she explained haughtily, running a hand over her perfectly smooth hair.
Buffy’s glare shifted to Giles again, her brows raised. He sighed, removed his glasses and began cleaning them vigorously with a handkerchief. She looked back at Lydia. “I can do those things… mostly. I’ve absolutely done the thwarting stuff. I’m big with the thwarting. Also dispatching—top of my class. And I’ve totally done the demon ID thing.” She switched to Cave-Buffy speak, aping, “Words bad. Pictures pretty.” Returning to her normal voice, Buffy shrugged and continued, “And I have Giles and Willow for the other stuff. I don’t have to do it. You know, it’s the whole divide and conquer rule.”
“’Divide and conquer…’” Lydia explained pedantically, “…means that you create dissent within the ranks of an enemy, thus dividing them. You therefore win by getting your opponent to fight among themselves, leaving them unprepared to battle you.”
Buffy frowned. “Oh… well, maybe it’s the ‘spread the love’ principle then,” she suggested with a confident smile and nod of her head. “Or the ‘three heads are better than one’ thing. Unless the three heads are on a demon you’re dispatching. In which case I’m pretty sure if you just cut them off with a big ol’ axe, the thing will die, thus not requiring any of the other stuff anyway. Ta-da! My thwarting here is done,” she announced, brushing her hands together in front of her as if removing the toil of her hard work.
With a wide grin, Buffy spun on her heel and headed for the doors, her boots clacking loudly on the tiles.
Lydia blinked at her. “I… ummm…” she stammered, looking to Giles for help.
The man slipped his glasses back on and gave her a sardonic smile. “Welcome to the Hellmouth,” Giles said cordially before turning and limping back toward his office, leaving Lydia standing there alone.
“This is quite irregular,” Lydia muttered, looking around, at a complete loss as to what to do next. “Yes, quite irregular.”
* X-X *
Lydia was seated at the research table, cataloging the myriad of tomes to be certain the Slayer had a well-rounded library—even if, apparently, the Slayer never used it—when Willow came in.
“Heya,” the witch greeted her. “You’re that woman from the Council.”
“Lydia Chalmers,” the blonde agreed, looking up at the girl from behind the stack of books. “And you are Willow Danielle Rosenberg, one of the Slayer’s allies. The aspiring witch.”
“Oh, well, I mostly just go by ‘Willow’. No need to be so formal and, uh, descriptive,” she replied.
“Lovely. Then you may call me Lydia.”
Willow nodded, her eyes scanning the books. “Is there a research party that I wasn’t invited to?” she wondered, frowning.
“A research… party?” Lydia questioned. “You… indulge in parties while researching?”
Willow shrugged, coming up to the table. “Well, not like, keggers or anything, just pizza and soda… maybe donuts, you know, to get us through the really boring stuff.”
“Mr. Giles allows food around the books?” the older woman asked, aghast.
“Oh… oh, um… no. No, no… no food around the books,” Willow backtracked quickly. “Food is nowhere near the books. Books and food, totally unmixy.”
“It’s quite alright, Willow,” Giles assured her, hobbling out of his office. “Miss Chalmers is not the book police.”
Willow let out a breath of relief, her panicked expression softening. “Thank goodness. I was picturing armored cars and book-respect reprogramming in some dark, dank dungeon in England, with unsanitary manacles and a lack of tidy restroom facilities.”
Giles gave her an indulgent smile as he made his slow, painful way up to her. “Miss Chalmers is simply cataloging them, to make sure we have a proper library for the new Watcher. As if, somehow, I’d been remiss in properly maintaining an adequate selection of volumes and codices to assist my Slayer in… thwarting evil.”
“Thwarting?” Willow asked, raising her brows.
Giles just gave her a saccharine smile, while, from behind the volumes and codices, Lydia huffed. “Was there something you needed?” he asked the redhead.
“Oh! Yeah! I saw a recipe and spell for a healing balm for deep lacerations in one of the magical herbology books a while back. I was thinking it might help Spike… you know, with the healing?” she explained.
“Are you certain you are feeling up for more magicks already?” the ex-Watcher asked with concern. “That backlash from the counter-spell was quite powerful.”
“Oh, I know, but I’m feeling totally hunky and dory now,” Willow assured him with a wave of her hand. “And this isn’t that strong of a spell. I think the herbs and stuff do most of the work. I just can’t remember now which book it was in…”
“I believe you are speaking of ‘The Green Witch’s Compendium of Healing Through Botany and Mystic Energy,’” Lydia offered, shuffling through the stacks to find the one she wanted.
Giles and Willow approached the table as Lydia pulled a thick book out from the pile and held it up. “You know, I am a dab hand at spells myself,” she offered pretentiously. “Perhaps I could work with you on it, and we could talk a bit about your role in the, errr… Slayer’s circle of allies.”
“Oh, uh…” Willow stammered, looking at Giles for approval. He shrugged his assent. “Okay, sure, if you want. But we’re called the Scoobies,” she corrected.
“I beg your pardon?”
“The Slayer’s allies? We’re called the Scoobies, or the Scooby gang,” Willow clarified.
“Sku bees?” Lydia repeated dubiously.
“You know, from Scooby Doo? The Scooby gang?” the girl continued.
“I’m afraid I’m not familiar with that reference. Is it Roman or perhaps from the Ottoman Empire—?”
“It’s a Saturday morning cartoon,” Giles explained dryly, turning to shamble back to his office. “You’re in America now. Please do try to keep up with the culture, Miss Chalmers.”
* X-X *
Joyce looked up from her paperwork when Buffy came into her office at the back of the gallery. “Oh my gosh, is it that late already?” she asked, looking up at the clock. “Where does the time go?”
“I think that question is a little beyond my pay grade of grocery-shopping assistant,” Buffy replied lightly, leaning her shoulder on the doorjamb as Joyce began gathering up papers from her desk and placing them into folders. “But I hear that time is an illusion and everything—past, present, and future—is actually all happening at once.”
Joyce shook her head. “I certainly hope not. I can barely handle the present.”
“Giles says some demons can control it, make it fold in on itself so you jump around, back and forth in time,” Buffy revealed.
“That sounds quite unpleasant.”
Buffy snorted. “Avoid time-shifty demons. Noted.”
Joyce continued shaking her head as she began putting the folders into her briefcase. “I guess I should count myself lucky that the only demons I’ve had here today are these misfiled invoices. I can’t tell what’s been paid and what hasn’t, or what got paid twice. It’s such a mess!”
“Also, above my pay grade,” Buffy asserted, suddenly afraid her mom would ask her to help with that, like she’d asked for help with restocking the bare cupboards. “But I can totally help you tackle the shopping mission that’s in our future at the Safeway.”
Joyce nodded, standing up. “I think it might take Slayer strength to push the cart—we’re out of everything, it seems. Are you feeling up for that?”
Buffy gave her mom a reassuring smile, though her jaw still ached a bit with the movement. “Not sure I’ve got Slayer strength yet, but dutiful daughter reporting for duty.”
Joyce smiled as they turned and headed out of the office toward the back door and the employee parking. “Daughter is more than enough.”
* X-X *
As her mother studied an assortment of condiments, Buffy returned to the cart with her arms loaded down with breakfast cereal. “We’re set for breakfast,” she announced, dumping the colorful boxes into the buggy. “Got everything covered from Cap'n Crunch to Wheaties. What’s next?” she asked, coming to stand by her mom and see what she was pondering.
“I was thinking about some other things to get Spike to go in his bl—” She stopped and looked around nervously to see if any other shoppers were nearby. “To go in his drinks,” she amended, seeing a family not far away. She knew that he needed blood to heal—the more he drank, presumably the faster he would heal, and the sooner he could go back to Dru. And, more importantly, away from Buffy’s fragile heart. “He seems to like spicy stuff…” Joyce continued, waving a hand at a shelf of pepper sauces. “What do you think?”
Buffy scanned the selection, her eyes drawn to a bottle of Pineapple and Habanero hot sauce. She plucked it off the shelf, trying to remember why it seemed so familiar. Then it came to her—the dream about the Council coming, Spike and her mom were having a taste-test and this was one of the flavors—one he’d seemed to like, that he’d asked for more of.
Buffy read the label:
‘Kick up your favorite dishes a notch with this mouthwatering hot sauce. A pairing of sweet pineapple and bold habanero, it's an excellent marinade for all your meat or as a fiery topper for sweet potato fries and nachos.’
“Sweet and hot,” Buffy murmured mostly to herself. “That describes Spike to a T...”
“Beg pardon?” Joyce asked, looking at her.
Buffy jumped, looking up, having almost forgotten her mom was there. “Oh, umm… sweet and hot,” she repeated, holding the bottle up for her mom to see. “Spike likes sweet and hot stuff… like the peppers in the hot chocolate thing. He might like this one.”
Joyce nodded and took it, along with a couple of others, and put them in the basket. “Okay, time to tackle the snack food aisle. Xander’s going to be in and out for a while repairing the windows and the woodwork, so I want to have something for him to nibble on.”
Buffy snorted at the thought of Xander ‘nibbling’. Xander wasn’t a nibbler—he was a devourer. “We might need another cart,” she only half-joked as they started moving again.
* X-X *
“It doesn’t look like Mrs. Summers is home yet,” Willow told Lydia as they headed up the front walk to 1630 Revello. “Buffy said they were going grocery shopping after school, so she’s probably not home either.”
“Whose car is that?” the other woman wondered, indicating the large black DeSoto in the driveway.
“Spike’s.”
The Council woman stopped in her tracks, turning to fully face the behemoth of a car. “William the Bloody’s?” she clarified, starting for the car in an awed, slow-motion daze.
“Yeeaah,” Willow confirmed, dragging the word out almost into a question as she stopped as well. “But I thought we were here to, you know, do the healing thing, not ogle big, ol’ monster-mobiles.”
Lydia quickly rummaged around in her purse, pulled out a small camera, and began snapping photos of the car from all angles.
Willow’s brows went up. “Or doing photoshoots of old cars,” she added, confused.
“Just take a moment. Do you think he would mind if I looked inside?” Lydia wondered, reaching for the door.
“Spike gets cranky when people touch his car,” Willow warned. “You wouldn’t like him when he’s cranky. It tends to involve fangs and bloodshed.”
Lydia stopped, her fingers barely touching the door handle, and swallowed. “B-but Mr. Giles explained there was a truce with the Slayer.”
“Sure, for now,” Willow agreed with a shrug. “But that could end, and I get the feeling he can hold a grudge. Best not to chance it.”
The blonde jerked her hand away from the car, looking around worriedly.
“If this healing goo works, he’ll probably let you ride in it—but I wouldn’t touch it until he says it’s okay,” Willow advised.
Lydia hurried back to the walkway, shoving the camera back into her bag. “Do you think… I mean to say, should we wait for the Slayer before speaking to him about applying the unguent? Do you think it’s safe?”
“Well, the truce is still in place, plus Spike’s here—the other, less grumpy one. He can handle grouchy vampires. We’ll be fine,” Willow assured her as she mounted the stairs, knocked on the door, and waited.
And knocked. And waited.
And knocked.
“Hold yer bleedin’ horses!” Spike complained from inside as Willow began the fourth round of vigorous knocking. The door swung open to reveal a displeased looking vampire who was clutching his ribs and glowering at them. “What the bloody fuck, Red?” he demanded. “You lot just walk in ‘ere at all hours of the day and night, but now you decide to make me traipse down the stairs in the middle of the day to answer the sodding door?”
Willow gave him an apologetic smile. “Well, it’s not just me. This is—”
Spike’s angry glower fell on Lydia and he cut in, “Council.” The single word held so much wrath and venom it made the blonde take a step back.
“Yes, yes… Council: bad. But she’s been helping,” Willow defended immediately, stepping between the vampire and the older woman. “In fact, she helped me make some healing salve for your—” She waved a hand at his bare torso, which looked like a shark had taken a few bites out of it. “—everything.”
“Did she, then? And what’s the base… holy water?” he asked disdainfully, narrowing his eyes in suspicion.
“Noooo,” Willow continued as Lydia fidgeted with her glasses and smoothed her perfectly smooth hair. “It’s really good. It’ll help—it’s magic.”
Spike blinked and turned those laser blue eyes back on the witch. “Magic,” he said almost as derisively as he had said ‘Council’. “You wanna coat me in magic goo, eh?”
“Well, um… yeah, that was the idea,” Willow agreed, wringing her hands anxiously.
“So you can heal me. Just outta the goodness of your heart?” Spike continued dubiously. More likely the Watcher had put these two up to it to get the ‘house guest’ outta here. Well, they could just sod off with that bollocks. He’d been invited to the Slayer’s party and he was bloody well stayin’. He couldn’t very well give the Slayer some space and time to come to him, like the wolf had advised, if he wasn’t here.
“Well, yes,” the redhead said again. “Cos, you know, you helped and you’re a… friend?” The last word was a bit of an unsure squeak.
Spike eyed her, taking in her skipping heartrate and nervous tension—almost always a sign of a bloody liar. “Magic ain’t free—know that much. Always has a price. Got a fair demo of that just a coupl’a days ago,” Spike continued.
Lydia finally joined the conversation, lifting her chin bravely and taking a half step forward. “We’ve been quite diligent in paying the price to the goddess in advance,” she assured him, holding up her left hand and showing a fresh, red slash across her palm. Willow did the same. “We’ve offered our blood for the power granted—there will be no further price. The unguent is perfectly safe for vampires and I’m very hopeful that it will also prove to be extremely effective.”
Spike looked from the woman to the girl then down at his ravaged body. While he was healing, it still hurt to move, like a lot—which is why he was so angry they’d made him come all the way downstairs from his room and open the bleedin’ door. And it certainly didn’t look like his body. Some areas were sunken and others were swollen, leaving hills and valleys of ugly, barren decimation, as if a war had been wagged atop his abdomen. To top it off, the whole area was still covered in bruises, angry, reddened slashes, and barely healed gouges.
He pursed his lips, thinking.
“It would be quite an honor for me personally if you would allow us this opportunity to prove helpful, Mr. Bloody,” Lydia added, a rosy blush coloring her cheeks.
That got Spike’s attention. He looked up, head tilted, studying her with a penetrating gaze. “Would it, then?”
“Y-yes… quite,” she stammered, lowering her eyes and fiddling with the high neckline of her shirt.
He looked back at Willow, who gave him a hopeful nod and an eager smile. “I think it’ll really help,” she assured him. “You want to be able to dance at Buffy’s… at the National Hot Chocolate Day shindig, right?”
“Thought it was gonna be a hootenanny,” he pointed out.
Willow grinned. “Even more reason to be able to dance… you know, maybe with the un-birthday girl?”
His interest was suddenly piqued. Was the little witch helping him with Buffy? Not trying to get rid of him, but actually on his side in this… this confusing, pinwheeling dance with the Slayer?
Willow apparently felt Lydia’s rapt attention on her as well and added hastily, “Y-you know, as friends do.” But her expression and her glittering eyes, which only Spike could see, said something else entirely.
He returned his attention to the other woman. “And your name, luv?” he asked, softening his expression and giving her an appreciative, leering once-over, which rarely failed to gain him an in with the ladies... or men, depending on their predilection.
“L-Lydia,” she answered, her voice wavering slightly as she stepped from behind Willow to extend her right hand. “Lydia Chalmers. Archival Research Inquisitor, Second Class. Currently assigned as Field Technician and Liaison.”
“Liaison, is it?” Spike asked, in a sexy rumble, making the word sound like silk and honey. He took her proffered fingers lightly in his and raised her hand to his lips, touching a tender kiss to the soft skin above her knuckles. Not a fighter. No calluses on her fingers, no scars on her knuckles. Probably first time in the field and no training for it. “Have we met before, pet?” he wondered, releasing her hand. His head tilted to study her flushed complexion and racing heart, his bright, glittering eyes locked on hers.
“N-N…” Lydia cleared her throat and gave him a self-conscious smile. “No, I haven’t had the pleasure. I, well, I wrote my thesis on you,” she admitted shyly, dropping her head, and looking up at him through her lashes.
No doubt about it, the chit had a bloody crush on him. “Well, well. Isn't that neat,” Spike purred, his eyes sparkling with the possibilities that opened up.
“I-I was hoping that you might favor me with some of your time to... to conduct a proper interview. I thought you may be able to fill in some blanks for me. Perhaps confirm some of my conclusions and suppositions,” she continued hopefully.
“Might be able to arrange something, pet,” he agreed with a flirtatious smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling adorably. “But I suppose we should try this magical goo out, eh? See how it works?”
“Oh, yes, of course! I’m quite confident that it will perform exceptionally,” she gushed. “May we come in?”
Spike stepped back, holding the door open for the two women. “Walk into my parlor,” he murmured. ‘Said the spider to the fly.’
Willow cut her eyes at him as she passed by, anger flaring in their green depths. Spike gave her a conspiratorial wink and shrugged one shoulder. She frowned then, seeming confused, but the flash of fury had softened. It was clear she didn’t exactly understand what Spike was doing, but seemed to get that the flirty-flirt thing was an act.
“I think we should do this in the bathroom,” Lydia was saying when Spike closed the door. “It may be a bit… messy.”
Spike sighed, looking up at the interminable stairs, which he’d only just managed to come down. “Be a pet, and show the lovely Miss Chalmers where it is,” he said to Willow. “I’ll be along in a mo’.”
“Oh, please, call me Lydia,” the woman corrected with a girlish giggle.
“Lydia, then,” he agreed solicitously, meeting her eyes again with adoring regard.
“Oh, I thought… didn’t you go up the stairs yesterday?” Willow asked, apparently reading his initial expression of dismay.
“Just takes a bit of effort. I’ll manage,” he assured her.
“I guess we could go outside… in the yard or…” the redhead began.
“Out where the sun is?” Spike questioned, arching a brow at her. “Must be some good magicks if it’s gonna heal dust.”
“Oh. Right. I forgot.” Willow cringed. “I guess the bathroom is the best option, then.”
“May I be of some… assistance?” Lydia wondered with another bashful look. “Contrary to appearances, I’m actually quite strong.”
Spike’s charming smile was back. “Well, aren’t you just full of surprises?” he rumbled. “I’d be much obliged for a shoulder to lean on.”
Lydia beamed, her eyes sparkling with excitement as she handed Willow her bag. Spike could see the blonde’s pulse thudding gloriously against the high collar of her shirt, making his fangs itch and his mouth water in autonomic response. The alluring rise and fall of her chest with each breath, along with the unmistakable scent of arousal, didn’t go unnoticed either.
Before, she would’ve made an easy target—almost too easy—and quickly become a tasty treat.
Before.
Before Sunnydale.
Before Buffy.
Before green eyes staring up at him, cold and accusing. Green eyes that would not leave him be. ‘It’s not fair!’
Spike shook those thoughts off, keeping his well-practiced, flirtatious persona at the fore. Just because he had no plans to drain her didn’t mean the chit couldn’t be useful in other ways.
Willow shot him another confused and irritated glare, but Spike ignored her, giving Lydia a sultry look as he draped an arm over the other woman’s shoulders. “Shall we, pet?”
Lydia began to speak but only a breathy gasp escaped, words having abandoned her. She simply nodded and they started up the stairs. William the Bloody was right here! He was even more striking than the blurry, faded old tintypes she’d uncovered or the drawings and written descriptions from the Watchers and Slayers who had encountered him over the decades. The few that had lived, that is. Not only handsome, but charming too—which she’d guessed at from her research, but had never been able to sufficiently confirm.
Lydia stifled the pleased sigh that arose in her throat as they made their way up the stairs. William the Bloody had his arm around her, his bare chest pressed against her tweed. He’d kissed her hand! She was never washing again—not her body or her clothes.
STORY BOARDS
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link: https://flic.kr/p/2kYn6Nq
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link: https://flic.kr/p/2kYsG1T
End Notes:
Will the magic goo work? Will Spike be healed? Will Lydia ever get to look inside Spike’s car? Will he run off with Lydia and make pretty babies? (Probably not that last one).
Thank you so much for reading and for your patience as I try to catch up with your wonderful comments! I thought things would slow down a bit for me, but so far no luck with that. But I’ll get there – I love reading all your notes! They keep me inspired!
Chapter 31: Good Enough to Eat
Chapter Text
Chapter Notes:
Thanks to all of you for reading! It means so much to me, like red currant jelly for my muse! Sending all the sloppy, joyful doggie kisses to everyone who has left a note, a like or a kudo. I’m working on replying to all your lovely comments and treasure every one of them.
Thanks also to my wonderful beta readers and friends: All4Spike, Paganbaby, and TeamEricNSookie. Holi117 has switched to a pre-reader, which I’m so happy she’s finding time for that. All mistakes are mine because I keep fiddling with stuff. If you see any, PM me and I’ll fix it.
Chapter 31: Good Enough to Eat
“Now I know what a birthday cake feels like,” Spike complained as Willow and Lydia knelt on the bathroom floor on either side of him, using what he was sure were ordinary kitchen spatulas to slather a thick ointment over his upper body.
“Good enough to eat,” Lydia murmured to herself as she made sure the translucent, crimson gel—which looked like nothing so much as red currant jelly—covered every inch of his wounds. It even smelled appetizing, a bit citrusy with an undertone of peppermint and a tang of ginger.
“What was that, pet?” Spike asked, hands folded beneath his head, looking up at her with a smirk.
Lydia flushed bright red and tugged at the tight collar of her shirt. She’d dispensed with the jacket and rolled up her sleeves, but hadn’t made any other concessions to the labor of making sure the salve was applied in a thick, even layer over Spike’s body. “I-I was just thinking that the ingredients themselves are all… edible,” she stammered. “A-apart from our blood, of course,” she continued self-consciously.
“Sounds perfectly delicious to me,” Spike purred, raising his head to look down at the goo, which was easily half an inch thick, covering him from belt to collarbones. Down near his feet the dog sat at rapt attention, watching the proceedings but, thankfully, not trying to lend assistance.
Lydia’s flush deepened, but she continued working.
Willow rolled her eyes. “I think that’s got it, don’t you?” she asked the other woman, sitting back on her heels and examining the overall effect. The hills and valleys of injury were still visible beneath the thick coating, but all the colors were muted, transformed into shades of red through the salve.
Lydia lifted her goo-encrusted utensil from Spike’s stomach and raked her eyes over the area in question. She used the spatula to smooth some spots, adding a bit more of the unguent in a couple of places she deemed weren’t thick enough. Finally, she looked up at Willow and nodded. “We can begin the incantation when you’re ready. Go ahead and light the candles.”
* X-X *
With Spike’s behemoth of a car in the driveway, Joyce was unable to pull the Jeep all the way through to the backyard where it would be closer to the kitchen for unloading. With a resigned sigh, she parked behind the DeSoto and the two Summers ladies began gathering up the innumerable sacks of groceries.
With her mom several steps behind her, Buffy strained to open the front door, barely able to reach it past the bulging bags hanging from her hands and forearms. She was not making ten trips when two would do. When the door finally swung open, she braced herself for the onslaught of fur that normally greeted her, but the dog didn’t appear. She was too relieved to really be worried as she started down the hallway, heading for the kitchen.
But then she heard it—a low, warning growl coming from upstairs. Then, just as that registered with her, the barking began. Spike’s angry, dangerous bark. Buffy struggled to drop the grocery bags, the first few slipping from her fingers easily, but the ones up on her wrists and forearms proving more difficult to shed. She was mounting the bottom step before the last of them fell. She heard something break but didn’t stop to examine it as she dashed up the stairs, reaching for a stake at the small of her back before remembering she’d put it in her purse. Her hands curled into fists as she reached the Guardian who was standing just outside the bathroom door snarling and growling, his hackles raised, his whole body leaving the ground with each vehement bark.
Light spilled out of the bathroom, bathing the Guardian in flickering shades of red, making his eyes gleam demonically as his own magical power flashed within them. Buffy came to a stop in the hall next to her dog, who continued barking at the scene in the small room.
“Willow!” she exclaimed, her friend being the first person that registered with the Slayer. The witch’s head was thrown back as she knelt on the floor, her body bent back in a painful-looking rictus. A flickering beam of red light as big around as a dinner plate shone down from the ceiling and plunged into the girl’s chest. The magical construct made the witch’s body flash from within like some demented stoplight, completely engulfing her in a nimbus of pulsing, crimson radiance. Buffy’s gaze followed the pulsating light down from Willow’s chest to her arms and finally to her hands, which were buried in… blood? It looked like blood, thick and red… and covering…
“Spike,” she breathed, pushing past the dog who continued to bark and snarl futilely.
Spike’s body was also bowed, his back rising off the floor in an unnatural curve, his entire weight borne only by his heels and the crown of his head. His face was frozen into a grimace of agony, the muscles of his arms constricted, bulging nearly to the point of bursting through his skin. The blood—no not blood—some kind of gel? Buffy wasn’t sure—covering his body pulsed like a heartbeat as the magic suffused it, flowing through it.
On the other side of the rigid vampire was Spike’s groupie… the woman from the Council—Lucy, or something. Her hands were also pressed into the radiant red mass that was covering Spike, palms flat on the vampire’s abdomen. The ruby-red light surged up into Lucy’s arms, flowed into her chest and then out again, disappearing back up through the ceiling. It formed what seemed to be an electrical circuit, fueled by magic—strong magic. Buffy could feel the undeniable power of it buzzing through the air, prickling her skin like static electricity. Like Willow, Lucy’s body was a stiff contortion, bent back, opening her chest, her heart—where the shimmering beam flowed out of her—to the heavens.
Buffy’s first and strongest instinct was to break the circuit before it fried them all alive—or in Spike’s case, dead. She hurried to Willow and grabbed her shoulder, jerking her away from the beam of light, Spike, and the charge that was holding her in place. At once both Spike and Lucy—Lana? whatever—went limp, their bodies collapsing onto the cool tile like overcooked noodles.
In contrast, the redhead’s body convulsed wildly as she was pulled free. When Willow’s hands left Spike, her arms began flailing around violently as the gook they were coated in flared even brighter with the magical voltage which could not follow its natural course out of her body. In the small space, Buffy had no room to maneuver, and the witch’s hands raked across her neck and face, smearing the over-charged, magically activated salve over Buffy’s skin. It seemed to almost jump from Willow’s hands, attracted to the Slayer like a magnet, coating her bare skin with the fiery, crimson gunk as the witch jerked and pitched convulsively.
Buffy’s body bucked as she was hit with the ungrounded magical power, and she was flung back. Her head slammed against the doorjamb with a sickening crunch and she crumpled to the floor, twitching and juddering with the magic that had entered her. Willow flopped around like a landed fish for a few more seconds, red sparks of energy racing over her skin before finally dissipating with small crackles and pops, then she, too, went limp and still.
The Guardian continued to bark, putting every ounce of power he had into it, unable to help in any way other than to try and summon assistance. The sound of his frantic alarm shook the walls and echoed through the house, as the four hoomans lay as still as death before him.
* X-X *
Joyce came in several moments after Buffy, her arms also loaded down with groceries. Her attention was immediately drawn up the stairs, her brows furrowed. She’d heard Spike bark before, of course, but it was always difficult for her to determine if he was barking at a spider that had somehow strayed into the bathtub, or a nest of vipers—literal or otherwise. She would’ve continued into the kitchen with her burden if not for all the grocery bags strewn around the base of the stairs, at least one of which was leaking.
“Buffy!” she called, worry rising quickly as she set her own load down next to the others. “Buffy!” Joyce tried again as she began to mount the stairs. She heard more sounds, like a tussle, then a loud thud, and Joyce’s steps redoubled.
Joyce gasped at the scene in the bathroom. She pushed past the distressed dog to find four bodies crumpled on the tile. “Buffy!” she exclaimed again, kneeling down next to her daughter, who was closest to her near the doorway. She began to move the girl, but then thought better of it. She had no idea what injuries Buffy might’ve sustained, or why in the world there were four unconscious people in the room. She checked Buffy’s pulse at her wrist as best she could. It seemed—well, she was no nurse or EMT. There was a pulse. It seemed strong, if quite fast, but maybe she was adding the thudding of her own heart to the count.
Joyce’s eyes roamed over the others, taking them in. Spike, Willow, and that woman from the Council... Lydia she thought her name was. What in the world—? And then the odd scent registered with her, and the overturned candles. It reminded her of electrical sparks or lightning-produced ozone—much like the spell Rupert had done to wake Willow, Oz, and Xander.
“Magic,” Joyce murmured, her mind whirling. With no idea what else to do, Joyce stood and hurried off to find a phone, leaving the Guardian to watch over the motionless bodies.
* X-X *
Spike swam up from the depths of nothingness to find more of the same. Blank… everything was a blank slate, like one of those whiteboards that had just been washed clean. No color. No memory. No awareness of where he was or even who he was for a few long, frightening moments. Then someone began drawing on the board, images and words flashing across his mind, filling in the blank spots. His life and memories came back in a flood, a blinding explosion crashing into him, up to a point. Then the images slowed enough for him to feel the emotion attached to each—the joy, the pain—all in perfectly clarity.
Lisa from Fairplay. The frightened child with only one shoe in Drusilla’s arms. Leaving Dru. The sound of the door clicking closed on that chapter of his life. Buffy’s phone call. Rushing to Sunnydale—to the Slayer. Buffy accusing him of killing her mum, her stake coming down toward his chest. The truce. Buffy calling him a friend. Holding Buffy in his arms after her nightmare, just watching her sleep. Kralik. The Council. Save the Watcher. Bullets. Agony. Blood. Warmth. His head in Buffy’s lap as she fed him, cared for him. Her body curled against his, tender and soft. Her lips touching his, light as a feather. The pain that suffused him as he tried to follow her headlong flight. Too injured to move. But he’d been getting better—slowly. Faith. Zipper. Buckaroo. Then the witch and the Council bird. Magic.
‘Sodding magic.’
He should’ve known. When was he going to learn?
Still groggy, Spike blinked his eyes open. He squinted against the overhead light as his vision adjusted, raising one hand to shield his face. Four heartbeats surrounded him, all galloping at breakneck speed, almost too fast for humans. He turned his head and saw the witch splayed out against the tub, limp and unmoving apart from the rapid rise and fall of her chest. On his other side was the Council bird, collapsed onto her side, seemingly in the same shape as the witch.
Who owned the other heartbeats? He lifted his head, propping his elbows beneath him to lift himself. “Buffy!”
Her face was half-hidden by her hair, and was pressed into the hard tiles where the floor and wall met, but there was no mistaking her. The dog—the fourth frantic heartbeat—stood over her and snuffled at her neck, apparently trying to rouse her.
Panicked, Spike tried to sit up but found the movement blocked by a thick, hard shell that covered his torso like rigid armor. He scrabbled at the red, translucent substance with his fingers, but the thing wouldn’t budge; it seemed fused to his body. Giving up, he rolled to the side, then to his hands and knees, and scurried to the Slayer, his eyes growing wide at the sight of blood shining through her hair, coating her throat.
A flash of what he prayed was a nightmare filled the whiteboard in his mind for a moment. A river of blood. Buffy. Bitten. Bleeding. Turned. “No, no, no…” he begged, sliding to a halt next to her. He grabbed her shoulders, turning her over as he awkwardly flopped back on his ass. He pulled her to him, draping her limp body across his as he’d done in the dream. “Buffy, no… Buffy,” he murmured, brushing her lank hair from her face and neck as the dog whined and whimpered with worry next to them.
His fingers slid over the blood on her neck. Not blood, he realized. Red and glistening, but hard and semitransparent like his breastplate. The relief that washed over Spike was palpable, nearly knocking him over like a wave in the ocean. “Thank you, thank you,” he cried, lowering his face to hers, pressing his cool cheek to her warm one as he rocked her in his arms.
Footsteps on the stairs drew his attention and in the next moment Joyce was there, looking as frantic as he felt. “Spike! Thank goodness you’re awake! What happened? What should I do?” Joyce stammered, kneeling to be on a level with the vampire and her daughter. Her heart jolted a bit seeing that Spike had moved Buffy, but perhaps he knew better than Joyce about these things.
“Call the Watcher,” he barked. “Some kinda magics… dunno… something went wrong.”
“I… that’s where I was. Mr. Giles will be here in a few minutes. What can I do? Is Buffy alright?”
“She’s breathing… don’t see any injuries,” he assured Joyce even as his hands roamed over the Slayer, checking for blood or breaks. “Need t’ get this… this bollocks off,” he continued, indicating the hardened magical muck that clung to the Slayer’s neck and one side of her face. He tried to peel it off, but, like his, it wouldn’t budge. Buffy moaned in pain as it tugged at her skin, which was threatening to tear, and he stopped.
“Water? I dunno… acetone? Mineral spirits?” he suggested, finally looking up at the woman, his eyes as wide and as frightened as Joyce’s.
Joyce nodded and rose, hurrying away to find nail polish remover, as the dog stood panting worriedly over the two blondes. “Can you get it off?” Spike asked his namesake, adjusting Buffy so that the Guardian could get to her neck.
The dog tried a tentative lick, but immediately began violently shaking his head and sputtering, rubbing his muzzle with one paw, and backing up in a circle, as if he’d been stung by a bee.
“Spike,” Buffy rasped, one hand lifting in slow motion to cup the vampire’s face. Her eyes fluttered open, though they were distant and dazed. “You came,” she continued in a muffled voice. “Did you stop them… the monsters… are they… gone?”
Spike’s vision suddenly blurred and wavered as tears threatened, relief suffusing him. “Yeah, pet, they’re gone. No worries now,” he assured her, beginning the rocking motion again, holding her against the hardened plate that covered his chest.
“Thank you… for coming,” she murmured, her lids falling closed and her hand dropping to rest on his shoulder.
“Always, Buffy… just gotta ask, I’ll be here,” Spike promised. “Gonna be alright, pet.”
Buffy floated back to semi-consciousness, looking up at him again. “You… you’ll tell me, right? Is it me? Am I … not good enough?”
Spike’s brows furrowed, his head shaking automatically. “You’re perfect, Buffy. Bloody glorious. A miracle, a goddess. Thought we’d covered that, luv.”
“Mmm,” the Slayer groaned, her eyes drifting closed, but they opened almost immediately. “But… then why don’t they stay?”
“Who, pet? Who won’t stay?” Spike wondered, realizing Buffy must be still in that strange half-aware state, lost in memories or dreams like he’d been when he’d first woken.
“Everyone. No one. They all leave. Because of me… not good enough,” she murmured blearily, trying to focus on him through a thick fog of confusion.
Spike shook his head, his fingers gently brushing her hair back from her face where it had fallen. “Anyone doesn’t stay with you is a bloody prat. Too big a git to see the wonder of you, luv. Cowards and fools is what they are.”
Another low groan from the Slayer accompanied her eyelids flickering again, then closing. Spike couldn’t tell if she was agreeing with him or protesting his assertions. “I’d stay with you, pet. Stay forever if you’d let me,” he whispered, leaning down to press his cheek against hers again.
There was no reply, no further stirring from the woman in his arms. “Buffy… Slayer?” Spike prompted gently, swiping away his tears when he heard the front door open and slam, and the Watcher’s voice booming through the house.
“What happened?” Giles demanded of Spike as he limped up to the open bathroom door, still leaning heavily on his cane, taking in the scene. He bent down and checked the pulse in Buffy’s wrist—steady and strong, if a bit elevated. “Are they alive?” he asked, gesturing to the other women.
Spike nodded. “Alive,” he confirmed.
“What happened?” Giles asked again.
Spike shook his head, but relayed what he knew. “The chits said they had some magic rubbish that would heal me up good and proper. Covered me in it like sodding nappy rash cream, then started chantin’ some bollocks to Hecate. Next thing I know...” He shrugged and waved a hand at the bathroom. “The stuff turned hard… can’t get it off. Buffy’s got some on her too.”
Giles seemed to absorb that, taking in the unconscious women and the translucent armor covering Spike’s chest and stomach, and come to a decision. With care, he stepped over Buffy’s legs and headed for the sink, his cane banging down on the hard tiles with each hurried step. He thumped a book down on the counter and had the first-aid kit out and opened in the next moment. It only took another few seconds for him to find the small, cardboard-covered vials he was looking for. Spike watched as the man snapped the smelling salts and waved it first beneath Lydia’s nose, then Willow’s.
The vampire knew the man was tough—he’d withstood Angelus’ tortures and threats without giving away any useful information—but he’d never seen him in quite this mode before. All business. Movements as crisp and sure as they could be given his injuries. His mind was fully focused on the problem, clearly already formulating a plan and carrying it out. This, Spike realized, was the Watcher in the man, his instincts just as inborn as a Slayer’s, his training different but just as arduous.
It took waving the ammonium carbonate under Willow’s and Lydia’s noses three times before they began coming around, shaking their heads, and trying to escape the sharp aroma. By then, Joyce was in the doorway with the nail polish remover, but Giles stopped her from trying it. “It is a magical construct; it will likely need a magical cure.”
Joyce and Giles helped Willow and Lydia into more comfortable, seated positions on the floor while Spike continued holding Buffy, who was still drifting in and out of consciousness. However, when Giles approached with the smelling salts, Spike had growled and waved away the astringent vial. “Let the Slayer be. She’ll come around in her own good time,” he insisted. “Her body knows what it’s doing.”
Giles scowled at the blond a moment, taking in the gentle way he was holding the girl, but didn’t press the issue. At his core, he knew Spike was likely right, even if he didn’t like the position it put his Slayer in, cradled in the vampire’s arms. With a shake of his head, he turned his attention to the other two women, who, after a glass of water and a few minutes to recover, seemed alert enough to answer some questions.
Giles picked up the book they’d been using and opened it to the spell that he assumed to be the one they’d used. He thrust the book at Lydia, asking, “Is this the spell you used?”
The woman took the book shakily, blinking a few times to focus on the page, but then nodded. “Yes… and we did everything perfectly correct,” she insisted, shaking her head. “I don’t understand—”
“You didn’t add anything else into the salve?” Giles interrupted. “Or substitute one thing for another?”
Again, Lydia shook her head vehemently, but Willow ducked hers, letting her red hair fall round her face to hide her expression. Giles didn’t miss it. He’d seen that look before. Guilt. “Willow?” he pressed, the weight of his ire heavy in the single word. “Do you concur? Nothing else added? No change in the ingredients or the incantation?”
Willow cleared her throat nervously and looked up at all the steely gazes that were trained on her. Giles. Spike. Lydia. Joyce. Even the dog was looking at her curiously from the hallway.
“I… I, umm, might’ve… umm…”
“Speak up, please,” Giles demanded harshly as a low growl rumbled from the vampire’s shielded chest.
Willow cleared her throat again and took the book from Lydia. “I… well, this one is for flesh, for the lacerations, but he’s got broken ribs too, so I added in some things from this other spell so it would—”
Giles sighed, removed his glasses, and rubbed at his eyes, leaning back against the counter to take weight off his injured leg.
“B-but… that’s not… you can’t simply change spells willy-nilly,” Lydia protested in horror, looking at the page Willow indicated. “This spell requires a completely different offering,” she pointed out, pulling the book from the redhead’s hand, shaking her head in dismay.
“What did you give as an offering?” Giles asked, returning his glasses to his nose, and looking at Lydia.
“Blood. Blood for the healing of flesh. It’s quite common and perfectly safe,” she assured him.
“And the other spell, what does that one require?” he continued.
“Bone for bone, of course,” the woman answered. Her hair had started coming free of her neat, tight bun and she tried brushing it back with her fingers as she quickly scanned the other spell.
Giles fixed Willow with a hard glare. “Were you aware of the additional offering required?”
“I-it doesn’t say anything in the book…” Willow defended.
“Well, no,” Lydia agreed. “It’s common knowledge. Any first-year magical student would know that.”
Willow gnawed at her bottom lip, dropping her gaze to the floor. “Oh.”
“Have you been doing magicks without bestowing beneficium propriis to the goddess?” Lydia wondered, aghast.
Willow bristled, her eyes flashing as she looked at the other woman. “No one told me anything about that. I’ve done plenty of spells and never had to—”
“Perhaps small spells in which the reckoning was negligible,” Lydia cut her off. “But the goddess gives nothing for free. It’s possible you didn’t even notice the cost—or perhaps it has yet to manifest—but all magic has a price.”
“Seems I’ve heard that somewhere before,” Spike grumbled sarcastically under his breath as Lydia continued speaking, “—and it is best to pay it up front rather than being surprised by it after the fact. The goddess must have her due, and she will extract it, in her time and as she sees fit.”
Willow opened her mouth again, but Giles broke in, “We can address this at a later time. What we need to concentrate on now is how to remove this—” He waved his hand at Buffy and Spike. “—hardened unguent from Spike and Buffy.”
Lydia huffed, but desisted, looking back at the spell book. “Well, clearly, we will need bone for the offering and I would suggest sage for cleansing and—”
Willow drew her legs up under herself and wrapped her arms around her torso. “W-what kind of bone?” she asked worriedly, remembering slashing her own palm to give the blood.
Giles turned his intense gaze on her. “Were you offering?” he wondered dryly, taking in her closed posture.
Willow chewed her lip again and looked over at Spike, who looked like he was about to take all her bones whether she agreed or not. “Umm… I kinda like my bones where they are,” she squeaked.
“What type of bone would you use, Miss Chalmers?” Giles wondered.
“Well, of course, the most desired and efficacious bone would be the skull of an innocent,” she revealed.
A frightened little ‘eep’ came from Willow’s throat, her eyes going wide. “We have to… kill…”
Giles’ lips twisted into a smirk. “Luckily for you, no,” he broke in. “But it seems a trip to the cemetery is in order. How do you feel about grave robbing?” He pushed himself off the counter, taking the weight back onto his leg and the cane. “Thank you, Miss Chalmers, I think you’ve done enough for one day. You may go. Willow and I will handle it from here.”
Lydia looked taken aback. She scrambled unsteadily to her feet, trying to smooth her disheveled hair with one hand and her wrinkled skirt with the other, leaving no hand available to straighten her glasses. “I… I don’t understand. This was not my fault,” she insisted.
“You were the one who offered your assistance to Miss Rosenberg, claiming to be a ‘dab hand’ at magic, as I recall,” Giles retorted sharply. “Clearly, you aren’t quite as polished as you think, allowing a child to add ingredients without your knowledge?”
“I’m not a child,” Willow protested petulantly as she, too, got to her feet.
“You most assuredly are—and you’ve just proven it! You are untrained and incredibly foolish, you have no respect for the forces of nature or the power of the goddess,” Giles snapped at her before turning back to Lydia. “I will take over from here and show her how to undo this mess you’ve created. You may go,” he dismissed with a wave at the door.
Lydia returned his glower with one of her own, embarrassed heat rising in her face from the rebuke. She looked around at all the faces turned toward her, settling finally on William the Bloody, whose blue eyes looked like raging flames boiling up from the depths of hell.
Her throat closed up, clogged with unbidden tears. Everything was ruined, she realized. She’d never get her interview with the vampire now. He likely blamed her for this as Mr. Giles did. After all, he didn’t even know her, and was apparently friends with the little witch who had cocked this all up.
In an effort to retain a modicum of dignity, Lydia straightened her back, grabbed her jacket and her bag, and headed for the door without another word, not even chancing another glance at William the Bloody as she passed. Joyce and the dog moved to allow her to exit and, in a moment, the front door opened and closed without another sound from the remaining occupants of the house.
Giles looked at Joyce, Buffy, and Spike near the doorway. “We should be able to correct this shortly. I’d like to get to the cemetery before dark. I believe I know a couple of crypts that hold what we will need.”
“Is there anything I can do in the meantime?” Joyce wondered.
Giles’ disapproving gaze settled on Spike, who was still on the floor holding the groggy Slayer. Giles would’ve liked to have extracted her from his grip, but that seemed like a fight he was unlikely to win at this moment. “Just keep Buffy comfortable until we return,” he suggested before heading for the door. “Come along, Willow,” he called as if she were an errant puppy as he stepped over Buffy’s legs and started for the stairs.
Willow felt like a puppy in that moment—one that had been beaten, starved, and abandoned on the side of the road—but she followed dutifully, head hung in shame. Joyce laid a sympathetic hand on her shoulder as the girl passed and gave her a reassuring smile, which Willow appreciated but it didn’t really make her feel any better. How was she supposed to know what any ‘first year magic student’ knew? She’d never had any classes in magic; she didn’t even know there was such a thing outside of children’s books.
In the car, Willow kept her head down, wringing her hands in her lap as Giles struggled to get in, his leg giving him difficulties. Once he was finally seated and his cane was stowed in the back, he removed his glasses and once again rubbed at his tired eyes. “This is not entirely your fault,” he admitted, putting his glasses back on and looking up at her. “Or that of Miss Chalmers. I take responsibility as well.”
Willow looked up at him dolefully. “I didn’t mean to—”
“I’m well aware of that, and clearly you didn’t know the ramifications. And that is where I’ve failed you. I should have been more forthcoming with information, begun teaching you the basics earlier, but after Jenny…” He stopped and struggled to clear his throat for a few long moments before he could speak again. “You’ve been unfairly left to your own devices. Tossed into the deep end and expected to swim, but you were unaware of the sharks lurking beneath the surface.”
“Is there a… school for… witches? For magic?” she asked tentatively. “Is there a real Hogwarts?”
Giles snorted. “Not as such. There are various covens around the globe which offer training in that area. The Council, does, as well, of course, but I’m not certain they would be the best option for you. I was actually wondering if you would allow me to mentor you in the art. Since my duties as Buffy’s Watcher will be taken over by someone else, I should think I’d have more time to spend on… other endeavors.”
Color suddenly returned to Willow’s cheeks, her expression turning hopeful. “That would be… yes! I… I’d like that,” she agreed immediately.
“But you must respect my judgement in this. I will do my best to steer you away from the pitfalls that lurk down this road, but I cannot do that if you do not listen and mind me,” Giles warned sternly. “This is not a game. These forces are not to be trifled with or disrespected, and neither am I.”
Willow nodded eagerly. “Sure. Of course. I’m totally listen-girl,” she assured him.
Giles nodded and turned the key in the ignition, starting the engine. “Well, I suppose our first lesson will be in procuring the bones of an innocent, preferably without being arrested for grave robbing or eaten by a vampire.”
Willow chewed her lip. “Do you think this will work? You know, with it being all after-the-facty.”
He nodded and put the car in reverse. “The more benevolent spirits are generally forgiving, providing that you sweeten the deal a bit. I think a trip to the liquor store will also be in order.”
“What do goddesses like to drink?” Willow wondered.
Giles shrugged as he pulled into the road and put the car in drive. “In my experience, they’re partial to single malt scotch whisky.”
* X-X *
STORY BOARDS
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link: https://flic.kr/p/2kYAnwY
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link: https://flic.kr/p/2kYyQJb
End Notes:
Oh dear! Willow, Willow, Willow! But, hey – look at Giles finally stepping up to help her. Let’s hope she does actually listen and learn from this. Will Giles be able to get it fixed? Will Lydia get pissed off and cause trouble? Is Spike really good enough to eat? We’ll find out soon...Well, we know the answer to that last one already.
I may have to change the posting days next week as I'm supposed to get my second COVID vaccine on Friday, which means I'll probably not be feeling well on Saturday. If that vaccination schedule remains unchanged, I'll try to post early so you don't have to wait for a chapter.
Thank you so much for reading and for your patience as I try to catch up with your wonderful comments! I thought things would slow down a bit for me, but so far no luck with that. But I’ll get there – I love reading all your notes! They keep me inspired!
Chapter 32: Oops!
Chapter Text
Chapter Notes:
As I noted on the last chapter, I have my second COVID vaccine scheduled for the end of this week, so I’m going to post early, just in case I feel really crappy for a day or two afterwards. So, I’ll post today and Thursday, rather than Thursday and Saturday.
Chapter 32: Oops
Spike didn’t think about it—he just stood up. He rose from the bathroom floor, first shifting onto his knees, before bringing one foot to the ground in front of him and pushing up to his feet in one fluid, graceful motion. And he did it all with Buffy in his arms, one arm around her shoulders and the other under her knees, like a child.
“Spike,” Joyce breathed, her voice shocked, her eyes wide with wonder. “You… how did you do that?”
He stopped then, realizing what he’d done—what he’d done without effort, without pain. “Bloody hell,” he muttered, twisting and testing as best he could with the hard shell covering his front half and Buffy in his arms. There was no pain. His ribs didn’t shift. The daggers and searing fire in his stomach were gone. He looked at Joyce with wide eyes. “The bloody bints did it,” he admitted with awe. “Just hope I don’t have to wear this sodding shield for the rest of my unnatural life. A bit constricting. Can see it being a hinderance to… some activities I’m fond of.”
“Badminton?” Joyce guessed with a wry smile.
Spike snorted. He almost said something about a different sort of ‘cock’ being involved, but bit back the retort in the nick of time as some dim part of his brain reminded him who he was talking to. “Something like that,” he agreed instead.
“Well, I’m sure Mr. Giles will be able to fix it,” she assured him, backing up as he started out of the bathroom with his precious cargo.
“The little witch better hope so,” he muttered under his breath, the words punctuated by a rumbling growl.
“You know Willow was only trying to help,” Joyce said, though Spike doubted she’d actually caught his words. “She’s young. She just made a mistake.”
As good as Spike was feeling, he was having a hard time staying brassed off about it, and the witch did seem to be on his side, wanting to help him with the Slayer. “Yeah, yeah—just don’t like being a bleedin’ science experiment gone wrong,” he grumbled as he reached Buffy’s bed and tried to bend to put her down. The shield over his chest dug painfully into his underarms and hipbones, and he had to squat, keeping his back more-or-less upright, in order to place the Slayer down on the soft mattress without dropping her.
“But this means you’ll be able to get back to Dru sooner. I’m sure you must be happy about that,” Joyce suggested from the doorway.
‘Back to this now, are we? Tryin’ to get ol’ Spike outta here. Well sod that.’ Spike clenched and unclenched his jaw a couple of times, trying to get his frustration under control. He wanted to scream at her that he and Dru were over. Permanently and undeniably over! That all he wanted to do now was stay in Sunnydale, stay near Buffy just on the chance that, one day, she’d deign to allow a monster like him into her heart. He wanted to tell Joyce that he loved her daughter, that he’d do anything for her—anything for either of them—if he could just stay. And hadn’t he proved that? Hadn’t he shown where his loyalties lay in these battles?
But he was sure none of that would go over well with Buffy’s mum. If anything, that sort of declaration might get him tossed out sooner—or worse. The woman did know which end of a stake to plunge in, after all. He took a breath to try and calm himself, but the shield restricted his lungs and the edges of it dug into his sides. He swallowed back his frustration as he rose from his task and turned to face the woman.
“Overstayed my welcome, have I?” he asked. It was said without rancor, in a solemn, almost miserable tone.
“Oh, Spike, no, not at all,” Joyce rushed to assure him—the habit of proper manners and her honest affection for the vampire making it impossible to do otherwise. “I just thought… you’d want to get back to, you know… the love of your life… your eternity.”
Spike fought to keep from glancing down at Buffy as he heard those words, but managed to keep his gaze, which he knew was desperate and made him look like a git, trained on the woman. “Even eternity needs a break now and again,” he admitted, ducking his head and rubbing his palm across the nape of his neck. “And I wouldn’t want to miss the Slayer’s do, ‘specially if there’s more bashing to be done.”
A sleepy voice from the bed added, “Spike needs… to stay… for… science.”
Joyce and Spike both looked at Buffy with creased brows, waiting for more. Her eyes had never opened and apparently that was all that she was going to say.
“What does that mean?” Joyce wondered.
“No bloody clue,” Spike admitted. “But I’d be much obliged if—”
“Of course, you can stay for the party, Spike,” Joyce cut him off with a wave of her hand, though her stomach was knotted with conflicting emotions. She liked Spike, and she owed him more than she could ever repay, but she couldn’t bear to see her daughter hurt again, and that’s the only place this could lead. “It’s me that’s obliged to you—well, all of us are, really. Don’t think another thing about it. I just thought, you know, Dru must be missing you and you’d be anxious to get back.”
Spike cleared his throat and gave her a tight smile. “A few more days won’t go amiss between us.”
Joyce smiled and nodded. “Can I get you some blood o-or anything while we wait?” she wondered backing out of the doorway.
It was clear she wanted Spike to follow her, but Spike didn’t want to leave Buffy. What if this red bollocks started doing something new? With magic, you could never tell.
“Stay,” Buffy croaked through a rough throat, reaching for and catching Spike’s hand just as he lifted a foot to follow Joyce.
Spike stopped and looked back at the girl, her eyes were open, looking a bit more alert than they had thus far. He dropped down to a knee next to her, and smoothed her hair back with his free hand. “How ya feeling, pet?”
“Was there a baseball bat?” she wondered, blinking to get her vision to focus. She lifted her hand toward the side of her head. “I feel like there was a bat and Buffy was the ball.”
Spike smiled knowingly. “Magicks can make ya feel that way,” he agreed as Joyce came in and stood behind him, looking down at her daughter.
“Ow,” Buffy pouted, tenderly running her free hand over the goose egg that had formed just above her ear.
Spike gently brushed her hand away and examined the lump. “Must’a hit your head in the melee.”
“Master of deduction, Dr. Watson,” Buffy grumbled as her fingers found the hardened goo on her face and neck. She began trying to peel it off. “What the hell…?”
Spike stilled her hand with his. “Don’t, pet. It’s some magic rubbish. Watcher’s working on a way to get it off.”
Buffy sighed and let her lids fall closed a moment before they shot open again, a flash of memory suddenly flooding her, filling in the last blanks. “Willow! Is she—?!” she began asking, trying to sit up.
Spike released one of her hands and pressed Buffy back down. “Red’s fine,” he assured her. “Went with the Watcher to get what they need to get this off.”
Buffy sighed and let her eyes fall closed again as little comets started shooting across her vision from the sudden change in elevation.
“Lydia’s okay too,” Joyce added.
The Slayer squinted up past Spike at her mother. “Who?”
“Lydia… the woman from the Council. She was helping Willow with the spell.”
“Is that her name? Are you sure? That doesn’t sound right,” Buffy muttered, lifting a hand to her pounding head. “What was the spell supposed to do?”
“Heal Spike,” Joyce said. “And it seems to have worked—except for the hard shell plastered to you both now.”
Buffy’s eyes shifted to the blond kneeling next to the bed, her hand dropping, itching to reach out and touch him, but holding back, contenting herself with the comfort of his hand still holding one of hers. “You’re… healed? Like… all healed?”
Spike shrugged a shoulder. “Seems like. ’Course, won’t know for sure till the Watcher gets this armor off me.” He tapped a knuckle against a spot on his chest, which made a hollow thudding sound.
“Oh,” Buffy muttered, lowering her eyes. “So, I guess that means… you’ll be… leaving soon.”
What the bloody fuck was it with everyone wanting him gone? Spike cleared his throat. “Thought I might stay for the Hot Chocolate celebration… I’m something of a fan, ya know?”
Buffy’s gaze lifted, her gaze beseeching. “Yeah? You’ll stay?” she asked hopefully.
Spike gave her a smile. “Wouldn’t miss it, Slayer. Can always use a spot of violence, and I hear your bashes are a magnet for carnage.”
Guilt washed over Buffy. “As if you haven’t been dunked headfirst into a bloodshed blender already.”
Spike’s smile turned wolfish. “Vampire, yeah? Can never have too much bloodshed,” he asserted.
Buffy snorted, then winced, raising her hand to her head again.
“I’ll get some ice for that,” Joyce volunteered, backing up.
Spike began to rise also, but Buffy tightened her grip on his hand. “Stay,” she whispered, her eyes meeting his, almost pleading.
Spike’s expression softened and he gave her a small nod. “I’ll just keep an eye on our stubborn girl,” he called to Joyce. “Make sure she stays put.”
Joyce nodded and disappeared.
“Are you really okay?” Buffy asked, reaching her free hand out to touch the hardened shield covering his chest. “Last I saw you… you looked like okay was a distant relative from the wrong side of the tracks.” A small shudder ran through Buffy at the memory of Spike’s rigid body arching painfully against the magic, the agony straining his handsome features into a grotesque mask. Her vow of detachment had shattered yet again when she’d seen him, crumbling into a billion tiny shards of wishful thinking, littering her heart with the debris. Then the monster had come out to gobble them up like so much dropped popcorn—the green-eyed monster who had growled when it had seen that woman’s hands on Spike. She’d already blocked the woman’s name from her mind… L-something.
Spike tilted his head, his gaze intense, studying her. “Seem t’ be. Don’t really remember much after the chits started chanting.”
Buffy nodded and caught her lip in her teeth as her hand slid down the translucent barrier that covered his torso. Everyone seemed to be able to touch him but her. Faith. Willow. The L-woman. But that was only fair, wasn’t it? Since she’d been the one to drop him into that bloodshed blender and turn the power up to ‘liquefy.’ He was better off if she couldn’t touch him and, though she’d asked him to stay, she knew they’d all be better off if he didn’t. Because she couldn’t touch the part of him that she really wanted, anyway—the part that lived beneath the armor, beneath the skin and muscle and bone. His heart.
“Probably for the best,” she muttered sadly, as her gaze followed her hand, trying to see through the shield to assess his okay-ness. The color and thickness of the armor distorted everything just enough to keep her from really being able to tell.
“What’s that, pet?” Spike asked softly.
Buffy jerked her hand away, her eyes flying back to his. “Um, probably for the best that you don’t remember,” she covered. “It looked like the pain was turned up to eleventy billion.”
‘The painful bit was waking up and seeing you there, hurt,’ Spike thought, but held back the comment. Let her come to you, don’t push. “Reckon you ended up with the worst of it,” he said instead.
Buffy sighed and touched her fingers to her skull again. “Who knew Willow could pack a punch like that?” she grumbled as her fingertips danced around the edge of the lump. “You never hit me that hard.”
Spike smirked. “Never gave me much of a chance. Couldn’t get ya to hold still. Always hittin’ back like a wild banshee, keeping me off-balance—then sending in the bloody mutt t’ lick me to death.”
“Aw, poor baby. Did the big, bad Slayer and her whittle doggie beat you all up?” Buffy chided in a baby-talk voice.
Spike flashed fang and growled at her.
“That’d be a lot scarier if you weren’t on your knees holding my hand,” Buffy chuckled.
Spike scowled and rolled his eyes, but didn’t release her hand or stand up. “Bloody women, always taking the fun outta a perfectly good threat.”
“Here you are, honey,” Joyce announced, reentering the room with the ice pack.
“Thanks, Mom,” Buffy said, taking it and gingerly pressing it against the side of her head. “I don’t think I’ll be able to help get the groceries put away.”
“That’s okay, I got the cold stuff put away. Maybe William can give me a hand with the rest?” Joyce suggested, giving Spike a hopeful look.
Spike looked at Buffy. “Stay put till the Watcher gets back, yeah?” he said to the girl as he pushed up to his feet, reluctantly releasing her hand.
“I’m feeling a distinct need for immobility,” Buffy agreed, shifting the ice pack a bit.
Spike’s hand was warm from where her heat had seeped into his flesh. He immediately missed the contact, and noted a small frown of what might’ve been discontent cross the Slayer’s features. Or was he just seeing what he wanted to see again? He sighed and turned to Joyce. “I’m all yours, luv. Lead the way.”
Buffy’s fingers curled around her palm as if holding onto the essence of Spike that had been left behind there, watching him walk away. He looked damned good from the back, no sign of the magical mystery goo. His shoulders were square, his arms strong, his back a chiseled sculpture of pure maleness. Maybe he was holding himself a little stiff as he moved because of the armor coating, but otherwise there was no limp, no slump to his shoulders, no clutching his ribs.
He was fine. Buffy’s eyes filled with tears as his pale back turned the corner and was lost to view. Part of her was grateful for that fineness, glad that he wasn’t in pain any longer. Another, less pleasant, part of her was jealous that it hadn’t been her who had healed him, and that now he didn’t need her help any longer. He could feed himself, get himself up and down the stairs and, worst of all, he could leave anytime he wanted.
The Slayer swiped at her stupid eyes, smearing the dampness away. This whole detached mission was way harder than she’d ever imagined it could be. Staying mostly detached from Giles, at least emotionally, had been fairly easy. She just avoided him and, barring that, she kept everything purely Slayer-Watcher centric. But keeping herself detached from Spike had been nearly impossible. Every turn she took led her into a mire of attachment quicksand, leaving her to struggle and fight to get back on solid detached ground.
It was exhausting.
She wished it wasn’t necessary.
But getting attached led only to badness. To broken promises and broken hearts… and even broken bodies. People around her got hurt—sometimes badly. Willow’s voice rang in her ears, ‘I hate to be the pointer-outer of obviousness, but you’re already attached, Buffy.’
Buffy sighed and laid her curled hand, the one that held the memory of Spike’s, over her heart. “What am I supposed to do?” she whispered to the empty room. Or what she thought was an empty room. Her dog rose from the floor and pressed his cold nose against her warm arm, nuzzling beneath it to rest his chin on her stomach. His tail wagged lazily, stirring the air with every pass. Buffy smiled and began petting him, running her fingers through his thick, soft coat.
“What do you think, buddy?” she asked him. “What should I do?”
Spike shifted until his head was up on her chest, covering her heart, his big, brown eyes imploring her to understand his meaning.
“But he doesn’t want my heart,” Buffy muttered glumly.
Spike whined and pressed down harder, as if trying to bury his chin into her ribcage.
Buffy sighed, shaking her head, still petting her best friend with her free hand. “Just because you love me, doesn’t mean—”
The dog interrupted her with a small snarl of impatience, turning his head this way, then that against her, his big ears flopping, slapping at her, before settling his chin back into place over her heart.
Buffy snorted and rolled her eyes. “I’m not so sure. Nothing good has ever come from Buffy letting her heart out into the wild,” she hedged, drawing another small rumble from the dog.
Buffy sighed. “What if it all goes horribly wrong—as it always has?” she demanded. “Isn’t there some saying about doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of insanity?”
“RRrwwwwrf!” Spike grumbled, not letting up.
Buffy rolled her eyes. “If you’re wrong, I’m sooo not buying you any more cheeseburgers—ever. And do you know why? Cos I’ll be in the looney-bin—locked up with the nice men in the white coats eating green Jell-O and lima beans, because I’m insane!”
Spike huffed indignantly, as if he could ever be wrong about anything. His hot, damp breath washed up over the red armor stuck to Buffy’s neck to bathe her face in clammy, doggy-air.
“Ewww! Dog breath,” Buffy complained, scrunching up her nose. “I have dog germs! Get some hot water! Get some disinfectant! Get some Lysol!” she cried in her best ‘Lucy’ voice.
Spike released the pressure on her chest as he opened his mouth into a happy grin, panting even harder, clearly pleased.
* X-X *
“Still say that was a waste of perfectly good single malt,” Spike complained as he skipped down the stairs ahead of Giles, who had to take each step one at a time. “Bloody goddess could’a done just as well with some blended rubbish—saved the good stuff for me.”
Giles sighed through his gritted teeth. “It worked, didn’t it? The hardened unguent was released. You should stop your whingeing and be grateful. You’re healed and, apparently, none the worse for it.”
At the bottom of the stairs Spike turned back to look up at the man. “Broom-Hilda could’a dusted me good and proper with that magic bollocks. Think ya should’a saved some of that Glenlivet for yours truly—the primary victim in this cockup.”
“’Broom-Hilda’ can hear you,” Willow pointed out huffily, coming down the stairs behind Giles.
Buffy, the crimson armor gone from her neck and face, and the dog were bringing up the rear. Getting it off had been quite a lot less disturbing and painful than getting it on. Once the new offering of pulverized bone—the skull of an infant—and the scotch had been made to the goddess, the red shields had just let go, coming off in one piece, like hard, plastic molds. There had been some chanting in Latin, too. Giles had explained they were basically begging for forgiveness and promising not to take the power for granted again. But there hadn’t been any light show or near-electrocution. Just—boom—done. Muss-less and fuss-less.
And, as Willow and Lydia had hoped, Spike had been healed. His chest and stomach were perfect. No bruises, no bumps, no gouges, not even any scars. It was like, well, magic.
“Yeah, well, that was the point, wasn’t it?” Spike retorted, pulling his t-shirt on over his head, covering up all the smooth, sculpted, healed flesh. Despite all his complaining, he felt amazing. Every ache, pain, break, bruise, and contusion from the last few days was gone. He could move without wincing, bend and stretch without groaning, trot up and down the stairs as if weightless.
“No one made you do it! It’s not like we twisted your arm or anything,” Willow pointed out petulantly.
“Sodding magic. Knew better than to let you muck about, using me as a guinea pig,” the vampire grumbled as he patted his pockets, making sure he had everything. “Anyone know where my boots and duster are?” he wondered, looking around the foyer.
“I took your coat back to the repair shop. Your boots are still outside on the front porch,” Joyce said, coming in from the dining room. “I cleaned them the best I could and left them outside to, um, air.”
“Where are you going?” Buffy asked when she reached the landing. Her head still ached, the knot was still there, but the ice had helped, and it would probably be fine in a few hours, or a day at most. Like Spike, she was also starting to feel like her old self, healing faster, feeling stronger—but she wasn’t quite there yet.
Spike had gone out onto the porch and picked up his boots. One sniff told him why they needed to ‘air’. The mud and blood and—bloody hell, was that bile?—had gotten imbedded into the leather. He’d need to get them cleaned properly to get that stench out. Or just toss them and nick a new pair.
“Out,” he answered brusquely, stuffing his feet into the offending leather. “Need a bit of air.”
“Do you… I mean…” Buffy stammered, suddenly tongue-tied and shy. “Want any company?”
Spike, still bent down, stopped tying the laces and looked up at her through his lashes. His expression was surprised, even hopeful, and for a moment, and Buffy was sure he was going to say ‘yes’. She’d already started moving toward the coat rack when Spike’s mien changed, darkening, and he suddenly shook his head. “Not this trip, ducks. Maybe next time,” he offered, as he quickly finished securing his boots to his feet.
The dog, who had also started moving forward, his tail wagging happily, froze like a statue, a soft whine of disappointment burbling in his throat.
“You either, Cujo,” the vampire admonished, and in a flash, he was gone into the night, disappearing like a wraith in the darkness.
Buffy frowned, her motion toward the door arrested in mid-stride like her dog’s. She cleared her throat uncomfortably and shut the door, as if that was what she’d gone that way to do. She scowled down at her dog, giving him a ‘I told you so’ glower as the door slammed closed. Spike seemed just as confused as she was, looking from the closed door and back to her a couple of times, before shaking his head in bewilderment.
“Where did he go?” Joyce asked.
“To get air?” Buffy guessed, still sounding off-balance.
“Do vampires need air?” Willow wondered. “I mean, they don’t actually have to breathe, right?”
“Indeed, they do not,” Giles agreed, his own brows furrowed as he leaned with both hands on his cane.
“He’s not… you don’t think he’s… going hunting, do you?” Willow suggested, looking worried.
Buffy’s eyes shot up to meet her friend’s, her own expression turning from confused disappointment to concern. “Maybe I should just…” she began, reaching for her coat.
“Perhaps we should ring Faith,” Giles suggested. “You’re still recovering from…” He cleared his throat and began again. “You’re still not at full strength and that bump on your head is concerning.”
“I’m fine. Spike won’t hurt me,” Buffy asserted.
“You can’t possibly know that,” Giles insisted.
Buffy turned, coat in hand, and glowered at him, her eyes narrowing dangerously. She did know that. She had to know that. If she didn’t know that, then not only was she the biggest idiot to ever live in Idiots-vile, but so was her dog. “He hasn’t ended the truce,” she pointed out.
“That you’re aware of,” Giles shot back. “How do you expect him to end it, precisely? By sending you a certified letter in the post? He’s a vampire, Buffy. He’ll end it by killing you… or at least attempting to. The battle with the Council is over, he’s completely healed. There’s no reason for him to continue the truce.”
Buffy’s jaw clenched and unclenched. Spike wouldn’t do that. He just wouldn’t! She felt her whirling emotions turn into a cyclone in her chest, threatening to explode in tears and fury and fear. Her heart thudded heavily against the spackle and paint that was holding her together, threatening to rip it all down.
There was complete certainty, an unwavering conviction in Giles’ eyes. He believed without a single doubt that Spike would turn on her without warning. She refused to believe that. Her heart couldn’t accept it. If that happened then… well, then her emotions would be leading her to her death right now. It would certainly be the ultimate ‘I told you so’ in the fight between her mind and her heart, between cold logic and intuition, between detachment and attachment.
“You think that because that’s what you’d do,” Buffy accused bitterly, her voice an icy blade meant to cut deep into her former Watcher. “Turn on someone with no warning, maybe shoot them full of drugs to begin with so they couldn’t even fight back.”
“Buffy…” Joyce admonished, drawing the Slayer’s razor-sharp gaze to her.
“You’re on his side now? Have you forgotten why Spike’s here in the first place? Because he,” Buffy jabbed an accusatory finger at Giles, “drugged me and poisoned our dog, then he set insane-o vampires loose on all of us.”
Buffy knew that wasn’t strictly true. Spike had told her he’d been on the way here anyway, but that wasn’t the point. And the vampires hadn’t exactly been let loose, but had escaped. To-may-to, to-mah-to.
“I’m not…” Joyce stuttered, shaking her head. “I’m simply saying, perhaps there is room here for some compassion and understanding.”
Buffy snorted scathingly. “Like he’s showing to Spike? How about even a little gratitude for him saving your miserable life?” she challenged, her hands curling into fists over the fabric of her coat.
“I am simply concerned—” Giles began, but Buffy whirled away from him, snatching the door open.
“I need some air,” she announced, snapping her fingers at her dog, who was beside her in an instant, eager and excited.
“Buffy, please, do be careful,” Giles called after her as she stomped onto the porch, pulling her coat on. “You’re injured and not at full strength.”
“Yeah, I wonder whose fault that is?” she shot back over her shoulder before she and her furry Spike descended the steps and headed into the night.
“Should I call Faith?” Joyce asked worriedly.
“Only if you want to piss Buffy off more,” Willow advised. “She knows what she’s doing, which is more than I can say for you two.”
Joyce and Giles started, surprised by the redhead’s harsh tone and forwardness. It surprised Willow, too, but she continued, “She likes Spike, and he likes her. Are you completely blind?”
“I wish I were,” Giles muttered dourly, slipping his fingers beneath his glasses to rub at his eyes.
“But… Drusilla,” Joyce reminded the girl. “William’s completely devoted to her. Buffy’s setting herself up for another heartbreak if this continues. I just can’t let that happen and, frankly, I’m shocked at you. As Buffy’s friend, you shouldn’t be encouraging her, knowing it can only end one way—with William leaving and Buffy shattered. I’m really disappointed in you, Willow. I thought you had better judgement.”
Willow bristled. As if she’d do anything to intentionally hurt Buffy. “What are you talking about? Spike and Dru broke up before he even got here!” the girl blurted out, her indignation getting the better of her. “So there doesn’t have to be shattering and leaving, there could be hearts and roses—unless you two drive him away first,” she charged vehemently.
“What?”
“Oh, dear Lord.”
Seeing the shocked expressions on the adults’ faces Willow flushed, her shoulder’s slumped, and her anger melted into chagrin. “Oops.”
STORY BOARDS
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link: https://flic.kr/p/2kZkhLo
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link: https://flic.kr/p/2kZmM7W
End Notes:
Well—you guys wanted Joyce to know... she knows. What will happen now? And why didn’t Spike want Buffy to go with him... what is he up to?
Lucy – Dog Germs: https://youtu.be/pq9hBEvFNlM
A shuttlecock (also called a bird or birdie) is a high-drag projectile used in the sport of badminton.
Thank you so much for reading and for your patience as I try to catch up with your wonderful comments! I thought things would slow down a bit for me, but so far no luck with that. But I’ll get there – I love reading all your notes! They keep me incredibly inspired!
Thanks also to my wonderful beta readers and friends: All4Spike, Paganbaby, and TeamEricNSookie. Holi117 has switched to a pre-reader, which I’m so happy she’s finding time for that. All mistakes are mine because I keep fiddling with stuff. If you see any, PM me and I’ll fix it.
Chapter 33: A Deal is a Deal
Chapter Text
Chapter Notes:
What is Spike up to? Time to find out!
Chapter 33: A Deal is a Deal
Spike is single. He’s left Dru.
‘This changes things,’ thought both Giles and Joyce as they stood in the foyer watching the embarrassed Willow scurry out the door and clamber into Oz’s van, which had just pulled up in front of the house.
Giles was the first one to put voice to his thoughts. “I believe it’s vital, for Buffy’s sake, to send Spike on his way as soon as possible. Perhaps even a disinvite spell would be warranted, just to make the point perfectly clear to him.”
Joyce turned astonished eyes on the man, who leaned heavily on his cane, trying to take weight off his injured leg. “Why would you say that?”
“Well, it seems obvious. He’s kept the fact of his break with Drusilla a secret—at least from you and I. We do not know why he’s done this, but I think we can assume his reasons wouldn’t be for our benefit. If Buffy reveals her feelings for him, he’ll undoubtedly find a way to use it against her—take advantage of her weakness.”
“You think having feelings for someone is a weakness?” Joyce asked, her voice turning brittle.
“For someone, no. For something, yes. It’s proven to quite a weakness. If I may remind you of Angelus—”
“Spike is not Angel,” Joyce insisted.
“No, he’s got no soul to lose. He is, in fact, worse than Angel. He’d have no qualms about taking advantage of Buffy, twisting her heart and mind until it’s shredded,” Giles contended, meeting Joyce’s eyes unwaveringly.
“Spike has never shown the slightest desire to do any such thing,” Joyce pointed out. “In fact, he’s done the complete opposite at every opportunity. Including, I might add, saving your life.”
“And look at the milage he’s got out of it! You and Buffy have both been fawning over him ever since. He knew it wouldn’t dust him—”
“It may very well have!” Joyce interrupted.
“He had no knowledge of the wooden bullets when he made that decision,” Giles shot back, the two toe-to-toe now, both barely restraining their anger.
“What about the decision to fight Kralik to save me? Or the decision to come here in the first place when Buffy and I called him? I’ve seen nothing that makes me distrust William in the slightest. I’m disappointed that he lied—”
Giles let out an indelicate snort. “Disappointed that a vampire lied to you? Just exactly what do you think they are, Sunday school teachers? They’re soulless demons! Lying is the least of their sins.”
“I think you’ve let your guilt over Angelus color your judgement,” Joyce accused.
“And I think it bloody well should color my judgement!” Giles agreed. “I let Buffy down. I should not have allowed—”
“And just how did you think you could’ve stopped it?” Joyce challenged, her voice acerbic.
“Well, in hindsight, dusting Angel would’ve been the sane choice, I believe, considering the consequences.”
“And just what do you think that would’ve accomplished? Buffy’s heart would’ve still been shredded—perhaps more so, because she would’ve lost you, too. She’d never have been able to forgive you if you’d done that... especially before... before Angelus.”
“And now that’s all come to pass anyway, hasn’t it? It’s clear she’ll not forgive me my sins. And Jenny’s still dead!”
They were both breathing hard, faced off against each other in the ravaged foyer, the door standing open to the night. They remained that way for several long moments, the tension thick between them before Joyce broke the silence. “I’m sorry about Jenny,” she said quietly, really meaning it. “I know you loved her, and I know you feel a heavy weight of guilt for her death, but the only one to truly blame for it is Angel. Angel had decades to learn more about the curse, you only had a few months. And Spike’s theory, along with the research Buffy and Willow have done, well... it seems like maybe the whole situation had been contrived to free him of it. If that’s true, then there truly is no one to blame but Angel.”
Giles dropped his gaze, looking down at the floor, shaking his head slowly. He could feel the heaviness of that loss still, like a cold, lead weight in his chest. His leg ached, throbbing with the rapid pounding of his heart, and the corset-type contraption they’d wrapped around his broken ribs dug into his flesh like a medieval torture device.
“Rupert,” Joyce entreated, reaching a hand out to touch his shoulder gently. “Please believe me when I say that you will earn Buffy’s trust again. She loves you—she’s never stopped. But if you do anything to Spike, if you drive him away or, heaven forbid, attempt to dust him, if you try to interfere with her life like that, you’ll lose her for good.”
Giles rolled his eyes to the ceiling before closing them against the tide of emotion swirling inside him.
“She’s an adult now,” Joyce continued. “She’s going to make her own decisions, and you and I would both be fools to try and do more than offer advice if she asks for it, and keep our mouths shut if she doesn’t.”
He opened his eyes and looked back at the woman. “So, you intended to allow Spike to remain your... guest?”
Joyce shrugged. “I intend to speak to him about the situation and see what he says. Then I guess we’ll see.”
“I’m not certain that is the wisest choice,” Giles advised as he started limping for the door. “But, of course, it’s not up to me.”
“No. It’s not,” Joyce agreed, following him to the threshold.
“I hope, for all our sakes, that your decisions turn out better than mine have,” he said without turning back as he started down the porch stairs.
Joyce pursed her lips, closing the door behind him with a sigh. “Me too,” she whispered to the empty house.
* X-X *
Though Spike had known when he’d jumped in front of that gun that it would hurt like a royal buggering, he hadn’t quite been prepared for the level of agony that had come with the bullets. He was no stranger to pain, of course, but he hated feeling so… impotent, helpless. So, now, the absolute lack of pain was like a drug, carrying him forward, lifting him up onto the downtown rooftops, and sending him soaring across the streets and alleys between with unbridled glee.
Buffy had helped him when he’d needed it, and though that might be considered simply making them even for him saving the Watcher, Spike wanted to do something for her now, something to repay her kindnesses. Plus, her non-birthday bash was coming up and he intended to make sure it was the best sodding National Hot Chocolate Day the girl had ever had.
He’d been surprised and touched by her offer to come with him tonight—but then, she was getting good at surprising him. Hot and cold. Up and down. Off and on. She could never stay on one setting long enough for him to get a read on her. If he was doing nothing but going for some air, he would’ve been chuffed to have her along, but this was a mission, and she couldn’t know. Not yet. Not until it was the perfect time.
And, with any luck, it might even nudge Buffy’s pinballing attitude toward him into a steady groove that was solidly in his favor and extend his guest status a while longer, even beyond the upcoming party. It couldn’t hurt, at any rate. And he was doing as the wolf had suggested, setting out the catnip and backing away. This whole night was killing a whole flock o’ nasty little birds with one bloody big rock.
Spike came to a stop atop the Sun Cinema, the light from its bright neon sign casting a green haze over the rooftop. As he dropped down off the roof, out of that glow and into the murky side alley, he wished he had his duster on. He looked bloody cool doing that with his duster—like a proper supervillain… or superhero, he supposed. Hmm, William the Bloody Hero? What had the strumpet said? ‘Saving Happy Meals from evil since 1998.’ Certainly not his character— at least it hadn’t been for over a century—but would it be so bad if it meant being around Buffy?
Spike sauntered around the corner and into the grubby lobby of the cinema. The aroma of years of popcorn, fake butter, Twizzlers, and mustard slathered on burned hotdogs assailed him as he came through the door. He had to stop breathing lest he be overwhelmed by the miasma that permeated the place. He looked around and found what he was looking for—what he’d looked up in the phone book while Joyce had gone back out to the car to retrieve the rest of the shopping. He headed over to the small office off to one side. The sign beside the door read, ‘Admit One Ticket Gallery.’ Then, below that, ‘Ticket Broker. Tickets for all your entertainment needs’.
Spike pulled the door open and stepped in. It was the size of a broom closet, but it was large enough for the small man who sat behind a miniscule desk, barely large enough to hold a computer and a printer. There was just enough room left over for two chairs for customers—providing the customers weren’t very tall, otherwise their knees would hit the desk. Luckily, Spike wasn’t too tall, so he took one of the seats.
“How may I help you?” the balding man asked, looking up from his computer screen with watery, blue eyes.
“Need some tickets… you can get ‘em for anywhere yeah? L.A. or San Fran?”
“Certainly,” the man relied. “We can procure tickets for any event worldwide—providing they are on our network, which most major venues are. Just what are you looking for?”
Spike grinned, leaned forward eagerly, and told him.
* X-X *
With one of his errands completed, Spike settled onto the roof of the Bronze where he could hear and even feel the music pulsing below him. The bass drummed through him like a heartbeat, spreading up from where he sat on the gravel roof and engulfing him. It made him think of Buffy, of the strong beat of her heart against him when he’d had the pleasure of holding her. Of course, it wasn’t like Buffy at all—this steady rhythm—it was too constant, with none of those erratic stutters or leaps her heart made. And the cold, hard roof was the furthest he could get from the soft warmth of the Slayer… his Slayer.
His Slayer. That was what this mission was about, and he needed to get back to it. Spike pulled out his cell phone and the yellow page he’d ripped out of the Slayer’s phone book. He started at the top, dialing the first number.
“AAA Travel Lodge, Sunnydale,” a bored, androgynous voice answered.
“Yeah, connect me with Lydia Chalmers’ room, if ya don’t mind.”
There was a pause, then, “I’m sorry, we don’t have a guest by that name.”
Spike ended the call and tried the next one.
“Best Western, Sunnydale.” This time the voice was more cheerful and clearly female.
Spike made the same request and was met with the same response. He hung up and tried again. Surely the bint was in a hotel and hadn’t rented a sodding house.
He finally got to, “The Edna May House, how may I assist you this evening?”
This voice was very male and very proper. Spike smirked, knowing he’d found the right place before even asking. Of course, the Council wouldn’t put their people up in one o’ the run-of-the-mill motor lodges. Too sodding dignified for that rubbish.
“Connect me with Lydia Chalmers’ room, if ya don’t mind.”
“One moment, please,” came the polite reply and in a moment the phone had begun ringing.
The familiar feminine voice answered, “Hello?” a moment later.
Spike grinned and ended the call. He checked the address on the listing then climbed back to his feet, stuffing the phone and the page back into the pocket of his jeans. In a moment he was heading toward The Edna May House out near Kingman’s Bluff, and his second objective of the evening.
* X-X *
Buffy’s coppery-shadow didn’t have to be told what to do as they hit the sidewalk in front of the house—track. The dog’s nose snuffled at the ground up and down at the end of the walk for a few moments, then picked up the most recent scent, and off he went. Buffy jogged behind him looking for all the world like a girl out exercising her dog—even if the dog was the size of a small horse—not a Guardian and a Slayer tracking a master vampire.
Despite her conviction that Spike wouldn’t just end the truce without telling her, Willow’s question haunted the Slayer. What if he decided that getting a snack from the Happy Meals on legs was somehow okay, as long as he didn’t do it in front of her? He was a vampire, after all, and her track record on trying to understand how they thought was less than stellar.
She just needed to find him and see what he was up to. And what if he was snacking on the local population? A knot of sharp, painful icicles formed in her stomach—she’d have to dust him. Buffy had assured Travers she could handle Spike, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t rip through her insides as surely as a chainsaw.
So much for all her efforts to stay detached. Clearly, that boat had sailed, capsized, and sunk.
* X-X *
The Edna May House turned out to be a large Victorian house turned B&B nestled on a manicured acre of land overlooking the bluff, marina, and ocean on one side, and proper English gardens on the other three. The wrap-around porch on the first floor supported a balcony on the second, all festooned with planters full of ferns and ivy, Ficus trees, and peace lilies. The only thing ‘off’ about the English garden theme were the palm trees and other tropical plants scattered around the grounds.
Though the house had been modernized, the plaque near the main entrance indicated that it was built in 1903 by Richard Wilkins, the founder of Sunnydale, for his beloved wife, Edna May.
Finding Miss Chalmers would be easier than Spike thought. The place was relatively small—there couldn’t be more than ten or twelve rooms—and it appeared they all opened onto either the porch or balcony. It was likely he wouldn’t even have to go through the main entrance to knock on her door. He slid off into the shadow of a hanging planter full of brightly blooming petunias, and redialed the number for the B&B, once again requesting to be connected to Lydia’s room. He kept the line open this time, but took it away from his ear, allowing him to listen to the ambient sounds better.
From above and to the back of the house he heard a phone ringing. An easy leap took him up onto the second-floor balcony and a swift dash had him at the back of the house. Another ring of the phone allowed him to pin down which room it was—the last one—the one with the best views of both the marina, the ocean, and the grounds. Of course. Spare no expense.
Well, he was about to find out just how much expense they were willing to not spare.
* X-X *
“Hello?” Lydia’s voice came one moment from the room and, after a beat or two, from the phone in Spike’s hand. Spike flipped the phone closed and slipped it back into his pocket as he tried the door. He smirked. ‘This was just too sodding easy,’ he thought as the knob turned in his fingers and the French door swung open.
“Hello, gorgeous,” he replied from a few feet behind the woman, who had changed out of her work attire and into her night clothes. She wore a fluffy white robe over… Spike focused on the little he could see sticking out from beneath the robe—yes, it was absolutely a flannel nightgown, something fit for Paul Bunyan’s wife.
Lydia spun around, dropping the phone in her shock. Her blonde hair was out of its bun and flew wildly around her disbelieving face, her glasses discarded. “You… you… can’t!” she stuttered, diving for her bag on the dresser.
Spike snorted and casually closed the glass door behind him. “Hotel, pet—not a proper home. Got no threshold,” he informed her as he jerked the curtains closed over the door. You’d think the sodding Council would know that. Was a bloody wonder any Slayer lived beyond a month or two as ill-informed as they were.
When he turned back around, Lydia had her glasses back on and a large wooden cross held out in front of her. “It wasn’t my fault! It was that little witch,” she defended, her hand shaking as she valiantly fended off the vampire with the religious symbol. “I had no idea she was so ill-trained. I blame Mr. Giles for that. If anyone is to pay for this mistake, it should be them.”
Spike smiled and hooked his thumbs over his belt buckle, unfazed by the cross or the stake she blindly fumbled out of the bag with her other hand.
“Not here for retribution, pet,” he assured her as he began wandering slowly around the room, looking it over as if he were thinking of renting it himself. “Came t’ discuss business.”
Lydia didn’t move, but turned her body as he roamed, keeping the cross between them, the stake clutched tightly in her right hand. “B-Business?” she questioned.
Spike dropped onto his back on the bed, bouncing a few times before coming to rest, his boots leaving black marks on the antique chenille spread. “Pillowtop. Nice,” he remarked as he folded his arms beneath his head and looked at her.
“W-What do you want? I assure you I will not… I am not… that type of person,” she stammered, her blue eyes luminous behind her glasses.
Spike grinned. “Aren’t you, then?” he wondered. “Seemed right keen on an interview with William the Bloody. Seems like a little tit-for-tat would be in order.”
“Tit…” the woman repeated, blinking, her already racing heart accelerating into a full gallop. “…for tat?”
“Thought you did your thesis on me, luv. Must know I’m not one t’ just give away my secrets. Nothing comes for free.”
“Comes,” Lydia repeated breathily, her mouth going dry.
“Gotta be a little give and take, back and forth, I scratch your back, you scratch my…” He ran his tongue over his teeth suggestively and shrugged. “Well, I’m sure we can find something for you to scratch.”
The woman blinked and took a step back, trying to close her robe even tighter while still holding to her weapons. “I… I’m really not that sort of person.”
“So, you want me to wag my tongue, but you’re not willin’ to do anything with yours?” Spike wondered, releasing one hand from behind his head and sliding it down his body to come to rest on his zipper. “Thought you liked me, pet.”
A startled, little ‘eep’ escaped Lydia’s throat as her eyes followed the track of his hand and her heart stumbled in its headlong sprint, lurching and crashing against her ribs. All she could do was shake her head now, no more sound could make it past her shock.
Spike shrugged and was on his feet again in the space of one of her erratic heartbeats. “Right then, how about cash… merry bushels of it? You that kinda person?”
Another blink. Her hands were both sweating and trembling, making her grip on the cross and stake tenuous. “C-cash?”
“Cash, dosh, dinero, sterling, dollars, even Krugerrands would do,” he clarified. “Lots and lots of it. And maybe some favors due in the future.”
“Favors? W-what type of favors?”
“Some considerations for the Slayer… dunno what exactly, but if something comes up and she needs a friend on the Council—you step up.”
“C-Council... favors. N-Not... err... any other types of... favors?”
Spike grinned at her lecherously. “Thought you weren’t that type o’ person,” he rumbled, his blue eyes blazing.
Lydia flushed then paled. “I am not... quite not... that is, I mean, quite right.”
Spike turned the ‘come hither’ down a notch or two. “So, Council favors and cash—” he reminded her.
“H-how much cash?”
Spike shrugged as he began prowling around the room again, surveying the carpet, the wallpaper, the furniture, even the bath—just calmly taking it all in. “What’s the damage for a room like this?” he wondered, looking up at her finally.
“Uh… four-hundred a night.”
Spike brows shot up. “American?” he squeaked.
“It includes a buffet breakfast and a proper tea… a-and a wine tasting in the evening,” Lydia added hastily.
“Ah, well, then, that makes all the difference, doesn’t it?”
Lydia’s heart had slowed back to a trot, though she still followed his slow progress around the room, turning her body to face him with each step. She was sure his question was rhetorical and didn’t bother answering.
“So, what do you reckon a trip around the world would cost, assumin’ this level o’ luxury? Maybe on the QE2 or some such. You know, with the breakfast and tea and wine tasting? Maybe some o’ those fancy chocolates on the pillow at night.”
“I—I don’t really know,” Lydia admitted.
Spike stopped his perusal of the suite and turned to face her fully, now only about five feet between them. He could be on her in a second, have her disarmed and dead in the next. But that wasn’t what he wanted, not at all.
“Tell ya what, Miss Chalmers,” Spike said in a perfectly reasonable tone. “You get quotes on that, yeah? A proper trip around the world in the manner to which you’ve become accustomed.” He waved a hand around at the room in illustration. “Then multiply it by…” He stopped to think a moment. Buffy was one. Joyce was two. He would make three. The red witch, the handyman, and the wolf-boy would make six. The Watcher would make seven. He frowned at that and subtracted him from the count. He considered subtracting the handyman, but in the end settled on, “Six. Plus an enormous dog. Best call it ten, just to be safe.”
“Money enough to cover ten trips around the world...” Lydia repeated dazedly. “Including a dog.”
Spike gave her a sharp nod. “Now you’ve got it. And a favor or three for the Slayer in the future—unspecified.”
Lydia’s brows furrowed, her brain finally starting to get enough oxygen to begin working properly. “I—I don’t believe they allow animals on cruise ships,” she pointed out.
Spike waved it off. “Let me worry ‘bout that—you just worry about the dosh and the favors.”
Lydia’s mind had started turning over possibilities, calculating risks and rewards, her years of training finally overcoming her shock and fear. “So, to make sure I understand. You want to trade an interview for a trip around the world for the Slayer and her friends?”
“And her big, slobbering hound,” Spike confirmed. “Unless you’d like t’ make payment the old-fashioned way,” he suggested, wagging his brows at her as his tongue peeked out from between his lips.
Lydia flushed, her heart lurching again. It was one thing to crush on a vampire from afar, or even up close, and another thing entirely to be called upon to make good on her flirtations. She’d read too many accounts of how getting intimate with vampires ended, and though it might be a perfectly wonderful way to die, she had no desire to stop breathing just yet. “I… no, I think… cash would be preferable. But why would you do such a thing for the Slayer? Not just the Slayer, but her… Sku-bees, I presume?” she wondered, letting the cross drop a bit as her arm started getting tired.
Spike shrugged nonchalantly. “Seems like someone should do something for ‘er. Not like you lot will.”
“And that someone is William the Bloody, Slayer of Slayers?” she asked, her head tilting, her eyes now bright and considering.
“Don’t be so shocked. Made deals with the Slayer before. Just upping the ante, aren’t I?”
“Yes, but on those prior occasions, the deals were for your benefit,” Lydia pointed out. “The rumors we heard indicated that both previous truces were made in order to assure the safety of your long-time paramour, Drusilla the Mad. Of course, Mr. Giles’ diaries obfuscated the circumstances, but his letters to Robson confirmed this.”
Spike stiffened at Dru’s moniker. He hated people calling her that, despite the accuracy of the description. “Not the only reason,” Spike insisted with a sniff. “Helped the Slayer save the world the first time, didn’t I? A world I’m rather fond of, if I’m honest. And got her that fleabag of a mutt in the process. Second time was just as much for Cujo’s safety as Dru’s.”
“Fascinating,” Lydia breathed, momentarily forgetting the danger and turning her back on the vampire as she dropped her weapons on the polished mahogany dresser and retrieved her journal and a pen. “It’s been years since…” She stopped suddenly, realizing her stupidity. She spun back around, adrenaline pumping again, only to find that Spike hadn’t moved.
“Years since what?” he asked, his head canted curiously, thumbs hooked in the front pockets of his jeans.
Lydia backed up until her butt hit the dresser, bringing the cross and stake within reach. As if she could actually reach them before his fangs were buried in her flesh. She cleared her throat. “There have been accounts of vampires… assisting Slayers before, working with them… even becoming…”
Spike waited; his brows raised. Finally, he prompted, “Becoming?”
“Err, well, lovers,” she admitted, once again tugging at her robe to make sure it fully covered her flannel gown beneath.
Spike’s dead heart turned over in his chest. He wasn’t the only vampire to be attracted to a Slayer? He wasn’t a deviant? An aberration? And these other Slayers had reciprocated? “That so?” he asked carefully.
The woman nodded jerkily, holding her journal up against her chest like a shield. “The last one I recall hearing about was in Ireland in 1882. Catherine Doyle. Her Watcher called her Cat, and apparently that name fit her skills—very stealthy, agile, and bright. Much like you gave to Buffy, she received assistance from a vampire to avert an apocalypse. Apparently, the vampire’s former family—his mother and siblings—lived quite near what was to be the epicenter, and he came to her with information she needed to be successful in order to protect them... to avert the danger.”
“And did she?” Spike wondered.
“Indeed, yes. From the reports, the vampire—his name was Patrick Quinn—continued to assist her after that. The Watcher had been unaware of the relationship that had developed until sometime later when they moved to London, only to find that Patrick had followed.”
“What happened to them?” the vampire pressed, taking a step toward the woman.
Lydia slid a step away, her back still against the hard wood of the chest of drawers. “They, uh… well, they remained lovers and allies for some years until she was killed in London in 1887. From the few details our operatives could garner from the Watcher, her family, and locals, it had been a routine patrol. There... there seemed to be several attackers, based on one eyewitness, and confirmed by the injuries. She didn’t go easily… or quickly. They kept her alive for some hours before she was finally drained. She... she’d been quite badly abused in that time.”
“Where was the sodding mick?” Spike demanded, taking another step toward the woman, his hands dropping into fists at his sides.
Lydia paled, realizing she was backing herself into a corner. Her eyes darted around, trying to find a route of escape other than crawling over the bed.
Recognizing her distress, Spike stopped in mid-stride and, instead, took a step back, holding his hands out. “Just tell me—where the fuck was the Irish bugger?”
The woman cleared her throat, feeling only slightly better. “Patrick had gone back to Ireland to check on his family. When he came back, it was all over. She was dead and buried. Her Watcher had… he had beheaded her prior to burial as a precaution.”
“Bloody hell,” Spike growled, his knuckles popping as his hands curled into even tighter fists. He closed his eyes, trying to calm down. It wasn’t Buffy. That wouldn’t happen to Buffy. He’d bloody well make sure of it.
“He, Patrick that is, hunted them down—the clan that attacked her,” Lydia continued. “I’m sure you’ve heard of the Theatre Royal fire in London in 1887. Nearly two-hundred people lost their lives, and an unknown number of vampires perished as well. Including Patrick, who remained inside, blocking their escape.”
Spike opened his eyes, flashes of gold gleaming in the blue. “Good on him.”
“Not so good for the innocent bystanders who were just out for an evening’s entertainment,” Lydia pointed out huffily.
Spike shrugged, unconcerned. “Worth it, long as he got the bastards.”
“Fascinating,” Lydia repeated, once again lost in her thoughts as she opened her journal and began scribbling down notes.
“What’s so fucking fascinating?” Spike demanded, narrowing his gaze.
“Well, if circumstances were different, that might’ve been you being hunted and burned in that fire, in retribution for one of the Slayers you’ve murdered. And yet, you’re cheering their demise—these vampires who are just like you.”
“Not like me,” Spike barked angrily, making Lydia jump. “Don’t hunt Slayers in sodding mobs. Bloody cowards killed that Slayer. You fight Slayers fair and square, one on one, just you and them. You look it up in your bloody books,” he told her, jabbing a finger at her journal. “Slayers I’ve fought—the ones I killed—just them and me. No tricks. No family backin’ me up. Vampire. Slayer. Nothing more. How it’s supposed t’ be.”
Lydia’s eyes sparkled and a smile curved her lips for the first time since Spike had come in. “I don’t have to check, I already know. It’s all in my thesis.”
“Yeah, well… then don’t be sayin’ I’m like those tossers,” he insisted, his voice softening as he began to pace back and forth across the spacious room.
“My apologies, Mr. Bloody,” she offered with a nod. “So…” She cleared her throat. “This interview you’re offering in exchange for cash and… Council favors. It would need to be quite in-depth for that price. Several sessions, perhaps many hours. Is that… agreeable?”
Spike stopped his pacing and looked at her. He’d nearly forgotten his whole mission, having become too caught up in the story of Cat and Patrick, and in realizing that maybe he wasn’t the only vampire in history to feel this way about a Slayer. “Got a couple more demands,” he replied. “Want all the details you’ve got on other vampire and Slayer, er, partnerships. Or any vamps making any truces with Slayers… switching sides, or whatnot.”
Lydia hesitated. While she was working to gain entrance into the elite and highly secretive inner-circle of the Archival Research Unit—to gain her Archival Research Inquisitor, First Class, status— she did not yet have it, and did not have access to the files contained in there. But her father did. He’d been working in that division for decades, which is how she knew about these illicit pairings. Watchers were hesitant to report them outright in their diaries or even in post-mortems or debriefings, but there were always rumors, personal letters—and now emails—between friends, clues to be found if one looked. And the Archival Research Unit looked, piecing clues together, trying to understand this unholy phenomenon that no one spoke of openly. Lydia had overheard her father on the phone discussing cases—she made a point of overhearing him—a couple of times she’d even found unguarded files on his desk at home, so she knew. And now she had a vampire—not just any vampire, but one whose history she’d researched thoroughly—standing in front of her offering her firsthand insight into this peculiarity. Insight that could get her on the fast track to First Class status, perhaps even a promotion to the Chief’s position.
“All right,” Lydia agreed, keeping her calm demeanor firmly in place, despite her inner eagerness. “Anything else?”
“Buffy’s working on a theory about Angelus… Angel,” he began.
“Yes, I’ve heard. That the perfect happiness must come from a Slayer to break the curse,” she offered.
Spike nodded. “Give her access to whatever journals or whatnot that she needs t’ get that sorted. Help her out if she needs it.”
“So, enough cash for ten luxury trips around the world, free access for Buffy to all diaries and journals, and an unknown number of ‘favors’ from me regarding Council business in the future… You’re asking for quite a lot,” Lydia pointed out. “I’m not certain that even you are worth that.”
Spike snorted. “Should’a dropped the linen earlier, sweets. You wouldn’t have any doubt what I’m worth.”
Lydia’s blush returned, setting her cheeks aflame, and she once again tugged nervously at her already closed robe. “Perhaps you could add something else to the deal. Information about the Master… Darla, Drusilla, Angelus? Having a glimpse into the inner workings of the Order of Aurelius could be quite a boon for me. And, of course, the more I succeed at the Council, the more my favor would be worth in the future.”
Spike considered a moment, then shrugged. “No skin off my nose.”
“I will need a promise from you that all questions will be answered truthfully and fully,” she continued, her research and analytic training kicking in.
“I get the right t’ refuse ten questions,” he bartered.
“Three.”
“Three!?” he repeated indignantly. “What bloody school o’ negotiation did you go to?”
“The winning one,” she replied with a confident smile.
“Seven,” he countered. “Last offer.”
“Three,” she repeated, not wavering.
Spike rolled his whole head up to the ceiling, huffing out a disgusted breath. “Fine. Five.”
“Three.”
“Bloody hell, woman! You’re killin’ me here!”
“You’re already dead. Ten luxury trips around the world… including a dog. That doesn’t come cheaply, I’m afraid.”
“Bloody hell,” Spike spat. “Fine, three.”
Lydia’s smile widened. “One more thing.”
Spike sighed, rolling his eyes to the ceiling, waiting.
“Anything you could to do pave the way for me to conduct my inspections of the Slayer’s facilities, and interviews with Miss Summers and her friends would garner some appreciation and consideration in the reciprocation of favors at a future date.”
“Help you get in good with the Slayer?” he summarized.
Lydia shrugged. “It is for her own benefit, assuring a smooth transition to the new Watcher.”
“Can’t make her like you... she’s a right bitch and she holds a grudge,” he pointed out.
“I don’t need her to like me, I simply need her to work with me.”
Spike pursed his lips thinking for a moment, but then nodded. “Okay, got a deal. Want it all in writing—and no mucking about with double-crossing lawyer-talk. Need it sealed in blood, too—no namby-pamby biros. And I wanna see the brochures and whatnot for these trips, all the bells and whistles spelled out—no ‘Europe on a Dime’ bollocks.”
Lydia nodded and began writing things down in her journal again. “I will likely have to run this past the Chief Financial Officer to have this type of expenditure approved.”
“Don’t want that git Travers involved. Those favors won’t do a lick o’ good if he knows about them in advance. Find a way to counter ‘em if he does.”
The woman frowned and looked up, her pen poised over the page, considering. “Fair point,” she agreed. “I’ll file it as a confidential contract with the CFO. She’s not involved in the day-to-day policies or operations, apart from approving expenditure requests. She’s not part of the… political realm that Mr. Travers inhabits, and would have no real means to use any such knowledge herself. It’s not an unusual request.”
Spike pursed his lips but finally nodded. “Get her blood on it too, then,” he stipulated. “Half the dosh up front,” he continued. “Another quarter at the halfway point. The rest when we’re done. No more than… twenty hours. And I want sodding cash on the barrelhead. No mucking about with checks or IOUs.”
“Eighty hours—two typical workweeks,” Lydia countered. “And we have a deal.”
“Eighty!? Have you gone barmy?”
Lydia shrugged. “Sixty then,” she acquiesced. “What you’re asking for is not cheap or easily acquired. Especially the favors.”
Spike’s lips thinned, his hands planted on his hips, thinking.
“It’s just time,” the woman pointed out, glancing up at him. “Which you have an unlimited supply of.”
Spike rolled his eyes. “Fine. Sixty hours.”
“Excellent,” she muttered, still making notes.
“Oh, and the Slayer knows nothing about this, got it? I’ll tell her in my own time after I’ve got the dosh.”
Lydia nodded, looking up at him. “The Council’s training in keeping secrets is second to none. I shan’t breathe a word to the Slayer.”
“Or anyone else!” Spike insisted.
“Or anyone else,” she agreed.
“A deal is a deal,” the vampire insisted as she began writing again. “No take backs. If something happens to me, Buffy still gets everything I’ve earned—break it down by the hour. And if you renege on any o’ this, you can be sure I’ll track you down and take the rest of your blood.”
Lydia swallowed hard, but nodded resolutely, feeling that promotion to not only to First Class status, but to Chief Archival Research Inquisitor, coming closer by the moment.
STORY BOARD
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link: https://flic.kr/p/2kZEn5q
End Notes:
Theatre Royal: A fire on 5 September 1887 became the worst theatre fire in British history. The fire broke out backstage where gas lighting ignited some gauze. The number of exits from the gallery of the auditorium proved to be inadequate, and in the resultant panic amongst the audience, 186 people died.
The Edna May House is actually The Simpson House Inn in Santa Barbara: https://www.simpsonhouseinn.com/photos.html
Back to the regular posting schedule next week – Thursday and Saturday.
Thank you so much for reading and for your patience as I try to catch up with your wonderful comments! I thought things would slow down a bit for me, but so far no luck with that. But I’ll get there – I love reading all your notes! They keep me incredibly inspired!
Thanks also to my wonderful beta readers and friends: All4Spike, Paganbaby, and TeamEricNSookie. Holi117 has switched to a pre-reader, which I’m so happy she’s finding time for that. All mistakes are mine because I keep fiddling with stuff. If you see any, PM me and I’ll fix it.
Chapter 34: Relationship Status: Single
Chapter Text
Chapter Notes:
Thanks so much for your patience and your well wishes! Turns out I had no reaction at all to the second COVID vaccine (Pfizer), I could’ve posted as normal, but better safe than sorry, right? Onwards!
Chapter 34: Relationship Status: Single
Buffy scowled at her furry companion as they trudged back up to the house a few hours later. “I can’t believe you let him get away,” she muttered dourly.
Spike whined and hung his head even lower, if that was possible.
“Stupid vampire using the roofs,” she grumbled. “How is that even fair?”
Spike huffed his agreement as they mounted the front porch steps.
Buffy really hoped that all her doubts about Spike were unwarranted. She thought they were, but there was just the smallest bit of doubt that she couldn’t quite shake. Despite everything he’d done, Spike was a vampire and vampires snacked on the populace as a matter of course. And why else would he not want her to tag along? Why would he travel across the rooftops, never seeming to touch down on the ground for blocks and blocks? What else could he be up to other than the proverbial ‘no good’?
She opened the door and the dog shuffled in, heading for his water and food in the kitchen. She stopped and took her coat off, hanging it on the rack by the door.
“Buffy, finally,” Joyce said from the living room, rising from her seat on the sofa. “How was your… air?”
“Very airy with a hint of bus exhaust and rancid dumpster fumes,” Buffy replied, stepping toward her mom.
“How are you feeling?” Joyce asked next, coming toward the foyer.
Buffy shrugged. “Annoyed with one bleached vampire who apparently doesn’t need to set foot on the ground to move around downtown. Otherwise, okay… as long as I don’t touch the side of my head, anyway.”
“Good, because we need to have a serious talk,” her mother informed her. “Would you prefer kitchen or living room?”
Buffy frowned. What had she done now? “And the subject matter of this talk would be...?”
“Lying to your mother about Spike’s relationship status.”
Buffy’s stomach dropped out, her guts turning to water, as her mouth formed an ‘O’. “How… how did you…”
“How I found out isn’t the issue. The issue is that you both lied to me about it, and I’d like to know why.”
Buffy sighed and headed past her mom towards the living room. The least she could have was a comfortable chair to sit in while she got reamed out. “Spike asked me to,” she answered, plopping down in the easy chair. It felt good to get off her feet. They’d traipsed around downtown for hours looking for Spike, but, apart from him apparently taking in a movie, there’d been no trace of his scent that the dog could find, and Buffy never got any tinglies from her Spidey-senses either.
“That’s not an answer,” Joyce insisted, sitting down on the chair opposite her, the coffee table between them.
Buffy rolled her eyes. “He told me in confidence. We were talking about the postcards and, I don’t know, he got upset by that one with the Patrón on it. He wasn’t going to tell me, but I pretty much forced him to. I said if he wanted us to be friends, then he couldn’t just clam up and not talk to me about stuff. So, he told me… they broke up. Then he kinda freaked, said not to tell you because you’d think he was like Angel and toss him out to keep him away from me. As if I can’t take care of myself,” she scoffed.
“Well, at the time, you couldn’t, as I recall,” Joyce pointed out. “But it’s not your physical self I’m concerned about.”
Buffy looked confused. “What else is there?”
Joyce leaned forward and softened her tone. “Your heart, honey. It’s your heart I’m worried about. I think you’re falling for him and I… well... is that a good idea?”
Buffy dropped her gaze to her hands which were suddenly knotted in her lap. “I thought you liked Spike.”
Joyce sighed. “I do, I just… I don’t want to see you hurt. I know you’re an adult now, and this is really none of my business, but you’ll always be my little girl.”
Buffy looked back up at her mom, her eyes shimmering with barely contained tears. “I don’t think he really likes me that way anyway,” she admitted. “I thought… maybe, but then tonight he just took off and… I don’t know. When he told me about Dru, he said he had no use for a Slayer’s heart. And I’ve really tried to not get attached, but then he’ll do something or say something really sweet or funny or heroic or stupid and…” Buffy sighed miserably, slumping in her chair. “I just don’t know what he’s feeling at all. He’ll probably be gone soon, anyway, so you won’t have to worry about it.”
“Why do you think that?” Joyce wondered.
“Why would I not? What’s he gotten here but stabbed, staked, shot, beat up, electrocuted.… Welcome to my world of pain, would you like to stay a while? We can probably find even more fun and inventive ways to break you,” Buffy mocked. “And that’s not even counting stuff from before – pipe organ to the spine for $200, Alex.”
“Have you told him how you feel?” Joyce asked.
Buffy snorted. “What would that accomplish except to make me look even more pathetic than I already am?”
“You do know that, as a general rule, men can’t read minds, right?” Joyce pointed out. “And most of them can’t even take hints, even if you think you’ve hit them over the head with them. From what I’ve seen, vampire men aren’t any different in that regard.”
Buffy looked back down at her hands. “He said he didn’t want my heart. Why would I just offer it up to him so he could laugh in my face?”
“Well, at least you’d know for sure then, wouldn’t you?” Joyce observed. “You keep saying he doesn’t want your heart, but it sounds like you’ve already given it to him. He just doesn’t know it.”
Buffy propped her elbows on her thighs and dropped her head into her hands despondently. “I’m afraid,” she admitted. “What if… what if I open up and he just laughs? O-or worse, what if he lies and says he cares about me and we have s— we get closer and then he leaves? What if I’m not good enough?”
“Buffy, honey,” Joyce breathed, getting up from her chair and moving over to perch on the coffee table right in front of her daughter. “Where is this coming from? How could you not be good enough? You’re perfect—beautiful and smart and funny and…”
“And the Slayer,” Buffy spat, looking up at her mom. “And that drives them all away. I’ve tried the ‘normal boy’ dating thing and that doesn’t work. I end up nearly getting them killed, and they never understand my strange hours or why I have to bail on them all the time. And I tried the ‘abby-normal’ thing and that worked out really well—all apocalypt-y and heart-breaky. My own father can’t even love me! Why should I expect any other guy to?”
“Oh, Buffy,” Joyce sighed, pulling her daughter into a hug. “Your father is a selfish, heartless man. You can’t take anything he does personally, because he never considers anyone but himself. It’s all smiles and kisses when it suits him—he can be very charming when it’s convenient, but then he just forgets everyone else exists when it’s not. He has no idea what it does to people around him, and I don’t think he cares. I’m so sorry, honey. Please, please don’t take his actions to heart. He’s a narcissist. In his mind, the world revolves around him.”
Buffy’s tears were falling in earnest, soaking into Joyce’s shirt, as she clung to her mother. “I don’t know how else to take things,” she admitted. “They all leave… every man I’ve loved… they leave. Even Giles… look what he did to me, to us.”
“Oh, Buffy,” Joyce repeated, stroking a comforting hand down her daughter’s back, not sure what to say to assure her that the problem wasn’t with her. “I love you so much, honey. I’m so proud of you. You’re an amazing young woman who’s been burdened with so much, but you’ve come through it all even stronger than before. You have to believe that it’s not you that’s not good enough, it’s them. They’re the villains of this piece, baby girl, not you. Never you.”
“You’re my mom… you have to say that,” she asserted through her tears. “There’s got to be something wrong with me.”
“Nothing. Not one single thing,” Joyce contended vehemently. She pushed Buffy back, holding her by the shoulders so she could look into her daughter’s shimmering eyes. “If you never hear another thing I say, hear this: You are perfect. If anyone can’t see that, then they’re blind and they don’t deserve your love.”
Buffy nodded, swiping at her eyes, but Joyce knew she remained unconvinced. “I wish you could see yourself through my eyes, Buffy… or through your friends’ eyes. You don’t see how they look at you, how they respect you and admire you, how just being near you makes them better people.”
Buffy snorted, rolling her eyes away, suddenly unable to look at her mom.
“It’s true!” Joyce argued. “If you’d never met Willow, do you think she’d be who she is today? Able to do these magic spells… she healed Spike.”
“She messed up the healing of Spike,” Buffy argued.
“Well, yes, but in the end, she healed him—like… magic! And Oz, I can see the respect he has for you every time he looks at you. It’s as if he’s trying to live up to your example, to be the kind of person you are by helping others and not giving in to the demon inside him—which he could so easily do, don’t you think?”
Buffy’s chin quivered as she tried to hold everything in. She could only shrug then nod her head shakily in reply.
“And Xander,” Joyce continued. “He’s starting to come into his own, hone his particular talents and find ways to contribute to the cause—and it’s all for you, Buffy. It’s all to help you, to stand by you, because you inspire the best in people. It’s who you are at your core, and it shines on everyone who comes near you.”
Buffy was still shaking her head, tears rolling down her reddened cheeks.
“Okay, what about William? How many vampires have worked with a Slayer and helped stop apocalypses? O-or even called a truce long enough to sit in your living room and discuss it? How many would’ve come to fight at your side when you called them, and stayed to continue fighting even after they’d been injured? Buffy, can’t you see? Can’t you see how you affect everyone around you?”
“Not everyone,” Buffy reminded her.
“Okay, fine. Not everyone. Not your father, who is a pompous ass, and possibly a sociopath. Not Angel… or Angelus, who likely had some ulterior motives to begin with.”
“What about Giles?”
“Mr. Giles made a mistake, and he regrets it deeply. He’s trying everything in his power to redeem himself. I’m not saying you should simply forgive him, but… I feel like he’s truly remorseful and he wants desperately to make it right, and to be someone you’ll be proud of again… someone you’ll trust again.”
Buffy sighed and rubbed at her eyes.
“I love you, Buffy, and your friends love you. You are worthy of love, and one day you’ll find a man who’s worthy of your love. I promise you.”
“How do you know… when you find them? How do you know?” she asked her mom, looking up at her with red-rimmed eyes.
Joyce sighed. “I wish I had the answer to that, honey. I’ve made my share of mistakes, but I feel like there’s someone for everyone, and the universe will bring them to us at the right time.”
Buffy swallowed and nodded, wiping at her face and eyes with her fingers. “Thanks, Mom.”
“What are you going to do about William?”
Buffy shook her head. “I have no idea.” Buffy’s eyes suddenly went wide. “Don’t tell him! Please, promise me you won’t tell him!”
Joyce gave her daughter a sympathetic smile and nodded. “Mother-daughter confidentiality applies. But maybe you should consider just pulling the Band-Aid off and seeing what’s underneath.”
Buffy snorted, wiping her cheeks again. “With my luck, it’s a gaping wound with maggots eating my flesh.”
* X-X *
Spike sauntered in a couple of hours after Buffy and was met with a stern-faced Joyce, just as Buffy had been. “We need to have a talk,” she told him.
Spike’s brows went up. What could he have done now? He hadn’t even been here, for fuck’s sake. “Mind if I have a nosh while we talk? Got a bit peckish while out and about.”
Joyce shrugged and waved a hand toward the kitchen, then followed him down the hall. After he’d set his mug of blood in the microwave and started it spinning, Spike turned around to face Joyce, who was seated at the breakfast bar. With his arms crossed over his chest, his back leaned against the counter, he prompted, “What did ya want to chat about, then?”
“I’d like to know why you lied to me,” she stated flatly.
Spike arched a brow. “Regarding?”
“How many things have you lied to me about?” Joyce challenged, her gaze turning deadly.
Spike would’ve paled if he could’ve. As it was, he ducked his head and ran his palm diffidently across the nape of his neck. “Dru.”
“Dru,” Joyce confirmed.
“Didn’t exactly lie to you,” he excused.
“Don’t split hairs with me, William,” she challenged. “Allowing me to believe an untruth is just as bad as a boldface lie. Now tell me why.”
Spike sighed and the microwave dinged, saving him for the moment. He turned around and retrieved the mug of cow’s blood, then took another few moments to doctor it with one of the new bottles of hot sauce on the counter. He chose the Aka Miso Ghost-Reaper sauce—five out of five flames on the label—‘extremely spicy’—and stirred it up, taking his time answering.
“I didn’t want you to toss me out, thinking I was like Angel,” he admitted finally, still not looking at her. “Not like him… never have been, even when I thought I wanted t’ be, even when I was expected to be, even when… when I’d’a been better off if I was. I just wasn’t.”
He finally turned around, leaving the blood on the counter behind him. “Know it was a daft thing to do—not telling you, but I just… I was bloody terrified.”
“Terrified? Of what?”
Spike sighed heavily and looked up at the ceiling, the muscle in his jaw twitching uncomfortably. “This is… God, I’m such a prat. I can’t do this.”
“Do what? William, just talk to me,” Joyce prompted.
With another deep exhalation of breath from the vampire he finally lowered his gaze back to hers. His words came out in fits and starts, sometimes trembling with nerves. “Never had any friends—not true friends—and… I couldn’t stomach losing you… or Buffy… your friendship, I mean. I’d just lost Dru… just left her. Was alone—truly alone—for the first time in over a century. Couldn’t bear it if I lost you too. The way you were talking about the enormous git, thought you’d just lump me in with him and toss the berk I am out with the bathwater. It terrified me. Can take on monsters and demons, fight Slayers and eat a coupla’ dozen wooden bullets, but losing your friendship… that would do me in.”
Joyce’s eyes softened along with her voice, her posture relaxing. “William, the way friendship works is that you have to be honest with each other,” she advised kindly. “You can’t build friendships on lies, half-truths, and deceptions.”
Spike nodded. “Sorry, pet. Never meant it to happen, it just was out there and then I didn’t know how t’ un-ring the bell.”
Joyce’s mouth twisted into a sympathetic smile. Unfortunately, she’d had that happen to her in the past; she really could relate, even if she wasn’t happy about being deceived. “You’d better drink your blood before it gets cold,” she suggested, tilting her chin at the mug.
Spike nodded again before turning and picking it up.
“How old are you, William?” Joyce asked, her eyes narrowing, scrutinizing him.
“Hundred an’—”
“No, when you were turned, how old were you when you were…”
“A man?”
“You’re still a man. I was going to say ‘alive’,” Joyce corrected.
Spike gave her an appreciative nod. “Twenty-six,” he told her, taking a sip of his blood. His eyes watered a bit as the ghost pepper slid down his gullet, burning off at least one layer of tastebuds from his tongue on the way.
“Were you ever married, have children?” she wondered.
Spike pursed his lips together, looking both abashed and regretful. “Never found the right woman.”
Joyce nodded. “Did you go to college?” she continued.
“College?!” Spike snorted. “P-lease! Do I look like I’ve been to sodding Uni?”
Joyce tilted her head, giving him a skeptical look.
Spike rolled his eyes. “Did Classics at Cambridge,” he revealed. “Was the sort of pathetic wanker who actually studied. Latin and Greek coming outta my arsehole.”
Joyce smiled at his self-deprecating manner. “See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”
Spike scowled. “Harder than you can imagine,” he grumbled. “And if you go spreading that around, I’ll bloody well…”
“Kill me?” Joyce offered lightly.
Spike closed his eyes, his head twisting with the effort of holding his temper, his jaw clenching with frustration. “I’ll bloody well deny it.”
Joyce snorted. “Your secret’s safe with me—that’s the other thing friends do, you know?”
Spike was still scowling but took another drink of his blood. Another set of tastebuds perished in a rain of fire.
“So, since Dru isn’t expecting you back, what are your plans?” she wondered. “And I’d appreciate the full truth, if you don’t mind.”
Spike put the blood down, afraid if he took another drink he might just spontaneously combust. “Like t’ stay on in Sunnydale a bit,” he admitted. “See how things are ‘round here when me and the Slayer aren’t trying to off each other. Know I can’t stay here,” he added hurriedly. “Guest and all… been told polite time limits apply. Maybe find a nice crypt or something in one of the cemeteries.”
“So, you’re planning on continuing the truce indefinitely?” Joyce asked.
Spike shrugged. “If the Slayer’s willing.”
“Do you think you can do that?”
‘If it means staying near Buffy, I bloody well can,’ he thought. Aloud he said, “Reckon so. Maybe I can help the Slayer take out some demons or whatnot… keep Sunnydale safe for Christmas and puppies.”
Joyce nodded. “Do you have… feelings for my daughter?”
Spike froze. Like, completely froze as no living person could. Nothing moved. Not a blink. Not an inhalation. Not a twitch. Not even a heartbeat. Finally, he cleared his throat and turned back around to pick up the hades-level spicy blood. “Why would ya ask that? ‘Course I do, just told ya, we’re friends.”
“Sometimes friendships can develop into more over time. I was just wondering if you thought that was happening between the two of you,” Joyce posited carefully, not wanting to give away anything she’d promised Buffy she wouldn’t.
“Dunno about that, never had any real friends before,” Spike replied carefully, knowing that he was on thin ice, right next to the dangerous precipice of lying to her again. He busied himself by dumping half the blood from the mug down the sink, then refilled it with fresh blood, diluting the pepper sauce, before popping it back in the microwave. “So, how is the Slayer t’night? All healed from Red’s little mishap, I take it?” he asked casually changing the subject, as he watched the mug spin around.
Joyce watched him. Even though he wasn’t looking at her, and she couldn’t read his eyes, the tense set of his shoulders told her there was more he wasn’t saying—and he was doing it very carefully, as if walking a tightrope over a viper pit. She decided to not push him, at least not now. He really was new to all this, and pushing too hard could drive him away, and she was sure that wasn’t what Buffy would want. Joyce didn’t think she wanted that either. She did like Spike and there was no denying he’d saved many lives, including hers and Buffy’s, over the last few days. She’d only suggested he leave to keep Buffy insulated, to keep feelings from developing for a man who was devoted to someone else. But that wasn’t the case anymore—Spike wasn’t with Dru—and it was already too late to stop Buffy’s heart, fearful as it was, from developing feelings for the vampire.
“She seemed to be feeling fine when she and Spike went out for some air earlier,” she answered, allowing the change of subject.
Spike’s brows went up and he spun back around. “When was this?”
“Right after you did… a few minutes after, I guess.”
“And… did she… find any… air?” he stammered worriedly.
“She found air, just couldn’t find you.”
Spike felt himself relax. Thank the devil he’d taken the rooftops or the bloody mutt could’ve tracked him right to the Council’s door. “Why would she be looking for me?”
“Well, it was suggested by more than one person that you might be out hunting and that was why you didn’t want her going along with you.”
“The sodding Watcher, no doubt,” Spike growled. “Told Buffy and I’m telling you: if I end the truce, I’ll let her know—give a proper warning—not just run off and start slaughtering the populace.”
“I think she knows that… she said as much, but…” Joyce shrugged. “It’s her place to worry about these things. It wouldn’t be Buffy if she didn’t.”
The microwave dinged again and Spike removed the mug, stirring it with a spoon before taking a sip. Better, but still felt like a flame thrower got too close to his esophagus. He turned back around to face her, wanting her to see the truth in his words now, see it in his eyes. “No need t’ worry. I’m not sodding Angel… or that bloody Watcher. Not gonna turn on her without warning.”
Joyce nodded. “I hope you won’t turn on her at all. That’s not what friends do, turn on each other. They talk, they share their thoughts and feelings, they’re honest with each other, even if they’re terrified.” There. Hint thrown. See if he can catch it or if he’s just as dull as every other man she’d ever met.
Spike tilted his head, his blue eyes trying to delve beneath the words to the meaning. There was more there than the surface, but he wasn’t sure exactly what it meant. He couldn’t just walk up to the Slayer and tell her he loved her. Bloody ridiculous, that. He’d given Buffy an opening—admitted to wanting her—and she’d run off like a frightened rabbit. What the hell would a declaration of love do? Have her reaching for a stake?
Spike gave up. “Keep that in mind, I will,” he agreed neutrally before downing more of the fiery blood. At least he couldn’t say it was bland.
“Thanks for being honest with me, William,” she allowed. “I hope you’ll continue to, even if it’s difficult sometimes.”
Spike gave her a single nod. “Do my best, pet,” he assured her. Spike’s eyes caught sight of a ‘UC Sunnydale’ brochure on the counter. He tilted his chin toward it. “What’s that then? Slayer decide against going back east?”
Joyce sighed and picked it up. “The Council made the decision for her,” she revealed.
“How’s that?”
“The agreement we came to... for them to leave everyone alone, stop sending these murder squads after us, Buffy would have to continue working with them and she’d have to stay on the Hellmouth. So...” Joyce shrugged. “UC Sunnydale appears to be the only choice.”
“Can’t leave the Hellmouth?” Spike questioned, taking another sip of fire-blood. “Ever?”
He wondered if Lydia knew that—of course she bloody did! Made the deal with him anyway, didn’t she? Knowing the Slayer’d agreed to not leave Sunnyhell. Sodding Council! Not a demon alive or undead spewed more shite than those pillocks.
Another shrug from Joyce. “I suppose short trips would be okay, but she can’t move away.”
“Why the bloody hell would the Slayer agree to that bollocks?” Spike demanded.
Joyce gave a regretful smile. “Because she’s the Slayer and she’s Buffy. She did it to keep us all safe, to keep her friends safe. It’s what she does.”
Spike clenched his jaw in frustration. Of course it was—Buffy was a glorious beacon of loyalty and righteousness. She’d throw herself on any sword to keep her friends and family safe. It was one of the things that drew him to her like a moth to a bonfire. “What if you lot want a holiday or whatnot? Want to go see the Eiffel Tower or Machu Picchu, or have a lay about on a beach in Bora Bora?”
Joyce snorted. “We don’t have the money to do any of that—” she began.
“I’ve got dosh—can get more—whatever you need,” Spike offered.
Joyce gave him a grateful smile. “We couldn’t take your money, Spike.”
“Why the hell not? Something wrong with my money?”
Joyce gave him a slightly frustrated look. “I’m sure your money is fine, but it’s your money. I worked extremely hard to become independent after the divorce, to regain my self-respect and confidence, neither of which were in very good shape after Hank left. I’m not rich, but I’ve managed to take a marginal business and turn it into a profitable one, and one I really enjoy. I’ve been able to buy a nice house in a nice neighborhood—even if it is on the Hellmouth—and make sure my daughter is provided for. It means a lot to me that you’d offer, but my sense of worth, my hard-earned self-respect, means more,” Joyce explained.
Spike scowled because there was no argument he could make against that logic. He’d left Dru for his own self-respect, and he knew how hard that was to achieve... in fact, he was still working on it. It had taken him over a century to find the courage to even try. He sighed and took another sip of his blood. Either his taste buds had died or he was getting used to the burn.
“I do worry about Buffy, though,” Joyce continued confidentially.
“How’s that?”
“Most kids her age have had at least one part time job, a way to earn their own money. She’s never had time to even try to find a paying job. Before I knew about her being the Slayer, I rebuked her for not...” Joyce shook her head in dismay and waved a hand, dismissing it. “It’s not that I mind—it’s not the money really at all—it’s her confidence I’m more worried about. It’s suffered over the last year.”
“Not following, pet.”
Joyce looked at Spike intently. “Did you ever have a job, William?”
Spike ducked his head and ran a hand along the back of his neck. “Not as such,” he admitted. “There was family money. Would meet with the solicitor from time to time and review the accounts, the investments and such. For the most part, I just took the solicitor’s advice, keeping the money in national debt shares or private mortgage trusts... had a bit in a couple of railway stocks too. It never held much interest for me, if I’m honest. After... after Dru, well, not a lot of career opportunities for someone with my particular skill set.”
Joyce nodded. “Well, you might not understand, but getting a job, earning your own money... it’s empowering. It gives you freedom and a real sense of worth. I know Buffy can’t possibly take a job, not with her Slayer duties and school, but I can’t help but feel like she’s going to miss one of the rites of passage from childhood into adulthood without that experience. I know it seems like Buffy is filled with confidence, but... well, with everything she’s been through, she’s got a lot of self-doubt. Not really about slaying, but about more personal things.” Joyce sighed. “I wish we’d thought to put that into the agreement with the Council, that they start paying her a salary, especially now that she’s of age. Giles said he’d look into it, but I got the feeling he was just placating us.”
Spike’s head shot up, his eyes intense as his mind raced. He remembered Buffy’s words about not being good enough from earlier when she’d been half out of it... and not just then, but even the night he’d arrived in Sunnydale, she’d been so filled with doubt about her worthiness. “So, you reckon if the gits at the Council paid the Slayer a proper salary, it’d help her confidence?”
Joyce lifted one shoulder in a small shrug. “I think it couldn’t hurt for her to feel like she was actually valued and appreciated, and getting paid is one way that can be shown. Knowing the Council, they won’t be lavishing her in praise, no matter how many vampires she kills or apocalypses she stops. And it’s not like she can go on the six o’clock news and tell the world what she’s doing to get any accolades there. I’ve tried to tell her how amazing she is, but I’m just her mom. Apparently, my opinion doesn’t count.”
Joyce smiled sadly and stood up, preparing to go. She paused in the door between the kitchen and the dining room and turned back to Spike. “By the way, you can stay here as long as you need to,” she offered. “You aren’t just a guest, you’re a friend—a good friend. There’s no time limit on that. I know you’ll want your own place, but there’s no need to rush into anything that doesn’t really suit you.”
Spike felt a warmth that had nothing to do with the five-flame hot sauce suffuse his chest and spread to nearly engulf him with sparks of joy. “Appreciate that, Joyce. More than you know.”
Joyce gave him another small smile and disappeared from view, leaving Spike a bit light-headed. What the bloody hell had just happened? He hadn’t told anyone about Cambridge since… well, since he’d had a heartbeat, but this woman asks, and he just spills it like so much curdled milk?
That’s what loves does, makes him its bitch. Even with the chit’s mother. “You are so buggered,” he groaned, downing the rest of the blood in one long, sizzling pull.
Spike rinsed the mug in the sink, his mind turning over everything Joyce had said. Before long, a whole new plan coalesced in his mind. The delightful Miss Chalmers may still be of use... no need to turn her guts to garters just yet. He dug the crumpled bit of yellow paper from his pocket, went over to the phone, and dialed.
“The Edna May House, how may I assist you this evening?” the voice answered.
“Lydia Chalmers,” Spike said brusquely.
The phone clicked then rang three times before Lydia answered. It sounded like she was half-asleep. “Hello?”
“Scratch that deal we had,” Spike said without preamble. “Got a new one for ya. Write this down...”
* X-X *
Buffy sat on her bed, her back propped against the pillows and the headboard, waiting. Waiting for Spike to come back.
She ran her fingers over the translucent red mold of his torso that Giles and Willow had removed earlier. Hers looked like some weird modern art project, but Spike’s was like a sculpture. Inside was a perfect mirror of Spike’s chest and abs, every line chiseled precisely, every ridge of muscle or perfect bulge of sinew captured like a dragonfly in amber. But it wasn’t him—it was rigid and frozen, with none of the life and energy that he exuded. Would she ever be able to touch him like this, touch that porcelain skin, feel the hard muscles beneath her hand as they moved… maybe trembled at her touch?
She could’ve touched him; he’d said as much. Said he wanted her. Buffy laid her hand flat against the mold of his chest where his heart would be. Touching his skin without touching his heart, it wouldn’t work. Not for her. No matter how many times she thought about Spike, dreamed of him, fantasized about him, it was never just about his body—it always included having his heart, too. She’d seen too much of it on that road trip, how he’d fawned over Dru, how deeply he’d loved her, even when the emotion wasn’t returned, how devoted he’d been to the crazy vampiress, and Buffy wanted that. She wanted all of him, not just his body.
As Buffy’s fingers danced over the hard surface that wasn’t Spike, she contemplated what would happen when he returned. Because he would come back, right? All his stuff was here. What if Giles was right? What if he’d ended the truce with no warning? What if he’d been killing this evening? What if he came back not just to get his stuff, but to kill her? Or her mom? Or her dog?
What if… what if…
She could feel him before she heard him—tingling fires dancing up and down her spine. Her dog felt it too, lifting his head and looking up from the soft bed on the floor. Buffy was on her feet in a moment, the cast of Spike left alone on the bed, her hand wrapping around a stake, instead. She and the dog slipped out, stopping on the top landing as she heard the door open and her mom say, “We need to have a talk.”
Her heart raced. Her palms were sweating. She should be down there now. If he attacked her mom, she was too far away to stop him.
“Mind if I have a nosh while we talk? Got a bit peckish while out and about.”
Buffy felt a small wave of relief wash over her. If he was hungry, then he hadn’t fed… right? He hadn’t killed anyone. She crept forward, the big dog right at her side, as the footsteps below moved back toward the kitchen. The Slayer and the Guardian stopped a few steps up from the bottom, listening, trying to hear the muted conversation from the kitchen.
“I’d like to know why you lied to me.” Her mom sounded calm.
“Regarding?”
“How many things have you lied to me about?” Now her mom sounded pissed.
‘Don’t lie, Spike… don’t do it. She knows… she’ll just get madder if you deny it,’ Buffy thought as she lowered herself to sit on a smooth section of the bullet-splintered stairs.
“Dru.”
Buffy breathed another sigh of relief. He wasn’t attacking her mom. He was drinking cow’s blood—she had heard the microwave ding and could smell it. And he was telling her mom the truth. Maybe she wouldn’t have to dust him tonight.
The big dog, still standing, as the stairs were too narrow for him to sit on, leaned against her reassuringly and Buffy slipped her fingers into the soft down of his mane.
Over the course of the eavesdropped-on conversation, Buffy’s emotions ran wild. She began by desperately wanting to take Spike in her arms and assure him that he did have friends, that he’d always have her as a friend, that there was nothing to be terrified of. Then she learned that he’d never been married or had children. She felt at once regretful for that loss and inexplicably relieved on many levels—if he hadn’t had a family, then he hadn’t had a family to slaughter like Angelus had. The little green-eyed monster was also pleased with this news, but Buffy didn’t dare explore that very closely. Next came the surprise at learning he had not only gone to Cambridge but had graduated with a degree that sounded painfully hard—Latin and Greek coming out of his ass? Make that very painful. And he had been twenty-six when he’d been turned—that didn’t really shock her that much, but it was more than she’d known before.
Buffy’s hopeful heart soared when he said he’d like to stay in Sunnydale—that he’d keep the truce indefinitely. Maybe… maybe if he stayed a while, he’d change his mind about wanting more than her body. Maybe she could do the science experiment she and Willow had devised.
And then her heart stopped when her mother asked, “Do you have feelings for my daughter?”
Buffy’s breath caught in her throat and she tightened her grip on her furry companion as she waited. Time seemed to stop. It took hours or perhaps days before Spike answered. “‘Course I do, just told ya we’re friends.”
Buffy sagged against the dog, her heart sinking. Friends. ‘Got no use for a Slayer’s heart.’
She missed whatever else was said, lost in her own despair. It was just like she’d told her mom, why did she keep hoping his answer would change? They’re friends. Maybe he wanted to make it ‘friends with benefits’, but nothing more. Why did she keep putting herself through this, getting her hopes up only to remember that there is no hope?
Buffy sighed, all the energy drained from her body, and used her dog to push up to her feet. The two in the kitchen were still talking, but Buffy had no interest in anything else they might say. She turned silently on the stairs and padded back up, back to the safety of her room. Spike followed, his own steps lighter than should be possible on the treads.
In her room, Buffy set the magically created sculpture of Spike up on her dresser not far from the postcards that circled her mirror. With a sigh, she climbed into bed, feeling spent. It had been an exceptionally long day. She just wanted to go to sleep and forget it all.
All of her except her hopeful heart, which wanted Spike to stick his head in and say something—ask how she was feeling, tell her where the hell he went tonight, or just say goodnight. Buffy heard her mom come up the stairs, go into the bathroom. Then there was water running, teeth brushing, and still she waited without admitting that she was waiting for him to come up.
Buffy tossed and turned. She fluffed her pillow and then punched it flat. She covered up and kicked the covers off. She tried lying on her stomach, then her side, then her back, making several full rotations before she felt him coming closer. His feet were silent on the stairs—he must’ve taken his boots off—but she could feel him just as surely as if she could see him, taking those graceful, easy strides up the steps.
Buffy closed her eyes, tried to slow her breathing, but that remained an elusive goal. She waited. He stopped outside her door, the shower of sparks down her spine was like motes of embers rising from a campfire. He was right there. ‘Come in, come in, come in,’ she thought.
But then he moved. She could see the shadows beneath the door change, as he stepped away. ‘Damn it!’
‘You do know that, as a general rule, men can’t read minds, right?’, her mother’s words rang in her mind. Buffy gritted her teeth and was on her feet in a heartbeat, her door swung open before Spike had even made it to his room.
He spun toward her in surprise, one arm flung out as if to fend off an attack.
Buffy forced herself to relax. She quirked a brow, leaning a shoulder against the doorjamb, her arms crossed over her blue, ‘sleepy sheep’ pajamas. “Is that a guilty conscience?” she wondered. “Should I get my stake?”
He scowled at her. “Don’t be daft,” he grumbled, also visibly relaxing his stance. “Just surprised me is all, thought you were off in dreamland.”
Buffy gave him a smile that made it clear that she knew that he knew that she hadn’t been asleep.
Spike rolled his eyes. “Fine… just didn’t want the third degree. Already had the fifth degree from Joyce tonight. How’d she find out?”
Buffy shrugged. “She wouldn’t tell me.” That much was true, though Buffy was sure that it had come from Willow. Who else could’ve blabbed? Willow was the one person Buffy had actually told about Spike’s breakup, and she was also the only one in the house with her mom and Giles when she’d gone out. She started a bit at that thought. Giles. Giles knew too. She forced herself back to calmness—at least Giles didn’t know she was crushing on yet another vampire. Not that she cared what Giles thought.
“She give you a rough time about it, too?” he asked, tilting his head and taking a step closer to her, seeming genuinely concerned.
“Not too bad,” Buffy replied, refocusing. “Disappointed, thought I’d taught you better, lying is wrong, yada-yada… the normal stuff.”
Spike nodded. “Sorry I put ya in that position, pet. Wasn’t fair o’ me. Realize that now.”
Buffy nodded. “It’s all right. You didn’t want to tell me. I kinda forced you. She didn’t... kick you out, did she?” the Slayer asked then, suddenly remembering why Spike hadn’t wanted her mother to know.
Spike shook his head. “Said I could stay. Good woman, yer mum.”
Buffy nodded, a wave of relief washing through her. “Yeah, she really is.”
They both grew quiet for a moment before Spike asked, “How’s the noggin?”
Buffy touched the side of her head, tenderly feeling around the lump. “Still a little goose-egg-y, but getting better. How was your night? Find any ‘air’?” she wondered, emphasizing the last word with a healthy dollop of sarcasm.
Spike arched a brow. “A bit. Some spots fresher than others.”
“Probably better up on the rooftops than down on the ground with the dumpsters,” she commented coolly, waiting for his surprise, but to her disappointment, he didn’t show any.
“Unless ya run into a pigeon roost or some stagnant rainwater,” he acquiesced without blinking. “Bit nasty, those.”
Buffy wanted to scowl her frustration, but kept her face neutral. Did he know she’d been following him? Had he been watching her and the dog go around in circles all night? “Enjoy the movie?”
“Was hilarious,” Spike commented without hesitation. “A real side-splitter.”
“It was a slasher horror movie,” Buffy pointed out.
“Exactly—sodding hysterical.”
Buffy snorted and rolled her eyes. “Do anything else fun? Drain any hapless Happy Meals?”
Spike huffed out an exasperated breath. “Nooo,” he drawled, his body tensing with frustration. “Told ya before, Slayer, if I decide to end the truce, I’ll tell ya, all right? Not gonna just start inflicting neck trauma about town without warning—and I bloody well won’t turn on you out of the sodding blue like tall, dark, and forehead or the geriatric librarian.”
Buffy dropped her eyes and nodded. “I know,” she confessed with a sigh. “I just… it’s my job to worry about these things.”
“So I’ve heard,” Spike admitted, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck. “But I promise you, I’m not anyone you have to worry about, pet. Give you my word… again.”
Buffy looked back up and met his eyes. Though Spike had never shown any ability to thrall anyone, she felt like she was under his spell, all the same. Like she could fall into the ocean of blue that gazed back at her. Float in it. Drown in it. Spend hours just picking out all the different shades of blues and greens and greys that made up those enthralling orbs. She could make a study of them, get a degree in them... then they’d both have degrees in Classics, because those eyes were nothing if not absurdly classic. She licked her lips, her body thrumming with pent-up desire and swirling emotions. Maybe she should just tell him— be honest about her feelings, like her mom said. But then his voice rang in her head again, his conversation with her mother, ‘We’re friends,’ and any declaration she’d been thinking of making died on her lips.
Buffy cleared her throat and blinked, looking away from the draw of those cerulean depths. “I believe you,” she affirmed.
Spike nodded, on the verge of taking another step toward her, but he knew that it wouldn’t end with one step—he’d take more. He longed to take enough steps so that he could touch her, run his fingertips along her golden skin, touch his lips to hers in another feather-soft kiss, breathe in the heady scent of her, feel her shiver beneath his touch, and float away in the heat of her. His teeth closed on his bottom lip as Joyce’s words came back to him, ‘Friends talk, they share their thoughts and feelings, they’re honest with each other.’ But then the image of Buffy scurrying away from him when he’d told her he wanted her flashed in his mind. If that made her flee, what would being completely honest do? Probably move to sodding Antarctica. ‘Give her space... let her come to you,’ he advised himself.
Buffy had said something else, but Spike missed it, lost in his own thoughts. “Say again?” he requested, refocusing on her.
“I said, if you weren’t out causing madness and mayhem, what did you do?”
Spike pulled his cloak of ‘Big Bad’ nonchalance around him again, and shrugged. “Had a nice long chat with an old chum.”
“Anyone I know?”
“Couldn’t say.”
“What’s his name?”
Spike smirked and turned, going back to his door. “Who said it was a ‘him’?” he taunted as he disappeared into his room and closed the door. Catnip delivered.
Buffy’s scowl emerged in full force, fueled by that crazy, green-eyed monster that kept breaking down its cage and escaping. “Who says it was a ‘him’?” she sneered sarcastically, returning to her own room and slamming the door behind her, rattling the walls and nearly making the translucent red bust fall from the dresser. “Stupid vampire,” she muttered, steadying the sculpture so it didn’t tumble and break.
Thank goodness tomorrow was Saturday. Big, hairy, green-eyed monsters rampaging around inside your brain tended to make it ridiculously hard to sleep.
STORY BOARD
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link: https://flic.kr/p/2m21rTN
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link: https://flic.kr/p/2m1WwjS
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link: https://flic.kr/p/2m1SSDD
End Notes:
Victorian England Investments: https://victorianweb.org/economics/porter6.html
The photo in the storyboard of Buffy walking her dog is SMG with her actual dog (from many years ago), an Akita (whose name I do not know). She had the dog while filming S4/5 for sure, because there are photos of her with Marc Blucas posing with him. She’s recently adopted two more Akita puppies whose names are Kumi and Sato.
Thank you so much for reading and for your patience as I try to catch up with your wonderful comments! RL things are starting to slow down a little for me, so hopefully I’ll get caught up soon. I love reading all your notes! They keep me incredibly inspired!
Thanks also to the EF Facebook Group for helping me figure out what kind of degree William would’ve gotten from Cambridge and how to word it. And, as always, my undying gratitude to my wonderful beta readers and friends: All4Spike, Paganbaby, and TeamEricNSookie. Holi117 has switched to a pre-reader, which I’m so happy she’s finding time for that. All mistakes are mine because I keep fiddling with stuff. If you see any, PM me and I’ll fix it.
Chapter 35: Croisade & Roses
Chapter Text
Chapter Notes:
Thank you so much for reading... hope you enjoy the chapter!
Chapter 35: Croisade & Roses
Spike woke to a wasp buzzing too close to his ear. He’d just got to sleep a minute or two ago, or so it seemed. He swatted at it groggily, a string of curses mingling with his fading dream of Cujo devouring an entire buffet of expensive lobster and filet minion on a swanky cruise ship. The smartly dressed staff and guests were all shrieking and running for safety while Spike stood by watching the devastation, chuckling, warning the dog that Buffy would not be pleased.
The buzzing stopped for a few moments and Spike settled back, happy to float back into that dream to see just how brassed off the Slayer would be, when the wasps began hammering against his skull with sledgehammers.
“Fuck’s sake,” he muttered, turning over and pulling his pillow over his head, but it was no use. The whole house seemed to be rattling and whirring with the infernal insects.
“Bloody hell!” he exclaimed over the sound. Violently kicking the covers off and darting to his feet, Spike scanned the room for whatever the hell it was— but there was nothing there. He was out the door the next moment, barely remembering to grab up the sheet from the floor on the way.
“What the bloody fuck is going on out here?” he demanded, following the sound halfway down the stairs to the intermediate landing, and glaring down.
Xander stopped what he was doing and looked up just as Spike wrapped the sheet around his hips. “Working, what does it look like?” he wondered, waving a hand at the stairs, which were even more demolished than they’d been from the bullets. Several treads and risers were missing completely, leaving a gaping maw between where Spike stood and the first floor. The entire handrail and newel post were gone, as well.
“Working on tearing the whole fucking place apart at the crack of dawn?” Spike growled back, surveying the damage. “And waking the sodding dead in the process?”
“More like the crack of two,” Xander corrected. “Time for all good little freeloaders to get their lazy, bare asses up and lend a hand.”
“Be faster t’ just burn the place down, and a good bit quieter, I’d wager,” Spike insisted, holding both ends of the sheet against one hip with the fist planted there.
Xander puffed up indignantly. “I’m not tearing it down!” he protested from the foyer, scowling up at the nearly naked vampire.
Spike arched a brow at him, pointedly looking at the missing bits that had been there when he’d gone to bed—had it really been that long ago?
Xander rolled his eyes. “Okay, yes, I’m tearing it down,” he admitted. “But that’s how you fix it,” he explained. “Out with the bullet-ridden, in with the bullet-free. Get it, Einstein? Now come on—I need some help.”
“You must’a had help getting that all rubbish ripped down—didn’t need me for that,” Spike pointed out.
“Oz helped me, and you ignored all our not-so-subtle hammering and drilling for hours, but he had to leave. Now it’s just you and me.”
“Don’t do DIY. Creature o’ the night here, not Bob bloody Vila. Why don’tcha get some roustabout t’ help you with this bollocks?” Spike wondered.
“Because bloodsucking vampires are cheaper, and Buffy said you’d help if you knew what was good for you,” Xander shot back. “So, get your lazy butt dressed, and get down here.”
“Buffy said…?” Spike growled in disbelief. “Where’s the Slayer? Get this sorted out right quick.”
“Not here. She and Mrs. Summers went to the mall for some retail therapy, leaving us manly men to our manly pursuits. Just you and me, blood-breath. Come on—grab a hammer and make with the useful.”
“This is unconstitutional, is what it is. Can’t sentence a bloke to hard manual labor without a chance to appeal the ruling. Didn’t even get t’ argue my case. Un-American, if ya ask me,” Spike complained.
“Should’a sprung for a better lawyer,” Xander advised. “And if you think flashing your compact, but well-muscled body is going to get me to let you off with a lighter sentence, think again. You’re not my type.”
“How ‘bout if I drop the sheet?” Spike wondered, arching his scarred brow, and running his tongue over his teeth tauntingly.
Xander rolled his eyes. “Especially not then,” he contended before looking back down at the board he’d been sanding. With a pull of the trigger, he engaged the buzzing wasps again as the sander whirled to life, drowning out anything else Spike was going to say.
“Sod it,” the vampire groaned, dropping one end of the sheet as he turned, flashing his lily-white-ass at the brunette before trudging back to his room. He certainly wasn’t going to get any sleep with all that framming and bamming going on. Maybe he could drop a timber on the handyman’s head, all accidental-like. Or fortuitously cut off a few of his fingers with a dull, rusty hacksaw. A wolfish grin split Spike’s face at the vision as he pulled on his jeans. How many ways were there to maim a git like Harris with hand tools, and leave him bleeding out on the floor? Probably plenty to choose from if he just put a little imagination into it. Then he could go back to his bunk and get some kip.
* X-X *
“I don’t see why I gotta hold the bloody thing in place while you get the easy bit o’ just pushing a button and screwing it down,” Spike complained as he held the stair railing up for it to be reattached. The muscles of his bare arms, chest, and back bulged with the weight of it, but Spike was just pleased that he was still pain-free. The magicking away of his injuries seeming to have held with no further side effects.
Xander sighed as he lined up the screw and the drill. “How many times do I have to explain it? Me: foreman. You: peon. Me: skilled labor. You: hired hand. Me: boss. You: minion. Me: brains. You: brawn.”
“Brains my sodding arse,” Spike continued to grouse as Xander got the first screw driven in and lined up the second. “Called that slum-lord uncle o’ yours ten times trying to figure out what the fuck you’re doing here.”
“Hey! I’ll have you know Uncle Rory’s rental units aren’t slums! Shabby chic at worst,” Xander protested, driving the second screw in, and reaching for a third. “And I got it figured out in the end—that’s all that matters.”
“Could’a been done hours ago if you’d had the first sodding clue what you were doing,” Spike grumbled. “Ya know, if not for this truce with the Slayer, could’ve just turned an actual carpenter and had genuine brains and brawn all in one nice package. You and me could be sitting back having a beer… maybe some hot wings or whatnot.”
Xander stopped and looked up at the vampire, his expression at first thoughtful, then horrified. “You know, I’d almost forgotten that you’re a mass murdering demon there for a minute.”
Spike flashed him some fang, his eyes glittering with golden sparks. “Dangerous thing for a blood bank in cheap trainers t’ forget.”
Xander scowled. “Hey! These are not cheap! They’re genuine Vans, not some crappy knock-off,” he insisted, turning his attention back to the task at hand.
“Which you got at the second-hand store,” Spike shot back, making a show of sniffing the air. “Smell like desperation and cheap deodorizer.”
Xander looked back up at him, frowning. “You can smell desperation?”
Spike snorted, the muscles in his arms straining to hold the entire weight of the handrail waiting for the brunette to attach it. “Vampire, you dolt. It’s my sodding job to sniff out easy meals. Like you.”
“Buffy would stake you if you broke the truce.”
Spike scoffed. “You’d still be just as dead, lack brain.”
“Yeah, well… so would you, so just keep your grubby fangs off my pristine neck. No nummy Xander treats for you,” he warned, once more lining up the screw and drill.
“Oh, please, as if I’d bite you,” Spike countered, rolling his eyes as he shifted his grip slightly, the weight of the rail starting to wear on him.
Xander replied while driving the last screw into place, “I happen to be very biteable pal. I'm moist and delicious.”
“You’re so full of built-up testosterone and sexual frustration I’d have hair sprouting outta my arse if I bit you,” Spike insisted. “Need to get laid, you do—or at least have a decent wank now and again. Bloody hell, Harris.”
“Buffy’s right—vampire senses are extremely disturbing,” Xander muttered as he stood back. He looked at Spike, who was still gripping the railing. “Okay… let go,” he instructed, holding his breath as Spike’s hands loosened, then slowly slid away from the banister.
They both looked at it warily for a few moments, but it didn’t fall or waver. Xander reached out and pushed on it lightly. It didn’t move. He pushed a little harder, and still it held. “Hot damn! It’s all fixed!” he exclaimed, raising his hand up for a high-five with Spike.
Spike planted his hands on his hips just above the tool belt that Xander had insisted he wear, and arched an incredulous brow at the boy.
“You’re seriously gonna leave me hanging here?” Xander asked, his hand still in the air.
“Evil, remember?” Spike reminded him and started down the splinter-free stairs.
“That is sooo not cool,” Xander informed him, dropping his hand finally. He began testing the railing again, then trotted up and down the stairs a couple of times, enjoying his victory over the bullet-ridden staircase.
* X-X *
Buffy stopped outside the open front door and stared, a sizzle of sparks igniting in her low belly and flaring upwards. Spike. Shirtless. Tool belt slung low on his hips, tugging his jeans down just enough to make her mouth water. Yummy muscles everywhere—looking good enough to lick.
Everything around her seemed to freeze in that moment, even the sun sinking below the horizon halted its celestial motion. Everything, that is, but Spike. His bluer-than-blue eyes met hers as he glided down the stairs, his feet barely seeming to touch the wood. He didn’t stop in the foyer, though, but kept moving in a smooth, confident stride right up to her. His arms were around her in a heartbeat, the packages in her hands tumbling from her grip as he tugged her body against his. Those luscious lips descended to hers, capturing her mouth before she could breathe out a word. His hands cupped her ass and pulled their bodies together, his hard tool—and not one hanging from the belt—pressing into her stomach, making the fire there flare brighter.
Buffy wrapped her arms around his neck as their tongues and lips and teeth battled for dominance of the kiss. Nipping. Sucking. Devouring. Her hard nipples pressed against his bare chest, the thin fabric of her shirt only adding more pleasure to the sensation. She could feel the all-consuming yearning seep from her body, dampening her panties with every throb of need that pulsed through her. Buffy raised her legs and wrapped them around his hips, his hands tightening on her ass, making her moan against his mouth and…
“Slayer? Earth to Slayer?” Spike said, snapping his fingers in front of her eyes.
Buffy blinked. The packages were still in her hands, now held in a death grip. Her breathing was ragged and her pulse beat a staccato rhythm in her ears. “I… what?” she stammered, swallowing hard as her face began to flame in embarrassment.
“Said, next time ya need a DIY flunky, get someone else. It’s a bloody waste o’ my talents.”
Buffy cleared her throat. “Your… talents?” she stammered as her mom came up behind her, her arms also burdened down with shopping bags.
“That’s right, got plenty of things I’m suited for. Being the brawn for a hack carpenter ain’t one of ‘em.”
Buffy recovered her composure, the too vivid fantasy fading to the background. She looked Spike up and down, taking in his bare chest and the toolbelt around his hips, a smirk curling her lip. “Is one of them auditioning for the Village People? Let’s see your moves… C’mon, ‘It’s fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A,’,” she sang.
Spike planted his hands on his hips and glared at her.
“You’re supposed to do the dance… you know, spell out Y.M.C.A. with your arms,” she informed him. “Don’t tell me you slept through the seventies. If you want, I can give you refresher course before the tryouts. Wouldn’t want the guys in the group to not see all your talents.”
“Don’t be daft. And don’t change the subject,” Spike snarled. “What’s this about you sentencing me to manual labor without even a ‘how d’ you do’?”
“Sentencing you to…?” she repeated, looking confused.
Behind him, Xander cleared his throat. “I… might’ve exaggerated that a little,” he admitted.
Spike whirled on him. “You did what?”
Xander took a step back and held his hands up in surrender. “Buffy might not have exactly said what I said she said.”
“Just exactly what did the Slayer say?” Spike demanded, taking a threatening step toward the brunette.
Xander took another step back into the house. “Uhhh… something like, ‘Good luck trying to get Spike to help you.’”
“And you called me evil!? You gormless twat! I should’a dropped that bloody railing on your useless head.”
Xander chuckled nervously. “Truce, remember? Me dead, you deader,” he reminded the vampire.
Spike growled, his hands curling into impotent fists. “Can I just punch him once, Slayer? If I promise not t’ break his pristine neck?”
Buffy slipped through the door and dropped her packages on the table. Her hands finally free, she grabbed Spike’s arm in a restraining grip. “Face it, he got you, fair and square.”
“He lied to me! Told me you said I had to help him if I knew what was good for me,” Spike protested. “What the bloody hell is fair about that?”
Buffy rolled her eyes. “You don’t look any worse for the wear,” she observed, letting her eyes drift over the hard planes and curves of his back. ‘In fact, you look amazing. Maybe there’s something else needing a shirtless vampire in a toolbelt’s attention around here.’
“And the staircase looks beautiful,” Joyce interjected, coming in behind her daughter. “I can’t believe you boys got it all done so quickly! It’s just amazing! Oh, Xander, Spike—thank you so much. I can’t even tell you... I would’ve never been able to get it fixed if you hadn’t volunteered.”
Spike softened slightly, remembering that he hadn’t really been helping the git, but Joyce and Buffy. Buffy’s hand on his arm was like a firebrand sending tingling flames dancing up his arm and down his body, hardening his cock under the weight of the toolbelt. She smelled bloody delicious—some new perfume sprayed on at the mall mingled with the musk of her obvious arousal. Though just what had her all hot and bothered… The Village People?
Spike turned around slowly to look at Buffy, his head tilting just so, eyes curious, taking in the flush of her skin, the slight sheen of perspiration, and that oh-so-sweet aroma drifting up to him. ‘Well, well, well…’ “That’s a very fetching scent you’ve got on, Slayer,” he said, his voice dripping with honey.
‘Shit!’ Buffy thought, dropping the hold she had on his biceps and taking a step back.
“Do you like it?” Joyce asked innocently. “It’s called ‘Croisade & Roses,’” she continued, adding a bad French accent to the name, and digging in one of the bags for the red and silver box that held the fragrance.
A slow, lascivious smile curved Spike’s lips. “Well, ‘War and Roses’ smells brilliant on you, Summers.”
‘Stupid vampire smelling!’ she thought bitterly, then, ‘Wait, what?’ “War and Roses?” Buffy questioned. “I thought it was something about croissants...”
Spike’s brows furrowed. “Croisade—as in the crusades, as in war. Thought you took French.”
“I did.” She pouted, looking at the box in her mom’s hand. “I just... well, I didn’t actually see the name, I thought the saleswoman said, ‘Croissants n’ Roses.’”
Spike smirked. “Just why would you want to smell like pastries, pet? Trying to attract a baker, are you?” He leaned in toward her neck and took another deep inhalation. “Reckon the scent of ‘war’ would attract a completely different type of bloke,” he murmured just loud enough for her to hear. “One who could match your... passions.”
Buffy felt heat rising to her cheeks again and her heart jumped into her throat for a moment. “I need to get this stuff put away,” she rationalized, whirling away from him. She quickly gathered up the packages from the table before hurrying for the newly mended stairs.
Spike watched her go, wondering what had made her scarper now. Had he got a bit too close to the randy little kitten? Not backed up fast enough from the saucer of sweet cream?
“Come right back down,” Joyce called, breaking into Spike’s musings. “Dinner will get cold.” Then, turning to Xander and Spike, she held up the take-away bags in her hands. “Anyone for Chinese?”
* X-X *
Buffy dropped all the colorful retail therapy packages in a heap on her bed before hurriedly grabbing her bookbag. She dug through the detritus that had settled at the bottom of the bag for a moment before finding the folded computer printout. She yanked it out and quickly unfolded it...
‘Your Perfect Man—War and Roses,’ it announced at the top of the page Willow had printed off after making Buffy take that stupid computer quiz thingy several weeks ago—the ‘Find your Perfect Man’ website. Her eyes scanned down the description, her heart alternatively soaring and sinking with every line.
While you may project a happy-go-lucky, silly exterior to the world, secretly you’re a bit of a brain, with razor-sharp instincts, and you know exactly what you want. You don’t have time for games and players, and while far from a dainty princess—deep down you’re looking for a prince. You want the cheeky smolder, the baby blues, and hair you can run your fingers through!
Your ideal man will challenge your intellect, as well as your physicality—and he’ll made you giggle, and blush, while he’s doing it! He is bold, courageous, gallant, romantic, and loyal to a fault, a knight who’ll defend you to the bitter end. His word is his bond, and he’ll never ask more than he is willing to give himself. He’ll test your patience at every turn, and push you beyond the limits you place upon yourself—and you’ll be grateful every time he does! Your relationship might have its ups and downs—this much passion and competitiveness is bound to ruffle some feathers – but the making up will always be worth it!
Buffy plopped down on the edge of the bed still gazing at the paper. What the hell was the universe doing to her? Was it being cruel on purpose? Was it trying to make her lose her mind?
“War and roses,” she muttered to herself, seeing Spike in every word on that stupid paper... and then the perfume. What in the name of all that was holy was that about? Of all the perfume counters in all the malls in all the towns in all the world, she had to walk up to that one? Get sprayed by that perfume. Get reminded of this... this ridiculously accurate description of her perfect man? The perfect man that just wanted to be her friend... with benefits. The perfect man who didn’t love her, didn’t want her heart.
Tears shimmered in Buffy’s eyes as she shoved the printout back into her bag, crumpling it in the process, and tossed the bag back into the corner. She had to find some way to get Spike off her mind, but her body betrayed her at every turn and her overactive imagination wasn’t helping either. Then there was the universe which seemed set on twisting the knife in just that much deeper.
“Buffy!” her mom’s voice drifted up the stairs. “Dinner!”
“Coming!” she called back, standing up. She swiped at her damp cheeks as she hurried across the hall to the bathroom and set to washing the scent off her wrists and neck with brisk, angry strokes.
So far, being an adult was not making life any easier, not even a little bit.
* X-X *
Spike and Xander had washed up before dinner, rinsing away the day’s labors from their arms, hands, and faces at least. They’d both shed their toolbelts and Spike had donned a t-shirt before the meal—black, of course. Buffy was thankful for that. Despite how nicely the shirt hung on him, and how his biceps stretched the short sleeves, at least she wasn’t forced to look at vast swaths of bare Spike-muscles all through the Chow Mein. That would’ve made it impossible to keep those unbidden tableaus involving Spike-lips and Spike-hands from flooding her mind and her body.
With him dressed, the worst things she had to deal with were his lips, and his eyes, and his cheekbones, and wondering how he got that scar on his brow, and watching his nimble fingers on the chopsticks, never dropping even a grain of rice, as if he’d grown up using them. Argh! How was she supposed to do this? Buffy forcibly turned her attention to Xander. Safe, friendly, goofy Xander. Listen to Xander talk about all the intricate mysteries of installing stairs and railings and boring stuff like that. Much better... well, easier, anyway. At least her face wasn’t flaming from inappropriate thoughts running rampant through her mind, and she could mostly control her chopsticks this way.
Just as they were finishing up their meal, the doorbell rang. The dog, who had been guarding the carpet beneath the table with his usual alacrity, jumped up and began barking in earnest as he headed toward the offending sound.
“Are you expecting anyone?” Joyce asked as Buffy began to rise from her seat, her unwrapped but still intact fortune cookie still in hand.
“No,” she replied, heading for the front door. Spike was on his feet and right behind her a moment later.
“I can answer the door by myself,” Buffy snarked at him, blocking him from passing.
“What if it’s a big bad come looking for some payback?” he suggested, pulling up short as she sidestepped in front of him. “Still not at full strength there, Slayer.”
“Big bads don’t usually ring the bell,” she pointed out.
“I did,” he reminded her with a wolfish grin, taking the opportunity to slip past into the foyer.
Buffy hip-checked him, sending him stumbling toward the freshly installed newel post at the bottom of the stairs. He recovered with the grace and balance of a dancer and changed directions on a dime, nearly beating her to the doorknob, but she was there first. With an elbow into the vampire’s ribs, Buffy pushed the dog out of the way and swung the door open.
“Oh. It’s you,” she deadpanned, glowering at the woman on the porch. Buffy broke the fortune cookie apart in her hand and looked at the little slip of paper. “’You will have an unwanted visitor,’” she quoted, looking back up at the woman. “Wow—who knew how accurate these things were?”
The woman clenched her jaw while trying to maintain a friendly smile. The effect was less than appealing. “Good evening, Miss Summers. I’m glad to see you looking so well,” Lydia greeted, straightening her glasses with one hand. In her other she held a well-worn leather journal. Her clothes, as before when Buffy had seen her, were crisply pressed and boring as mud. Grey on grey must be the official colors of the Council of Watchers, Buffy thought. Cloud-grey, slate-grey, iron-grey, battleship-grey. How many shades of grey were there? It seemed ironic, really, that an organization that saw the world in blacks and whites cloaked themselves in grey.
“I hope I’m not interrupting,” Lydia continued, running her hand over her smooth hair all the way to the tight bun at the back of her head.
“As a matter of fact...” Buffy began as she swung the door closed, but Spike caught it and pulled it open again.
“Not interrupting at all,” he assured the woman graciously. “What can we do for the Council on this fine evening?”
Buffy huffed, rolling her eyes while the dog hurried out onto the porch, snuffling and sniffing around Lydia’s skirt, legs, and shoes. ‘Pee on her,’ Buffy thought, wishing the dog had the ability to read her mind.
“Oh... I say... Umm, nice doggie,” Lydia stammered, freezing in place, watching with wide eyes as the huge dog circled her, intent on his mission, his cold nose tickling her bare legs.
“Won’t hurt ya,” Spike assured her. “Unless you’re a demon, o’ course.”
‘Which she is,’ Buffy thought, glowering at the woman and crushing the fortune cookie into crumbs in her grip.
“Let off, Cujo!” Spike ordered, stepping back to allow Lydia entrance. He had to physically push Buffy back a couple of steps in the process, which drew a deadly scowl from the girl aimed at the back of the vampire’s head as she jumped back to keep from being stepped on.
Lydia moved forward carefully as the dog backed off a bit, apparently assured that she wasn’t, in fact, a demon. “T-Thank you, Mr. Bloody,” the woman stammered, a rosy blush rising to her cheeks as she passed the vampire.
Spike gave her a brilliant, welcoming smile. “Now then, just what was it you needed?” he asked, closing the door behind her.
Buffy let out a puff of irritated breath and stepped out from behind the vampire just as Joyce and Xander appeared in the foyer. Why was Spike being so freaking nice to this vampire-ogling bitch? The dog began nuzzling Buffy’s hand and she opened it, allowing him to gobble up the bits of fortune cookie that clung there as she waited to hear just what the woman wanted now.
Lydia cleared her throat and looked down at the journal in her hand. “I, um, would like to see your weapons’ cache as well as your training facilities, if I may, Miss Summers. Mr. Giles said most of the weapons were here... as well as your training area?”
Spike turned to look at Buffy, arching a brow at her. When she didn’t show any signs of moving or answering Lydia’s question, he grabbed her by the arm and dragged her into the living room.
“Let go!” she demanded, finally yanking her arm from his grasp. She could tell he’d really been holding her tightly, and was pleased when she could actually pull away from him.
“What’s your problem, Slayer?” he demanded in a low voice, turning to face her as she rubbed petulantly at her arm where he’d been gripping her.
“The question is why you don’t have a problem!” she countered. “She’s Council! Have you forgotten who did all this to you?” Buffy wondered, waving a hand at his chest. “Or, you know, did that to you that’s not there now?”
“It wasn’t this bird,” Spike argued. “Was Travers and his goons. She’s just trying to help here.”
“Oh, and now you’re an expert on all things Council?” Buffy spat back.
“Nooo, but had some time t’ chat with her—”
“Oh, you mean while she was trying to turn you into a crispy critter?” Buffy put in.
Spike clenched his jaw, his eyes closing and head tilting to and fro on his shoulders as he tried to maintain his cool. “Before that,” he admitted slowly opening his eyes and looking back at her. “I can tell she’s just trying to get you the weapons and what-all that you need. Why don’t ya take advantage of it? Maybe see if you can get some o’ those guns that shoot wooden bullets?”
“I don’t need guns that shoot wooden bullets. I have stakes, and I’m getting ready to remind you of their effectiveness.”
“Don’t be daft!” Spike shot back. “Need to learn to play the sodding game, Slayer.”
“I don’t like games.”
“Clearly—but it’s how the fucking world works, so if you wanna stay in it, you need to learn the rules.”
Buffy crossed her arms over her chest, her jaw set stubbornly. “And I suppose you’re the one to teach me. I thought you solved all your problems with your fangs.”
Spike’s jaw was starting to ache from being clenched. “Not. Always,” he ground out. “Sometimes ya gotta use your head, Slayer, and you’re not using yours right now.”
“Oh, and you’re really known for using your head,” she scoffed. She narrowed her eyes and added, “Of course, I guess it depends which head you’re referring to.”
“You are the most frustrating, annoying, mulish—”
“Yeah, well—welcome to my world, Spike the Stubborn Shirty Smartass,” Buffy interrupted.
They both glared at each other for several long moments, only remembering the others waiting when Lydia cleared her throat.
They both looked over at her then back at each other, battling with nothing but their hardened gazes, headstrong Slayer versus pigheaded vampire.
“You know I’m right about this,” Spike said finally, his voice gone soft, almost begging. “Play the game, Buffy. Get anything you can outta them. They bloody well owe you.”
‘He’ll test your patience at every turn, and push you beyond the limits you place upon yourself—and you’ll be grateful every time he does!’
The Slayer glared at him another few moments, but then sighed out the breath she’d been holding. “Fine,” she snarled curtly. “Shall we play a game?” she asked, mimicking the computer from ‘WarGames’.
Spike smirked. “Love to... how about milk the Council for all they’re worth?”
Buffy rolled her eyes and turned back to the waiting onlooker. “Fine,” she agreed, speaking now to Lydia. “You want the grand tour?”
From behind her, Spike raised his brows, meeting the Council woman’s eyes. She gave him a small nod, barely noticeable, and a quirk of one corner of her mouth before turning her attention to Buffy. “That would be lovely,” she replied to the Slayer, pulling out her pen and getting ready to take notes.
Buffy rolled her eyes. Again with the note taking. Geez, you’d think this was gonna be hard to remember... or maybe Lily had a really bad memory. Her name was Lily, right?
“Exhibit A,” Buffy began. “Basket o’ Pointy Sticks,” she pointed out, waving her hand at the wicker basket under the table by the front door. “Exhibit two,” she continued, moving over to open a lid on a cedar chest tucked into one corner of the living room. “Chest o’ Weapons.”
Lydia followed the Slayer over to the chest and began rummaging through the haphazard array of weaponry. “Is this all in working order?” she wondered, pulling out an obviously broken crossbow.
Buffy shrugged. “We don’t look at that so much as a broken crossbow but as a perfectly usable club,” she explained, snatching it from the woman’s hand.
Lydia hummed disdainfully as she made more notes in her book.
“Looks a bit ramshackle t’ me,” Spike offered, holding up a dagger with the pointy bit broken off. “Seems like the Slayer could use some new toys. Maybe a nice armoire t’ store them in properly. Something tasteful that matches the décor and all,” he suggested.
“An armoire?” Buffy asked, looking at him curiously. “Isn’t that for clothes?”
“Well, maybe of late, but originally from the Latin, ‘arma’, a place to store weapons of war. Basically, a fetching cupboard fit for pointy knick-knacks,” Spike explained.
“I guess I missed that day in Latin class,” Buffy replied sarcastically. ‘Your ideal man will challenge your intellect.’
Lydia raised her brows at Spike and make another note in her journal before dropping the lid on the chest. “Is that all the weapons?”
“I have a few upstairs under my bed, and a few more out in the garage,” Buffy replied, turning and leading the way back to the stairs.
“Honey, if you’re all right, I’m going to give Xander a ride home,” Joyce said.
“Well, Spike did invite the Council into the house,” Buffy remarked disdainfully, giving Spike a dirty look over her shoulder. “But I’m guessing the biggest danger will be Lily’s pen running out of ink.”
“Lydia,” the woman corrected.
“Okay, dear. I’ll be back in a few minutes,” Joyce continued reaching for her coat, neither Summers woman acknowledging the correction.
“So, speaking of clothes,” Buffy began nonchalantly as she started up the stairs. “I’ve had some totally catastrophic damage to my wardrobe. How do I get reimbursed for that? Like, do I need to keep my receipts and turn them in? And what about dry-cleaning bills? And does the allowance extend to mortal allies? Like, we’ve had to have Spike’s duster repaired and cleaned twice now—not cheap.”
“Well, actually, there isn’t a—” the woman began as she and Spike followed the Slayer up the stairs. She was cut off when Spike tapped an emphatic finger down on the journal page she’d been making notes on.
Lydia glared up at him. Spike raised his brows. Lydia shook her head. Spike drew his fingers across his lips, miming zipping them. Lydia clenched her jaw.
“There isn’t a what?” Buffy prompted, stopping and turning to look back at the two blondes following her up the smooth, new stairs.
Spike arched a brow at the liaison.
Lydia cleared her throat. “There isn’t a, um, standard protocol for that. It’s usually handled on a case-by-case basis by the Watcher,” she explained, giving Spike one last glower. “I will, err, make the new Watcher aware of the situation.”
“Does that mean Buffy gets a clothing allowance?” the Slayer asked hopefully, just for clarification.
Lydia gave her a tight smile. “Something might be arranged.”
“Giles was gonna check on other benefits I’m due like health care and dental... Oh! And a salary, since I spend all my free time being your evil-thwarting lackey,” Buffy continued as she headed into her room. “Why don’t you do some checking on that,” the Slayer suggested as she bent down to retrieve the box of weapons from beneath her bed.
Spike gave Lydia a ‘tiger that ate the catnip’ grin, rolling up onto the balls of his feet as he tucked his thumbs over his belt buckle.
The woman from the Council sighed. “I’ll look into it,” she muttered, cutting her eyes at Spike before moving over to inspect the latest exhibit of weaponry.
* X-X *
“And, this is the training room,” Buffy revealed, finishing the tour.
She opened the side door to the detached garage, which sat behind and to the right of the house, and flipped on the overhead lights as she went in. Spike and Lydia followed.
The fluorescent bulbs hanging from the ceiling flickered momentarily before fully coming to life with a low buzz. They revealed a large space filled with shabby equipment. Tattered blue mats, some with the stuffing coming out, covered the floor and walls of about half of the double-wide garage. The other half had the original cement floor, oil stains and all. There was a long rack on one wall with larger weapons, like wooden staffs, battle axes, a sword or two that had seen better days, and even a machete and an oversized cleaver. Next to it, a magnetic bar held smaller weapons, like throwing knives and shurikens. There was a large, round target made of wood hanging from the back wall, though most of the bullseye that had once adorned it was gone, splintered away from use.
A heavy punching bag hung limply from the rafters, its guts being held in by duct tape, and some boxing gloves dangled from hooks on the wall. Off to one side was a weight bench with stacks of battered, heavy plates. The bar on the stand strained under the stress of the weights loaded onto each end. There were a few dumbbells scattered around the bare floor as well, all loaded up with as many of the weight plates as they could hold.
Tucked into one corner was an old table that held the best-looking piece of equipment in the place: a stereo.
Lydia looked around in disdain at the unpainted walls and bare rafters overhead before turning her disapproval on the ragged state of the mats. Though at least they were thick enough to prevent injury, they smelled of a high school locker-room. And not just any locker-room, but one overflowing with athletes after a particularly grueling football match—athletes who had died and been left to decompose for several days.
“I see,” the liaison muttered, trying not to touch anything. “And you find this... suitable for your needs?”
“It’s kept me alive this long,” Buffy pointed out, crossing her arms over her chest defensively. They’d never really planned on making the garage a training room, it had just happened over time when someone found something useful and dragged it in. Like all the perfectly good mats the high school was tossing out that Xander noticed, or that heavy bag the local boxing club deemed too grungy to keep which Oz had tossed into his van and dropped off. Cordy had actually contributed the weight bench and weights, offering it to Buffy when one of her boy-toys was trying to get rid of it to make room for a shiny, new set. Giles had provided the weaponry, slowly migrating the items that had seen better days and delegating them to the practice squad. Over time, the garage had been transformed from a place to store junk and park her mom’s Jeep to a place for good, old fashioned violence.
“Yes, well,” Lydia replied. “I believe that may be more a statement about your skill than your training facility.”
Buffy’s brows furrowed. Had Lily actually given her a compliment?
Spike walked up and punched the bag with a deadly left jab. It swung on the heavy chains holding it, making the rafters creak, but it didn’t go sailing off and the roof didn’t come tumbling down. He shrugged. “Solid, at least,” he commented, looking around.
“It’s better than training in the library, like we did at first,” Buffy explained, walking over and giving the bag a punch herself. She was pleased to see that, while it didn’t swing quite as far as Spike’s had, it still made the rafters complain and didn’t send any pain radiating up her arm with the blow. She was getting stronger. Maybe another day or two and she’d be back to her usual self.
“How in the world could you train properly in a library?” Lydia wondered, looking aghast. “Did you damage any books in the process?”
Buffy snorted and punched the bag again with her left hand. “No books were damaged in the making of this Slayer,” she assured the woman. “But, yeah, it was a bit cramped. A-and now with two of us—Slayers I mean—this is better. We can spar and stuff without, you know, destroying the precious books.”
“You and Faith train together, then?” Lydia wondered, pulling her journal out and beginning her notetaking again.
“When she decides to show up. And Spike too, of course.”
Lydia shot the vampire a questioning look.
“My Spike... the furry one,” Buffy clarified, though the idea of sparing with the shirty Spike sent a shiver of excitement through her. She looked over at him and found him watching her, hands on hips, his blue eyes intense. She swore she could feel the same thrum of anticipation and exhilaration rolling off him at the thought. For various reasons, they’d never been able to fully defeat the other in all the times they’d battled, though it had been a while since they’d fought in earnest. How amazing would it be to match wits and fists with him again? Her heart began to race at the notion, and she felt her adrenaline surge, sharpening her senses.
Spike arched a brow at her, shifting his balance slightly as if getting ready to spring, his teeth pressed into his oh-so-bitable bottom lip.
The two mortal allies stood a still as statues, eyes locked together across the short distance that separated them while Lydia made her notes. To an outsider looking in, it seemed like nothing much was happening, but beneath the surface, barely contained lightning danced, tingling their skin and rousing their instincts to razor-sharp clarity.
Buffy wasn’t sure if she wanted to fight him or do something else to him that began with an ‘f’—or both. Maybe all at the same time. Her skin prickled and her body burned with desire— desire to touch him, with fists or fingertips, it didn’t matter in that moment. She’d never felt like this before, so many conflicting needs converging into a maelstrom of confusing cravings that couldn’t be sated because, no matter what she did, her heart would be in the mix. Her stupid, sappy, hopeful heart that refused to learn its lesson, refused to be buried or walled away, refused to fully detach.
‘You want the cheeky smolder, the baby blues, and hair you can run your fingers through!’
“I would like to observe your training practices and perhaps a sparring session, if that’s acceptable,” Lydia said, breaking the spell as she looked up from her journal.
The two blondes broke the eye contact at the same time, looking away, though still very aware of the other, of the sparks that flew silently and unseen between them.
Buffy cleared her throat. “Uh, yeah, I guess,” she agreed, punching the heavy bag again, this time making it swing just as far as Spike had.
“Place could use a bit of updating, eh?” Spike interjected, turning away from the Slayer to fiddle with one of the wooden staffs in the rack behind him.
The woman gave him a knowing smile. “I’ve made a note of it,” she assured him. “Shall we plan on tomorrow evening then? Say around seven?” she asked, looking back at Buffy.
Buffy smacked the bag again, a quick one-two combo, making the chains rattle. “If you can get Faith here,” she agreed, backhanding the defenseless canvas with another impressive blow. Definitely stronger, and the unreleased energy skittering through her only added fuel to her fire. She could go after that carrottop vamp soon, catch him in his lair and take him down with extreme prejudice. The idea of it filled her with gleeful anticipation.
“Very well then, I’ll see you at seven tomorrow evening,” Lydia concluded, turning for the door. “Thank you for your cooperation.”
Buffy snorted. “Don’t thank me, thank Spike,” she grumbled, battering the bag with a couple of haymaker punches followed by a roof-shaking side kick right in the poor thing’s gut.
“Oh, don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll work out some suitable recompense,” Lydia replied cryptically before stepping out of the garage.
Buffy turned and glared after her back, watching until the grey of Lydia’s suit disappeared into the darkness, then turned her gaze on Spike. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Spike shrugged, hooking his thumbs over his belt buckle as he turned and faced her. “Got no idea, do I?”
“You know she’s all hot and bothered over you, right?”
Spike arched a brow, turning to look out into the night in the direction Lydia went, then back at Buffy. “Is she? Hadn’t noticed.”
“Oh, please...” Buffy scoffed, turning back to the heavy bag, throwing punch after punch at it. “She probably sleeps in ‘William the Bloody’ pajamas. She’s definitely the president of your fan club. If you look through that book of hers, I bet you’ll find a whole page where she’s practiced signing her name as ‘Mrs. Bloody’.”
Spike pursed his lips to keep from grinning at the imagery. “Fan club, eh? How many fans ya reckon I’ve got, then?”
“Well, let’s see, there’s Faith, and Lily... oh, and Spike, as long as you take him for cheeseburgers. So, I guess that’s three, assuming my math skills haven’t deteriorated along with my Latin.”
“Three, eh?” Spike questioned, sauntering over to her, unfazed by the violent blows she was raining down on the bag. “Don’t think there might be four?”
“Four? Nope—you left Dru, so pretty sure she’s out. I know Angel isn’t in it—he’d probably burn down the clubhouse if he knew—with you in it. Giles—despite the lifesaving heroic stupidity on your part—is not gushing with love. Xander didn’t seem to be fanboying over you, and Mom’s too old to be going gaga and joining fan clubs.”
“Still think you’re forgetting one, pet,” Spike insisted as he came up behind her.
Buffy shook her head, still concentrating on pummeling the sand in the bag and turning it into dust.
Spike leaned in toward her, his mouth close enough to her neck for her to feel his breath. It was cool and hot at the same time against her damp skin, making her freeze in place. “Croisade et Roses,” he whispered in a passable French accent. “Can’t wash it off, luv. It’s not sprayed on, it’s part of you. Maybe you should think about letting it out one o’ these days.”
“What the hell is that—” Buffy demanded, spinning around to face him, but he was gone, not even his blonde hair visible in the darkness outside the door. “—supposed to mean?” she finished lamely.
‘Your relationship might have its ups and downs—this much passion and competitiveness is bound to ruffle some feathers—but the making up will always be worth it!’
“Stupid vampire,” she grumbled, spinning around and walloping the bag with a forearm. But somewhere inside her she knew what it meant... war and roses. It was how she’d been feeling when they’d locked gazes. Part of her wanted violence the likes of which she’d never felt before—a war of fists and fangs all tangled up with a burning desire to have him inside her—fucking her—there was no other way to put it.
Or maybe her fucking him.
Where the hell had that thought come from? That wasn’t Buffy at all. It wasn’t anything she’d ever considered before. The idea that she’d be bold enough in bed to... to... to, well, take the lead, was so far removed from her reality that it stunned her for a moment. She’d seen things, of course, and heard things and, of course read things about sex and positions—but those things weren’t her. And yet, the image of just that—of being the aggressor—which had flashed in her mind sent a surge of heat skittering through her, prickling her skin and intensifying the throbbing between her legs.
Buffy shook herself. She wasn’t the war; she was the roses. She was the tenderness. She was the girl who dreamed of the gentle touch of fingertips on her skin, the brush of luscious lips, light as butterfly wings against her mouth. She longed for the romance of slow, sweet lovemaking, followed by spooning and cuddling as they drifted to sleep in each other’s arms. That was who she was.
Wasn’t she?
That was how that one time had been. Slow and tender. And then there had been cuddling. And then had come the nightmare of waking up alone, her lover gone.
And then had come the shattering of her heart. ‘You were great. Really. I thought you were a pro.’
Buffy clenched her jaw and returned to thrashing the bag with fists and feet. That was the crux of it, wasn’t it? Because it would be the same thing all over again if she gave in to her body’s cravings for the shirty, stubborn smartass. Her heart would eventually be shattered again—maybe not the first night, maybe not the second, or even the tenth, but eventually. And the longer it took, the more complete the devastation would be. Because, while she may be a fully devoted, card-carrying member of the Spike fan club, he was only interested in certain parts of her clubhouse—and it didn’t include her heart. If she went there with him, he’d destroy her—and it would be her own stupid fault.
STORY BOARDS
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link: https://flic.kr/p/2m2f4W2
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link: https://flic.kr/p/2m2e3Xy
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link: https://flic.kr/p/2m2e3Yf
End Notes:
WarGames – Shall we play a game? https://youtu.be/-1F7vaNP9w0
Buffy’s house does have a garage, though we never see it in canon (that I recall). It is mentioned by Dawn in ‘Intervention’. I went on Google Earth and looked up the house they used as Buffy’s: 1313 Cota Avenue in Torrance, CA. It has a double garage in the back and off to one side. It opens onto the alley behind the house and onto the driveway which runs alongside the right-hand side of house from the front to the back. I put the Google Earth picture of it in one of the storyboards.
The perfume is not real. I want to thank the wonderful Mai Maktes for helping me come up with something in French that means ‘War & Roses’, sounds something like a perfume name, and wouldn’t trigger a revolution.
Thank you so much for reading and for your patience as I try to catch up with your wonderful comments! RL things are starting to slow down a little for me, so hopefully I’ll get caught up soon. I love reading all your notes! They keep me incredibly inspired!
As always, my undying gratitude to my wonderful beta readers and friends: All4Spike, Paganbaby, and TeamEricNSookie. Holi117 has switched to a pre-reader, which I’m so happy she’s finding time for that. All mistakes are mine because I keep fiddling with stuff. If you see any, PM me and I’ll fix it.
Chapter 36: Jelly Donuts
Chapter Text
Chapter Notes:
Bonus Memorial Day chapter! Thank you to everyone who is serving or has served. Hope you enjoy the chapter!
Chapter 36: Jelly Donuts
Spike leaned against the trunk of a massive banyan tree waiting for the lovely Miss Chalmers to return to her room at The Edna Wilkins House. He was in complete darkness beneath the thick, overhanging branches, all ambient light from the house smothered by the sheltering leaves. The only illumination under the dense canopy came from the glowing end of the cigarette that dangled from his fingers. He lifted it to his lips and inhaled, briefly illuminating the lines and planes of his face before his features fell back into shadow.
While he was waiting for one blonde, it was another that filled his mind and senses. Buffy. Buffy slamming her deadly fists against that heavy bag. Buffy smelling like heaven and hell all mingled together and dipped in sunshine and sweet ambrosia. Buffy’s heart skittering and thudding in her chest like a stampede of tempestuous unicorns. Buffy. A feral cat he didn’t dare reach for lest she attack or scarper away.
He took another deep drag on the cigarette, contemplating his actions in the garage come training room. Just the suggestion of fighting her—of sparring with her—had made him hard, made his demon writhe beneath his breast, made his mouth water, and his palms itch to touch her. And he knew she felt it too—felt the desire to fling more than words at each other. He didn’t want to kill her, he just wanted to dance the dance, be that close to her grace and power as she pushed him to the edge, challenging him like no one else ever had. And then he wanted to devour her, press himself into her willing body, hear her scream with pleasure as she bucked and came apart beneath him.
His hard-on, which hadn’t completely faded since leaving Buffy and the garage an hour ago, returned with a vengeance, straining the zipper of his jeans. He held the fag between his lips to free his hands and made some adjustments below the belt. It wasn’t that much better, but would have to do until he could have a proper wank or three.
The light in the second-floor corner suite of The Edna May House flipped on. Through the French doors that lead to the deck, Spike could see Lydia enter the room and set down her journal and purse. He dropped the cigarette, barely thinking to stomp on it before he was across the lawn and up on the deck outside her room. This time he knocked before trying the handle—it was locked. Well, at least the bint had learned something from his previous visit. Not that a lock on a glass door was any real obstacle, but it seemed rude to break it, so he waited.
She jumped at the sound of his knuckles on the glass, whirling to face him, her hair just falling from the bun as she pulled the fasteners free.
Spike gave her a friendly smile and stood back as she approached, rebuttoning her high-necked blouse before opening the door to him.
“Mr. Bloody, I didn’t know we had an appointment,” she greeted, stepping back and allowing him to enter.
“Just checking in, wonderin’ if ya got that contract ready,” Spike related, crossing into the luxuriant suite.
Lydia closed the door behind him and made her way to a pile of mail on the dresser. “I believe it’s here—sent by special courier,” she told him, extracting a thick, brown envelope from the stack. “I haven’t yet read it over myself.”
“You made the changes we talked about on the phone?”
“Yes. There were a few things you hadn’t spelled out fully, so I had to use my best judgement.”
Spike waited as she opened the package and pulled out three presumably identical copies of a contract, each several pages long. He could smell the blood, apparently from the CFO of the Council, already on them.
“Before we look these over, I need to make one additional demand,” Lydia informed him, ignoring his outstretched hand.
Spike dropped his arm and arched a brow at her. “Did like I said t’day, didn’t I? Got you in with the Slayer, got her talking, showing you about.”
“Yes, I cannot disagree that you were instrumental in bringing her around, but the demands for armoires full of weapons and a refurbished training center, not to mention a clothing allowance... well, those are somewhat beyond the scope of what we’d agreed to.”
Spike snorted. “You think getting the bloody Slayer to even let ya in the house was something anyone else could’a done? Then to get her to show you all her toys? You’d still be standing on the front walk having the great fleabag sniffing up your skirt and pissing in your boots if not for me.”
“Perhaps,” Lydia acquiesced. “But still, I think my additional demand will be minimal in comparison to finding a way to provide her with everything you’ve requested.”
Spike folded his arms over his chest and waited, impatience glittering in his expressive eyes. “Go on, then.”
“Photographs.”
Spike’s brow arched again. “Beg pardon?”
“I’d like permission to take some photographs of you, in your human guise and demon.”
A devilish grin spread over Spike’s face. “Why, Miss Chalmers, are you trying to get me outta my trousers? Made that offer yesterday, as I recall, and you didn’t seem keen.”
The woman flushed, bringing bright color to her otherwise pale face. “That is not...” She cleared her throat and straightened her glasses. “No, that was not my intent. Simply documentary photos for my report showing your current appearance, facial features, body type, etcetera, dressed in your normal attire.”
Spike smirked. “And you’ll get Buffy what she needs, the dosh for her togs, new kit for that training room, and some decent weapons? Maybe some o’ those guns that fire the wooden bullets...”
Lydia frowned. “Um, I’m not certain about the last. They require a powerful witch to enchant the wood, you see, otherwise it simply splinters inside the barrel.”
“Got a witch... just get us the hardware and the spell, we’ll take care o’ the rest,” Spike countered.
“Well... all right, I suppose that will be acceptable. We can just attach an addendum to the contract with these further agreements,” she suggested.
Spike reached a hand out for a copy of what had been written up. “Let’s have a look, then. Sooner we get this going, sooner it’s done, the sooner the Slayer gets her first paycheck, all official-like.”
Lydia handed him a copy of the contract, set one copy, and kept one for herself. She took a seat at the combination dining table and writing desk near the window overlooking the ocean, and began to read. Spike looked around a moment before spying what he was looking for. In a moment, the mini bar had been divested of two tiny bottles of Chivas Regal and two more of Dewar’s White Label.
Lydia looked up at him, grinding her teeth as he set the bottles on the table along with a couple of tumblers. You could buy bottles twice the size of those at the liquor store for the price of those small containers from the minibar. The Council did not cover ‘entertainment’ expenses, at least not for Field Technicians. Only the promotion she’d assuredly get for this interview with the infamous William the Bloody—truce abiding vampire—stayed her tongue.
Spike poured her a finger of the Dewar’s and slid the glass across the table to her as he took the opposite seat, filling his glass with what remained in the bottle. “Loosen up a bit, pet,” he suggested. “Gonna be spending a bit of time together, might as well be comfortable.”
Lydia cleared her throat nervously. Just how comfortable did he have in mind? She looked around for her bag and the cross that was tucked inside it, trying to calculate her chances of getting to it. She should’ve retrieved it before allowing him into her room—that had been a reckless mistake which she vowed to not make again.
“Not gonna bite you,” Spike assured her, a tone of sarcasm touching the words. He leaned back in his chair, balancing it easily on two legs, and propped his booted feet up on the table as he picked up his glass. “Cheers,” he toasted, lifting the amber liquid to his lips and downing it all in one long swallow.
She relaxed a bit at his nonchalant posture, though scowled at the soil which fell from his boots onto the table. He seemed intent on dirtying her spotless living area with each visit. Well, at least she didn’t have to clean it—$400 a night buys a superior maid service. She picked up her own glass and lifted it toward him. “To a successful partnership,” she toasted, downing her portion of the whisky as he had, in one swallow, though, admittedly, her glass contained considerably less than his.
Spike was amused to see no visible reaction to the burning liquid on the woman’s face as it slid down her gullet. ‘Ah, Miss Chalmers, you vixen... not quite as innocent as you let on, then, are you?’ He filed that away as he reached for the contract and began to read. He had a feeling the mini-bar would be empty by the time he got finished sorting through all the legalese someone had sprinkled throughout, despite his insistence they do not do that. Well, a Cambridge education, even one from over a century ago, did come in handy now and again, he supposed, though he thought larger bottles of whiskey would be more useful in sorting out all the ‘wherefores’ and ‘aforementioneds’.
After a few minutes of silence and the emptying of one of the Chivas bottles, Spike’s chair dropped down onto all fours with a thud. “What the bloody hell is this?” he asked, waving the contract at her across the table. “Ten grand a year? What sorta salary is that for a Slayer? Said it should be a proper wage, didn’t I? She’s not a bleedin’ part-time burger flipper, for fuck’s sake.”
“That’s Sterling,” Lydia pointed out haughtily.
“I don’t give a toss if it’s sodding Leprechaun Gold. Not enough, that! How much do they pay you?” he demanded.
“Me?” Lydia huffed. “How could that be relevant? I have a Bachelor of Arts in History with a minor in Linguistics from Oxford combined with years of intense training with the Watcher’s Council, including an Advanced Watcher’s Diploma. Miss Summers has yet to graduate American public high school,” she sniffed indignantly.
“And yet, Miss Summers is the one in the trenches, on the front line, stopping the annual apocalypse, putting her neck on the line. She’s also the only one who can stop me ripping your throat out, you toffee-nosed, Oxford bint,” Spike ground out, his eyes glittering gold momentarily. “Or do you reckon you can get to that stake ‘fore your blood’s soaking into the carpet?” he taunted, letting his features shift fully to his demon countenance.
The young woman froze, though her heart raced painfully in her chest. She shook her head negatively, a jerky motion, her eyes wide.
“Well, you’d be right about that,” Spike agreed, slipping back to his human mien. “Now change it,” he demanded, pounding a finger down on her copy of the contract. “Same salary as you... while you’re at it, same insurance, health, dental, every kind o’ policy there is... the sodding works. Every bloody benefit you’ve got, she gets. Plus new, proper weapons and allowance for her togs.”
“T-they paid for my education as well,” she stammered, adrenaline and ambition combining to loosen her tongue. “We all h-have life insurance... double indemnity if we’re killed on the job a-and twenty-eight days annual leave as standard, though I’ve been an Archival Research Inquisitor, Second Class for some time now, so I actually get forty-two..."
Spike grinned. “Sounds like a right nice employment package you’ve got there, pet. Reckon the one girl that keeps this world from being sucked into a hell dimension every year or so ought’a get the same, don’t you?”
"B-but, the Slayer. She cannot simply take a holiday. She must be ever-vigilant, standing against the forces of darkness," Lydia pointed out.
"Yet you were willin' to pay for a trip around the world for 'er!" Spike pointed out angrily. "Put it the fuck in!"
Lydia swallowed and nodded shakily, her nerves jangling. “I-I also have a pension plan for...for retirement. But, I don’t see the point of—”
Spike growled, cutting her off. “Put it in,” he insisted.
The woman gave another nervous nod before picking up her pen and making the changes.
“And not a sodding word to anyone ‘bout our arrangement,” he reminded her. “Buffy never knows. All this bollocks comes direct from the Council t’ her cos she asked for it and she bloody well deserves it, you get me? Otherwise I’ll stop playin’ so nice.”
Lydia snorted. “If this is nice, I’d rather not see your bad side,” she muttered.
A devilish smile curved Spike’s lips. “Reckon ya got a bit of sense after all, despite having gone to Oxford.”
* X-X *
Buffy’s mood hadn’t improved since Spike had left her battering the punching bag in the training room earlier in the night. When she’d finally gone into the house and realized he wasn’t there, she’d taken the dog out... for a walk. Okay, she took the dog out to track the vanished vampire. Because, well, she was the Slayer and she needed to know where evil lurked when it wasn’t sleeping in the nude in her guest room. It had absolutely nothing to do with wanting to know who he may be going to visit in the dead of night... old chums of the female persuasion notwithstanding.
But they hadn’t had any better luck than the night before. They certainly hadn’t found the blond, but had tracked him a bit further this time before he’d apparently taken to the rooftops... or just sprouted wings and flown away. Either way, they’d lost his trail. This inability to find him—twice now—piqued Buffy’s interest in a purely professional capacity, and had nothing at all do with the green-eyed monster that lived in her gut and refused to go away.
So that was why she and her dog were now standing in front of her former Watcher’s door, trying to decide how badly she wanted to find the shirty vampire. Bad enough to ask Giles for help?
Buffy’s knuckles rapped on the door before her brain realized she’d made the decision. Nothing happened after the first knock, or the second. It took three times of knocking before the door swung open. It was late, but it wasn’t that late—certainly she’d been here before at this hour, checking in after patrols and the like.
“Buffy,” Giles greeted her, a slight slur to the single word as he wavered and then leaned against the doorjamb. His tie was still technically on, but pulled to one side and loosened to the point of looking more like a necklace. Beneath it, several of his shirt’s buttons were undone, and one side of his collar was sticking up. “A bit late, isn’t it?”
“Not that late,” Buffy defended, looking at him curiously. “Are you okay?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?” Giles asked, trying unsuccessfully to stand away from the support of the wall.
“You’re... listing.”
“Am I?” Giles wondered, looking down at his feet curiously. “Are you certain?”
“Like the Titanic after it tried to turn an iceberg into a slushy in the North Atlantic.”
Giles chuckled. “I’ve always quite enjoyed your quips. Clever girl, you are. Thank you for stopping by,” he dismissed, staggering back a step and clumsily pushing the door to close it.
Buffy put her hand against the wood and stopped it. Giles looked confused and pushed harder, leaning on the door with his shoulder. Buffy rolled her eyes and stepped forward, opening it enough to slide inside, the dog right on her heels. As soon as she got in and released the pressure, Giles nearly fell as it suddenly gave way, slamming closed.
“Very good, then,” he muttered, wobbling dangerously but catching his balance at the last moment. He steadied himself carefully against the door before turning back around. Giles jumped when he saw Buffy behind him, letting out an unmanly ‘yip’ of surprise and then another of pain as he put extra weight on his injured leg.
Buffy rolled her eyes. “What’s wrong with you?” she demanded. “You’re acting very non-Giles-y.”
Giles did his best to stand up straight, but didn’t quite make it as his bad leg gave way and he had to lean on the doorknob for support. He did his best to make it look nonchalant. “I asssssure you I’m perfectly fine,” he slurred, doing his best to match his posture to the words, and failing.
“Riiight,” Buffy drawled, looking around the living room. She walked over to the desk and picked up a bottle of Glenfiddich—half gone—and a bottle of oxy. “Tell me you didn’t wash pain pills down with whisky.”
“Very well, then,” he replied, taking a couple of limping steps over to lean on the arm of the sofa, then another to slide between the sofa and the coffee table so he could collapse onto the cushions.
“Giles, did you wash down these pills with whisky?” Buffy demanded, walking over to face him. She held the pills and bottle out like exhibits in a trial, allowing the jury—in this case, Giles—to examine them.
Giles blinked at her. “You said not to tell you that. You really should make up your mind.”
Buffy rolled her eyes and sighed, dropping her arms to her sides. “How many pills did you take?”
“Not nearly enough, clearly, since I appear to still be cons... consi... awake.”
“Do I need to call the ambulance?”
“Are you injured?” he wondered, squinting at her through the smudged lenses of his glasses.
“Giles! Focus here. How many pills did you take?”
He closed his eyes, apparently trying to concentrate, or perhaps fall asleep. After a few moments Buffy pressed, “Giles!”
His eyes flew open. “Buffy! How... where did you come from?”
Buffy rolled her eyes and sighed heavily. “Focus! How many pills did you take?” She shook the bottle at him emphatically.
Giles’ eyes tried to follow the motion, he seemed to turn green with the effort, his hand coming up to cover his mouth as he clamped his eyes closed. “Please des... desis... stop. You’ve got the world ssspinning rather too quickly.”
Buffy scowled at him and stomped over to the desk, putting the pills and booze down. “I’m making you some coffee,” she announced.
“I’d prefer jelly donuts.”
“Well, I don’t know how to make jelly donuts, so you’ll have to settle for coffee.”
“They’re really nothing alike,” Giles pointed out.
“Deal with it,” Buffy grumbled, going into the kitchen. She began slamming doors open and closed, looking for the coffee.
Giles winced and covered his ears. “I didn’t realize coffee was quite so boisss... boisrious... boi... loud.”
“Then you probably haven’t been making it right,” Buffy called back, finally finding the coffee.
Giles frowned, looking at the dog. “Did you know there’s a bloody great beast in my flat?”
“It’s okay, he’s with me.”
“Does he enjoy loud coffee, as well?”
“No, but he’s a sucker for jelly donuts.”
“Ah, quite. They’re delic... deli... deli-ici-ous,” Giles agreed, getting the last word out with painstaking care. “I say, do you have any?”
* X-X *
“Feeling better?” Buffy asked some time, and several cups of coffee, later.
“Not particularly,” Giles complained, massaging his throbbing temples.
“Care to make with the splainy? I’m sure even you know booze and pills are unmixy.”
Giles closed his eyes and slowly shook his head. “I... it wasn’t intentional. I simply... well, my leg hurt, you see...”
“And all you could find in the whole place to drink was whisky?” Buffy asked sarcastically. “You know those funny little knobs there over the sink? If you turn them, water comes out.”
Giles sighed. “Yes, thank you. I will try to remember that for the future,” he replied dryly.
Buffy rolled her eyes, scowling at him. “I might not like you very much right now, but I don’t want you dead, so please don’t do that again.”
“That’s perhaps the kindest thing you’ve said to me in several days,” the man observed, removing his glasses and examining them before reaching for a handkerchief to clean them with.
“Yeah, well... don’t get too used to it. I’m still uber-mad at you.”
The man nodded. “Well, I’m still glad to know my death isn’t at the top of your Christmas list.”
“Not even top five,” Buffy assured him.
Giles gave her a bleak smile and returned his glasses to his nose. “Was there actually something you needed which brought you to my doorstep, or had you simply got lost?”
Buffy cleared her throat and looked over at his bookcases. “I... well, Lucy said that Slayers should be able to do simple spells, like tracking spells.”
“Lucy?” Giles questioned, looking at her with confusion.
“That woman from the Council,” Buffy clarified.
“Lydia,” the man corrected.
Buffy furrowed her brows. “Are you sure?”
“Quite.”
“You’re still drunk... I’m sure it’s Lucy.”
Giles sighed. “Did you have a point that you were getting at?”
“Yeah, so, I was thinking that maybe I should learn how to do a tracking spell. You know, in case Spike gets lost.” She waved a hand at the dog, who was lying flat out on his side in the middle of the floor, snoring lightly. “Then I can find him.”
“I’m no longer your Watcher, Buffy. Perhaps Lyd... Miss Chalmers could give you assistance in this.”
“Oh, like she helped heal Spike? That would be a hard no,” Buffy retorted, looking back at him, meeting his eyes. “And, anyway, you’re still my Watcher,” she asserted. “You think I’m gonna break in a newbie all by myself? You aren’t getting out of this that easy.”
Giles gave her a small, but appreciative smile. “You do know that Willow could likely do the spell for you if that ever happened.”
Buffy shrugged, a small pout forming on her bottom lip. “I know, I just thought... well, it’d be faster if I could just do it myself. And you know what they say about time being of the urgent in those situations. Is it that hard?”
Giles began to shake his head but then thought better of it as marbles began battering his skull—likely they were his marbles, all come loose. “No, it’s not particularly difficult. I’m certain you can master it easily.” He started to rise, to go to the bookshelf, but winced and grabbed at his leg as he flopped back onto the cushions.
“Just tell me which book,” Buffy suggested, standing up. “And the general vicinity,” she added, looking at the plethora of overloaded shelves along the wall.
Giles directed her to the book—a thin tome, and fairly modern looking. It even had color pictures and everything—Buffy’s favorite.
“You will need something of Spike’s on hand to perform the spell,” he explained, opening the book to the proper page. “Hair or nail clippings... blood would work, as well.”
Buffy nodded, thinking she could get some peroxided hair from the vamp’s brush in the bathroom. “Then what?”
“Well, you need something to use to direct you. Some practitioners use a pendulum or even a pendant on a chain which will pull them in the right direction, some use a compass, some even create small sparks of light that float in the air and lead them to the person or, err, dog, to be found.”
“What would you use?” Buffy wondered.
“I’ve always been partial to the compass, myself,” Giles revealed. “If you’ll check the middle desk drawer, there’s one in there you can have.”
Buffy retrieved it then came back and looked over the spell. The directions were in English, and not even like, old-timey English, but real English. Thank all the gods. All except for the actual incantation, which looked like Latin. Why hadn’t she taken Latin instead of French? Then she could mangle that language instead, and be summoning demons or setting things on fire during the verbal tests.
“You don’t need to understand the words, simply recite them properly, for it to work,” Giles assured her, reading her concerned expression.
“Handy,” Buffy breathed. “And that’s it—just follow these directions with some of Spike’s hair and then go the direction the compass says?”
“Yes, that’s the basic premise.”
“How will I know when I’m there? Like, what if he’s inside a building or something?”
“When you’re close, the compass will begin to spin counter-clockwise quite rapidly. You can triangulate the location by moving away and it should settle back to point at the proper location. If it is a multi-story location, then I’m afraid the compass wouldn’t be much help in determining which floor.”
Buffy nodded thoughtfully. She could do this. How hard could it be, right?
“Of course,” Giles continued. “If he’s been taken and not just got lost, then it’s possible that someone may have a cloaking spell in place, which would make this spell useless. And distance may play a factor, as well—I doubt this would work beyond a few miles. It’s quite basic, requiring only a few drops of your blood to fuel it... to pay homage to the goddess. Anything stronger would require more of a sacrifice.”
Buffy pursed her lips and nodded. This should work fine for what she needed. “Well, if any of that happens, then I’ll get you or Wills to make with the serious mojo-ness.”
“Yes, as you have seen, magic is not something to be trifled with lightly,” Giles advised.
“Kinda like mixing oxycodone and Irish whisky.”
“Actually, it’s Scotch whisky,” Giles corrected. “But your point is taken.”
Buffy gave him a small smile and stood up. “Can I keep this?” she asked, referring to the book.
“Certainly, it’s a fairly common volume. I can replace it easily.”
“Are you... do you need help?” Buffy offered, looking at the stairs, then back at Giles.
He waved her off. “I’ll be fine,” he assured her.
Buffy nodded and started for the door, but paused and turned back. “Why didn’t you teach me any magic before?”
Giles sighed, looking over at her. “I simply felt your time was better spent in other pursuits. You’re a talented fighter, Buffy—resourceful and creative. I didn’t think that dividing your attention was the best course of action at the time. You... you also seemed quite determined to have a ‘normal life’ outside of slaying. To... to teach you everything the handbook advises would’ve required giving that up. It’s quite time consuming. Consider, for example, Kendra. I’m sure you can see how her life had been focused completely on slaying.”
The Slayer nodded and turned toward the door again. The big dog seemed to sense her departure and came awake, yawning and stretching before lumbering to his feet.
“Buffy, may I give you some advice?” Giles asked, pushing himself slowly up to standing. Where the bloody hell had he left his cane? Well, no matter.
The girl stopped again and turned back, considering. “About?”
“Spike.”
Buffy looked at her dog.
Giles shook his head. “The other Spike.”
Buffy’s features hardened. “Am I likely to take it?”
Giles’ lips drew into a dour line. “Unfortunately, not,” he admitted.
“Then save it. I have enough of my own ‘I-told-you-sos’ clogging up my brain as it is.”
Though it was clear he still wanted to say whatever it was, he simply gave her a curt nod. “In that case, I’ll bid you goodnight.”
Another nod from the Slayer and she and the dog were out the door, leaving the former Watcher alone. He sank back down onto the couch with a sigh. “Do be careful, my dear girl,” he murmured to the empty room. “Your death is not at the top of my Christmas list, either.”
* X-X *
“What’s had your interest so long this fine evening?”
Buffy jumped, whirling around at the mocking baritone that greeted her just inside the front door. Spike leaned casually against the opening between the dining room and the foyer, a mug of blood in one hand, an amused expression on his face.
The girl scowled at him, quickly hiding the magic book behind her back. “I wish you’d stop doing that!” she exclaimed as her dog padded over to the vampire, tail wagging, bumming ear rubs.
“Doin’ what?” Spike asked innocently, dropping one hand to oblige the dog. “Being all polite, inquiring about your night?”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” Buffy insisted.
“Slayer, I very rarely understand a sodding thing you’re talking about,” Spike informed her, though the smirk on his lips, which he tried to cover by taking a sip of his meal, belied his words.
“Stop sneaking up on me like that. It’s gonna get you dusty one day,” she warned huffily. She wanted to walk away from him, but then hiding the book would be impossible, so Buffy just glared at him, hoping he’d walk away.
He didn’t. “What’cha got there?” he asked, tilting his chin toward the arm that was wrapped firmly around her back.
“None of your business,” she snapped. Damnit! If he found out she was going to track him with a spell, he’d find some way to counter it, go all Star Trek and get one of those cloaking devices Giles had talked about.
Spike arched a brow at her. “Another book o’ sonnets from the great git?” he guessed, though he couldn’t smell Angel on her. She smelled like a confusing mix of whisky and worry, with a large helping of strong coffee over it all.
Buffy blanched, her heart skittering. He’d found the book from Angel? Where the hell had she left it? God, it seemed months ago now, though it couldn’t have been. It had been for her birthday—early, that was true, but it hadn’t been that early. It was before Kralik... the night Jonathan had saved her... eight days ago? Nine? Seemed more like a year, so much had happened. She shook her calculations off, refocusing. “Like I said, it’s none of your business,” she huffed, lifting her chin stubbornly.
“Hope it’s better than the last one the wanker got ya. Sonnets from the Portuguese,” he scoffed. “P-lease! Sodding pathetic gift, if ya ask me. You want real poems, Slayer, I can point you in the right direction.”
“You?” Buffy barked with a laugh, as if Angel hadn’t told her about William being a lovelorn poet. ‘William, the bloody awful poet,’ Angel had revealed. ‘It’s what his high society friends called him behind his back… or well, not quite that far behind his back, I guess.’ Buffy felt a stab of sympathy for the man beneath the demon, but she pushed it back. He was being a snarky, smartass vampire, not a lovelorn poet right now, so she’d be a shirty Slayer—fight fire with fire. “What do you know about poetry?”
Spike’s smirk grew, his blue eyes glittering with mischief as he stood away from the wall, squaring his shoulders. “Know enough,” he asserted in a tone that flowed like honey over his tongue.
“Okay, Mr. Bloody the poetry expert, let’s hear one,” she challenged.
Spike pursed his lips and looked up and past her, apparently lost in thought a moment, before returning that amused gaze to her.
“There once was a man from Brighton,” he began to recite in the cadence of a limerick, his wickedly blue eyes returning to hers.
“Who said, ‘Lass, you sure are a tight ‘un.’
“She said, ‘Not to burst your bubble,
“’And it’s really no trouble,
“’But, ya bastard, you’re not in the right ‘un.’”
Spike rolled up onto his toes and back on his heels, clearly pleased, his trademark smirk firmly in place.
Buffy bit down on her lip to keep from laughing, a disdainful eye roll followed as she reined in her amusement. “Ewww! Of course, you’d know porno poetry,” she chided, trying to sound disgusted. “You’re a pig, Spike,” she asserted, turning for the stairs, switching the book in her hand so that it was in front of her, out of his direct view. Let him think it was a book of poetry from Angel... that was better than thinking it was a spell book.
“Got more where that came from, pet. Just say the word. Could regale you with ‘em for hours,” he offered tauntingly. “There was a young man from Nantucket,” he continued.
“Stop! I’ve heard enough!” Buffy called back over her shoulder.
“Your loss.” Spike grinned, watching her hips sway deliciously as she mounted the stairs. He ran his tongue over his teeth, thinking of other things those sweet hips could mount. The hard-on, which he’d finally relieved with a couple of desperately brutal wanks in the shower less than an hour ago, surged back to full life again.
‘Bloody woman’s gonna be the dust of you,’ he thought, taking another sip of the cow’s blood. He shrugged. He was her vampire, after all—only right for her to be the dust of him. Crumbling away from pure frustration hadn’t exactly been how he’d thought it would go, though. “C’mon, kitty,” he groaned under his breath. “Come out and play.”
Before Buffy reached the first landing, her dog trotting up behind her, Spike called, “Oi! Never told me where you were all night.”
“Visiting with an old friend,” she replied, pausing but not turning around.
“Anyone I know?” Spike wondered.
“Couldn’t say,” Buffy retorted easily, mimicking his words from the previous night.
“What’s her name?”
‘Gotcha!’ Buffy thought as she stopped on the landing, a cat-that-devoured-all-the-canaries grin on her lips as she turned back and looked down at him. “Who says it was a ‘she’?” Buffy wondered innocently before disappearing around the corner, her quick steps up the remaining stairs echoing behind her.
Spike shook his head, a mixture of flaring jealousy and unbridled amusement warring for his attention. “Shirty is what you are, Slayer. A shirty little bint,” he muttered to himself.
* X-X *
STORY BOARDS
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link: https://flic.kr/p/2m2RShZ
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link: https://flic.kr/p/2m2M8J4
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link: https://flic.kr/p/2m2RSpH
End Notes:
The rest of the limerick:
There was a young man from Nantucket,
Whose dick was so long he could suck it.
He said with a grin
As he wiped off his chin,
"If my ear was a cunt, I would fuck it."
If you’ve never seen a banyan tree, they can be really spectacular, a giant among giants. Here’s more info on them: https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/botany/understanding-roots-banyan-tree.htm
All banyans fall under the super cute and not-at-all-threatening-sounding category of "strangler figs." This means the trees grow from seeds that land on other trees, sending their own roots down to smother their hosts and then growing into smaller, branch-supporting pillars that look like new tree trunks.
"These plants all start life as a seed that germinates on another tree, grows as a vine dependent on the tree for support, and eventually strangles its host tree, subsuming its structure," Alvarez and Schutzman write. "Later, roots grow from outward-extending branches and reach the ground, becoming trunk-like and expanding the footprint of the tree, sometimes gaining it the colloquial name of a 'walking tree.'"
They're the world's biggest trees in terms of the area they cover.
Thank you so much for reading and for your patience as I try to catch up with your wonderful comments! RL things are starting to slow down a little for me, so hopefully I’ll get caught up soon. I love reading all your notes! They keep me incredibly inspired!
As always, my undying gratitude to my wonderful beta readers and friends: All4Spike, Paganbaby, and TeamEricNSookie. Holi117 has switched to a pre-reader, which I’m so happy she’s finding time for that. All mistakes are mine because I keep fiddling with stuff. If you see any, PM me and I’ll fix it.
Chapter 37: Tosh
Chapter Text
Chapter Notes:
Thanks for reading! Only two more chapters after this...eeep! 😮 How the heck is that gonna work?
Chapter 37: Tosh
Buffy and furry Spike went out just after lunch, and returned to the house about mid-afternoon feeling buoyant. The tracking spell she’d gotten from Giles the night before had worked! She and the dog had tested it three times. Each time that she’d sent Spike to run off and hide, she’d been able to track him, even when he’d gone into a cave quite a distance away. The next time the vampire took to the rooftops, Buffy would be able to find him and see just what he was up to. Part of her worried about what she’d find. What if he was lying to her? What if he was hunting? What if he was doing some evil, nasty thing that would warrant staking? That thought made her stomach writhe with nervous, scuttling spiders. But another part of her had to know, one way or the other—the stubborn Slayer had to know the truth.
As they mounted the back-porch steps, the aroma of popcorn drifted out of the kitchen. It was accompanied by the familiar ‘pop-pop-pop’ of exploding kernels when she opened the door. Inside, Spike was doctoring a mug of blood while Joyce was watching the bag of popcorn turn in the microwave. Buffy’s stomach did that silly little flippy thing it did when she saw Spike, even without the bare chest and toolbelt he’d had on yesterday. Stupid stomach. It didn’t seem to matter how often she told it things weren’t gonna work out like it wanted, it still insisted on releasing a stream of butterflies at the sight of him.
“Hey,” Buffy greeted them. She put as much nonchalance in her voice as possible, while the dog hurried over to snuffle around the floor, checking for anything that might’ve dropped in the time they’d been gone.
“Buffy,” Joyce replied, turning away from the microwave to look at her daughter. It reminded Buffy that they really needed to get a second microwave. Blood and popcorn are sooo not-mixy. “Did you have a good walk?”
Buffy couldn’t help the smile that bubbled up, brought on by her first successful spell. “Yeah,” she answered, coming to lean her elbows on the breakfast bar. “It was just what we needed... very much with the productive.”
Spike arched a brow at her as he finished stirring the Jalapeno and Green Apple Hot Sauce into his blood. “Dustin’ vamps in their sleep now, Slayer? Seems a bit unethical, I must say. Thought you white hats were about honor, had some code o’ morals that kept ya from using slimy little tricks like that.” He grinned devilishly then. “Glad to see you branching out, coming over to the dark side. Looks bloody good on you. I approve.” His gaze roamed over her face like a physical caress, taking in her genuine smile and the proud set of her shoulders before locking onto her sparkling green eyes.
The butterflies exploded into a cacophony of beating wings, and glowing warmth suffused Buffy’s cheeks as their gazes met. Those eyes of his. God, how could anyone have eyes that conveyed so much skin-tingling impishness in such a brief moment? Buffy cleared her throat and forced her gaze to roll away from his. “And heaven knows I live for your approval,” she scoffed in what she hoped was a convincingly harsh tone.
In the next moment a pout expanded Buffy’s bottom lip as she noticed what sauce Spike had used in his blood. “Didn’t you like the sauce I got you?” she wondered, the disappointed whine in her voice unmistakable.
Spike arched a brow at her, smothering a smile of his own. Didn’t want his approval, eh? “Which was that, luv?”
“Oh, Buffy—I’m sorry. It got broken,” Joyce interjected. “I think you must’ve dropped it when we were unloading—you know, in all the excitement with the spell and Spike barking and everything.”
“Oh,” Buffy said sulkily, remembering hearing something break when she’d dropped the bags. Of course, it had to be the one she’d picked out.
“Picked out a sauce just for me?” Spike asked, feeling inordinately chuffed. “Don’t reckon it was holy water and angel’s tears, then, was it?”
Buffy blinked and looked up at Spike. “Nooo,” she drawled sarcastically. “Pineapple and Habanero—it was supposed to be hot and sweet. I dreamed about it... dreamed you liked it, so I got it for you.”
“Dreamed about me, did you?” Spike purred, a pleased grin curving his lips. “Was I starkers? More importantly, were you?”
Joyce raised her brows at this turn in the conversation, not sure if she should be rebuking William for such remarks or hoping Buffy would take a hint... or perhaps both?
Buffy just rolled her eyes. “Can you keep your mind out of the gutter for once?” she chastised, crossing her arms over her chest self-consciously.
“Never.” Spiked bobbed his brows at her suggestively. “Noticed ya didn’t answer the question, luv.”
Buffy huffed. “There was clothing! Geez! Get over yourself already. Told you before, you ain’t all that,” she informed him. “It was just about blood—you and mom were doing a taste test of different stuff to put in the blood and that one—the Pineapple and Habanero—was the one you liked. There were no naked hijinks.”
“More’s the pity, that,” Spike rumbled in a sexy timbre, making the insects occupying Buffy’s insides completely lose their minds, tumbling and cartwheeling around inside her, as her skin prickled and burned.
Whatever Buffy was going to say next was cut off by the microwave dinging and Joyce announcing, “We were gonna catch up on ‘Passions,’” as she retrieved the bag of popcorn, deciding to stay out of their little drama lest she inadvertently break a confidence she’d vowed to keep. They needed to work this out themselves—somehow. “Do you want to join us?”
Buffy looked over at her mom, thankful for the distraction from the too-smug vampire. “I have some homework I need to do,” she explained, but the rioting butterflies in her stomach turned to acrimonious wasps as she thought of going to her room alone. She stole a look at Spike, seeing a shadow of what might’ve been disappointment flicker across his features, though it was gone in an instant. “But I guess I can make with the learning and watch TV too,” she added, making her stomach settle back into a happy fluttering. “I am nothing if not ambi-brained.”
Spike snorted.
“What?” Buffy demanded. “If people can be ambidextrous, I can be ambi-brained.”
“As always, Slayer, your logic and grasp o’ the language is beyond reproach,” Spike concurred with only a tinge of sarcasm.
Buffy rolled her eyes, looking back at her mom and away from the shirty vampire.
Joyce gave her a smile. “Wonderful. I’ll go get one loaded up in the VHS player,” she said, heading for the living room with the popcorn and a drink.
Buffy looked back at Spike, her arms still crossed protectively over her heart. His gaze had softened, his head tilted just so, studying her. “What?” she demanded curtly, ready for some kind of teasing about hot sauce or dreams of stupid vampires or another dig about her lack of proper Queen’s English.
“That sauce sounds brilliant. Mind getting another?”
Buffy relaxed fractionally. “Yeah, I’ll get some more,” she agreed.
“Need some dosh for it?” he offered, setting his blood down and reaching into his jeans pocket.
Buffy watched him pull out that wad of bills he’d flashed before. If anything, it looked even thicker than what he’d had that night he’d bought the pizza. “Where did you really get all that money?” she wondered, looking back up to meet his eyes. It had been in the back of her mind since that night, but there’d been too much going on to worry about it. Until now.
“What makes ya think it’s not what I said?”
Buffy rolled her eyes and sighed heavily, her look conveying a world of impatience and impertinence.
Spike shrugged. “You really want t’ know?” he asked, lifting his scarred brow interrogatively.
Buffy gnawed on her lower lip, looking back down at the money then back into his eyes, considering. “Yes, I’d really like to know,” she said finally, though she wasn’t sure she did. In fact, she was sure most of her didn’t want to know, but that stubborn Slayer part of her had to know.
“Nicked it off the Sonora Cartel in Hermosillo... in Mexico on my way back up here,” he admitted, watching her expression warily. Her brows furrowed. She licked her lips. She shifted from foot to foot. Was stealing dosh from criminals enough to get him kicked to the curb? Enough to cockup his admittedly slim chance of getting the feral kitten to retract her claws and trust him?
“Drug dealers?” she asked, her voice steady—Slayer mode.
“Cocaine mostly, yeah.”
“Did you... kill them? The drug dealers?” Buffy continued in the cool, detached voice.
But Spike knew she wasn’t detached—her heart rate had jumped with the question, though her gaze on his remained steady, and he knew she was watching for deception.
He shook his head. “Bit one of ‘em. So much sodding cocaine in his blood, had me seeing more pixies than Dru does. Didn’t kill him... didn’t kill any of ‘em. Just took their dosh and dumped the powder in the sewer.”
“I’m sure they didn’t just give it to you,” Buffy pointed out. Her throat was starting to get tight as facts tumbled through her mind. Spike was a vampire. A soulless demon. He was a killer... a mass murderer. And she was fawning over him as if he wasn’t any of those things, like he was... reformed, as if he kept to the rules of their truce when he was out of her ‘jurisdiction’. But he hadn’t done what Dru had wanted with that little girl—she believed him about that—and he could’ve. Isn’t that what soulless demons did? So why hadn’t he done that?
“Nooo,” he admitted. “But I didn’t kill ‘em. Knocked ‘em out, no permanent damage done except to their bank books.”
Buffy drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Why?” Such a small word. Such a huge question.
Spike sighed and looked away from her for the first time since she’d locked gazes with him. A muscle in his jaw clenched and his hands clutched at the edge of the breakfast bar, his knuckles turning white with the strain. When the answer came, he had to force it out past his heart, which had lodged in his throat.
“Cos, I knew you wouldn’t want me to.” There it was. The truth of him beneath the Big Bad veneer, flayed open and bleeding, bared to her. She’d either believe him or she wouldn’t. If she made a joke of it, poked fun at him, he hoped she’d use a stake, cos he wasn’t sure his heart could bear it otherwise.
When she didn’t reply after several long moments, Spike finally dared to look back up at her. There was a whirling mix of emotions reflected in her eyes—confusion, relief, astonishment... and could he hope... true fondness? Something beyond ‘mortal allies’, beyond ‘friend’?
“I wasn’t there,” she reminded him in a small voice. “I wouldn’t have known.”
Spike shrugged, trying to tug his armor back over the gaping maw he’d opened in his chest. “I would’ve.”
Green eyes delved into blue, looking for the lie, for the tell, for the blink—but it didn’t come. What did that mean? Had he kept to the truce the whole time he’d been gone? Surely not—and she knew Dru hadn’t. Spike had told her as much. But just what did that mean?
“Spike!” Joyce called from the other room. “I thought you were right behind me. You’re missing it. What’s keeping you?”
They both started, looking out toward the sound, then back at each other. Buffy bit her lip and nodded. “I... can we talk about this again later?” she asked, her mind still awash in confusion and questions.
Spike swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “’Course. Just say the word, Slayer,” he agreed before picking up his blood and his dignity, and sauntering out to join Joyce.
Buffy let out the breath that had caught in her chest and looked down at her dog, who was lying on the tiles at her feet, watching the exchange attentively. “He wasn’t lying,” she told her furry companion.
Spike sneezed explosively, flapping his ears and rattling his tags, before looking back up at her with his earnest, chocolate-brown eyes.
“But what does that mean?” she wondered. “’Cos, I knew you wouldn’t want me to,’” she repeated in a bad imitation of the vampire’s accent.
Spike sighed heavily and dropped his chin onto his paws, clearly all his insights exhausted.
Buffy sighed too and shook her head. Homework... she should just do her homework and stop trying to figure out strange vampires who don’t kill drug dealers in Mexico but won’t tell you where the hell they’ve been going at night. Then she frowned. Spike never had given her the money to buy more of the sauce.
“Not just strange, but a cheap vampire,” she muttered, heading out of the kitchen. Homework now, deal with cheapskate vampires later.
* X-X *
Buffy tapped the end of her pen onto the book in her lap like a caged drummer longing to get onstage. The actual studying had been of the bogus type—she didn’t know any more about the War of 1812 now than when she’d started reading about it three hours ago. She presumed it happened in 1812, beyond that, nothing but a blank slate hovered, mocking her. She also didn’t know any more about exactly what Spike meant by his admission that he hadn’t killed the drug dealers because she wouldn’t have wanted him to.
As she’d been doing for most of the time she was supposed to be studying American History, she instead studied him, as if she could glean the answer by simply boring her gaze into his skull. He was on one end of the couch, her mother on the other. There’d been a steady commentary from the pair about the residents of Harmony and their trials and tribulations, but Buffy mostly ignored that. She just wished the stupid show would get over so she could get Spike alone and talk to him, but as soon as she thought they were done, her mom would pop in yet another tape and they’d start again.
Spike glanced at Buffy, sitting curled up in the easy chair, and she quickly averted her gaze, pretending to be reading her history book.
“Wasn’t wrong when I said you were hell on the old skins,” Spike remarked, smirking at her.
Buffy jerked her beating pen to a stop, noting that she’d nearly drummed all the way through the page she’d been trying to read for the last hour.
“They teaching proper history now?” Spike continued as Joyce got up to change the tape again. God, how many of these shows did she have recorded?
Buffy looked up at him, confused.
“Reckoned with all that drumming, you were studying the history of brilliant music. Rockin’ the bloody Casbah, there, pet.” Spike bit down on his lower lip, his eyes sparkling with the memory of their road trip.
Buffy rolled her eyes, not quite holding back a smile that the reference conjured. She remembered fondly how indignant he’d been when she’d insisted the passenger got to choose air quality if the driver chose the music. Things were so much simpler then—he’d do things to annoy her, and she’d retaliate with equally annoying jibes and stunts. How had she gotten from that to this... this confusing, overwhelming torrent of whirling emotions and frustrated desire?
Buffy was saved from answering him by the phone ringing. She set her book down and reached over to grab it from the cradle, happy for any respite from her jumbled thoughts and feelings. “Hello?”
“Hi, is Buffy there?” a male voice inquired from the other end of the line.
“Speaking.”
“Buffy, hey... this is Denny. How’ve you been?”
Buffy hesitated, trying place the name. Then it came to her. Speed dating at the Bronze. Tall, dark, and human, with killer dimples and a Colgate smile. “Fine,” she answered automatically—lying already, the bane of being a Slayer. She glanced self-consciously over at Spike who was making no pretense about not listening to her conversation. Probably both sides with that stupid vampire hearing. “Sounds like you haven’t given up breathing yet,” she teased, turning away from the vampire, though she knew it would do no good. “How about football?”
She could feel the warmth of that brilliant smile even over the phone. “You remember me.”
“How could I forget? Not many guys promise to give up breathing and football for a girl,” she replied lightly, though a stab of guilt wrenched at her stomach. What did she have to feel guilty for? Spike? He didn’t want her! Well, he wanted her, but not enough. Not enough to give up breathing and football. Not that the first would be a real problem for Spike... And yet there was, ‘Cos, I knew you wouldn’t want me to.’ His words, his actions, twisted the stab of guilt deeper.
Even as Buffy heard her mom sit back down and the show begin again, she could feel Spike’s eyes boring into her back. The tide of confusion that swirled around the blond vampire began churning inside her again, unsettling and perplexing. Her stomach knotted and her heart clenched—why couldn’t he just be what she needed? Everything she needed? Why couldn’t he want all of her?
Buffy shook herself. Denny was talking and she’d missed part of it. “...So, I was wondering if you’d like to try a real date. One that gives me more than five minutes to gaze into those enigmatic eyes of yours.”
Buffy cleared her throat nervously. She could feel the demonic tinglies up and down her spine as a low growl burbled from Spike’s chest. What the hell? He didn’t own her! He didn’t even care enough to want her heart! Why was she feeling all guilty and uneasy about talking to another guy? About going on a date with him? It’s not like Spike had ever asked her on a date, was it? Not like he’d done anything but make her question her own sanity. Okay, well... there was the coming to help her when she’d called thing. And the saving her mom thing. And the saving Giles thing. And, okay, he probably saved her, too. And the weird not killing drug dealers thing. But she needed more than he was willing to give. She needed more than a friend. Even if it did come with benefits.
She turned around and faced Spike, who was glaring daggers at her, those blue eyes like lasers slicing into her. She returned the glare with interest, setting her jaw stubbornly. Going on a date with someone else was just the thing to get her past this tangle of perplexing, muddly feelings. “Sure,” she agreed. “That sounds great,” Buffy continued, never dropping her eyes from Spike’s.
She could hear Denny exhale a relieved sigh. “How’s Friday for you?” he asked. “Around seven?”
“Perfect,” Buffy replied, never looking away from the vampire.
“Do you want me to pick you up or we could meet somewhere,” he continued.
Buffy faltered. The way Spike was looking, she really didn’t want Denny coming here, and she didn’t want to just announce where they were meeting, either. “Can I get back to you on that?” she wondered. “Let me call you... what’s your number?”
Buffy grabbed up her drumstick/pen and jotted the number down on her homework notes, which were blank, anyway. “Great, I’ll give you a call later,” she assured him before hanging up.
Spike narrowed his eyes, giving her his most venomous look, before turning back to the screen and the show that was in progress.
“You’ve got a date?” Joyce asked, looking over at her daughter.
Buffy nodded. “One of the guys from the speed dating thingy. His name’s Denny. He’s really nice...”
Spike snorted.
“He is!” Buffy defended, glowering at him.
“Didn’t say a word,” Spike asserted, his deadly look now aimed unerringly at the TV.
“Yes, you did!”
“What word was that, Slayer?” Spike challenged, finally turning those stormy blue orbs back to her.
“You snorted.”
“That’s not a sodding word! Bloody hell, what are they teaching you lot in school these days?”
“Words don’t have to be actual OED words!” she contended, crossing her arms over her chest.
“OED, is it? Surprised you know what that is,” Spike shot back.
“I know plenty of things,” Buffy retorted, grabbing her books and pen. “Like shirty vampires should mind their own business if they know what’s good for them!”
“Oh! Mind my own business, is it? If I minded my own sodding business the whole lot of you would be dead right now,” Spike pointed out, shooting up to his feet and planting his hands on his hips.
“You don’t know that!” Buffy argued. “I could’ve taken Kralik even without your help!”
“Tosh!”
“Tosh?” Buffy repeated. “Even when you use words, they make the kind of sense that is none!” she asserted, turning and heading out of the room toward the sitting room, the kitchen, the back porch—she didn’t care where, just away from Spike.
“Look it up, Slayer! It’s in the sodding OED!” he called after her, before turning in the opposite direction and stomping out the front door, slamming it with house-rattling strength behind him.
Joyce sighed and paused the tape. It was impossible to get caught up on a fictional soap opera with all the real-life operatic drama going on right in front of her. She looked down at the big dog who was lying nearby hoping for some dropped popcorn. “Why can’t those two just talk like reasonable, civilized people?” she asked him.
The dog huffed and seemed to roll his eyes before settling his head back down on the carpet.
“My sentiments exactly,” Joyce agreed resignedly.
STORY BOARDS
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link: https://flic.kr/p/2m3mqvZ
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link: https://flic.kr/p/2m3hNaV
End Notes:
“Why can’t those two just talk like reasonable, civilized people?”
So saw we all, Joyce! So say we all.
The picture in the story board of Buffy with a dog, is SMG and her Akita from many years ago. From what I've found, his name was Tyson.
Thank you so much for reading and for your patience as I try to catch up with your wonderful comments! RL things are starting to slow down a little for me, so hopefully I’ll get caught up soon. I love reading all your notes! They keep me incredibly inspired!
As always, my undying gratitude to my wonderful beta readers and friends: All4Spike, Paganbaby, and TeamEricNSookie. Holi117 has switched to a pre-reader, which I’m so happy she’s finding time for that. All mistakes are mine because I keep fiddling with stuff. If you see any, PM me and I’ll fix it.
Chapter 38: Kryptonite
Chapter Text
Chapter Notes:
Thanks for reading! Only one more chapter after this in this episode...eeep! How the heck is that gonna work for a HFN ending? Trust me, it will. There is more to this series, never fear! And I can assure you the next one will be less frustrating.
Chapter 38: Kryptonite
Spike bolted down the shaded front steps, his anger and jealousy driving him forward, only to realize he didn’t have any protection from the late afternoon sun—not a quilt or that big beach umbrella of the Slayer’s, not even his duster. He stormed to the end of the walk, staying beneath the cover of the trees, and began to pace along the edge of the shade like a caged lion. A fag was between his lips without him even thinking, his lighter flaring to life with an angry turn of the flint.
“Bloody ungrateful bitch,” he growled as he strode back and forth in his wall-less prison, taking deep inhalations of the mentholated smoke. “What the bloody hell more does she want? Give ‘er space, he said, let her come to you, he said,” Spike mocked Oz’s advice. “Working like a bloody charm that is! Sittin’ about waiting on the bloody wildcat to come to me and a sodding vulture swoops in and just scoops her up!
“Denny,” he scoffed. “What the hell kinda name is Denny? Sounds like a poofter, if ya ask me. Don’t see Denny getting her favors from the sodding Council. Don’t see Denny fighting off crackbrain vampires. Don’t see Denny taking a bellyful o’ bullets,” Spike continued to rant.
“He’s nice,” the vampire sneered, raising his voice a few octaves to mimic Buffy. “What the blood fuck does a Slayer want with nice?” he demanded of the trees. “Nice’ll get her one thing—sodding dead. Bloody ungrateful bitch is what she is,” he repeated with a growl, tossing his first cigarette down as it began burning the filter, and digging out another one. “Nice my aching arsehole.”
Clenching his jaw, Spike surveyed at the manhole cover just a few yards down the street, then up at the sun that stood between him and freedom. The shadows were lengthening as the sun dropped toward the horizon. The tall trees in the area stippled the pavement with long fingers of shade, breaking up the splotches of sun. “Sod it,” he spat, ducking his head, and making a run for it.
* X-X *
Buffy didn’t stop in the kitchen, but went out the back door and ended up in the training room. She slammed her books down on the table next to the stereo, flipped on the power and turned the volume up to 11. ‘Kryptonite’ began blaring from the overtaxed speakers, the bass thrumming in her chest along with her heartbeat. She grabbed a hairband and gathered her hair into a ponytail, stomping over to the heavy bag in time to the music.
(Kryptonite, Three Doors Down: https://youtu.be/xPU8OAjjS4k)
You called me strong, you called me weak
But still your secrets, I will keep
“Stupid,” she grunted, slamming her fist into the canvas and sending the bag swinging on its chain.
You took for granted all the times, I never let you down
You stumbled in and bumped your head
“Shirty,” she growled, smacking the bag as it came back at her.
If not for me then you'd be dead,
I picked you up and put you back on solid ground
“Stubborn,” Buffy continued, matching her word to another brutal strike of the bag.
If I go crazy, then will you still call me Superman?
If I'm alive and well, will you be there and holding my hand?
“Vampire!” the Slayer roared, adding a powerful kick to the mix, sending the bag swinging nearly up to slap the rafters before it arced back down toward her.
I'll keep you by my side with my superhuman might
Kryptonite!
Her emotions were a whirl of fury and guilt, disappointment and indignation. Spike didn’t own her! He wasn’t even her boyfriend. He was... she had no idea what he was. ‘Friend’ didn’t seem to cover it anymore, but just what the right word was, she had no idea. “He’d probably have some stupid word no one’s ever heard of... but it’s in the OED,” she sneered, battering the bag with all her strength, taking every bit of frustration out on it.
And why did he look so hurt and angry about her having a date, anyway? Did Spike think she was gonna sleep with Denny on a whim when she wouldn’t sleep with him? “As if,” Buffy grumbled, kicking and punching the sand-filled canvas. It wasn’t that simple, no matter how much her traitorous body wanted it to be. Faith’s words bounced around in her brain, ‘one trick wonder’, followed closely by Angel’s, no, not Angel’s, Angelus’, she corrected herself, ‘Like I really wanted to stick around after that. You got a lot to learn about men, kiddo. Although I guess you proved that last night. You were great. Really. I thought you were a pro.’
Except Angel had never retracted his soulless-self’s words. He’d never once said he didn’t mean them, that they were untrue, that he’d lied. He’d never even brought up that horrible night to her since his return from hell. Not once.
Buffy kneed the bag in the groin as tears stung her eyes. “Asshole,” she growled, backhanding her silent opponent across the face. “You too, Spike,” she added with another furious kick.
Maybe she should just become a nun. That prospect was suddenly becoming more and more appealing.
* X-X *
Buffy looked up, pulled from the War of 1812 back to present day when someone opened the door to the training room. After completely exhausting herself with the punching bag, she’d settled into a corner of the blue mats with her book, and had actually managed to get some notes down about the ‘Second War of Independence’ which may or may not be helpful when the test came around. Her hopeful heart gave a little skip thinking it might be Spike, but she should’ve known it wasn’t—none of the telltale tinglies danced down her spine. Her second thought was that it might be her mom letting the furry Spike in; maybe he’d gotten tired of lounging in the house guarding the floor against dropped snacks, and asked to come out.
Neither thought was right.
Buffy sighed when the president of William the Bloody’s fan club strode in, followed by a bored-looking Faith. Right. Sparring practice tonight. Buffy sighed and marked her place in the textbook before pushing up to her feet.
“Yo, B, how’s tricks?” Faith asked, sauntering over to the punching bag and giving it a little tap.
Buffy narrowed her eyes at her sister Slayer. Was she trying to be funny given what she had been doing the last time she’d seen her? Or was she just trying to get her ass kicked?
“You’d probably know better than me—seeing how you have so many more tricks under your belt,” Buffy retorted walking over the soft mats toward the other two women.
“You still sore about that?” Faith asked, eying the pile of sand that had leaked out of the punching bag, forming a hill of fine, white dust on the floor beneath it. “Told you, not trying to poach your pet vampire—but really, how many do you need?” she inquired, turning to look at Buffy with a smirk. “You aren’t even playing with ‘em, B. You’ve got ‘em up on shelves like those frilly porcelain dolls my gran used to have. You could at least take them out of the box and have a little fun. God knows you could use it.”
Buffy glared at Faith. “What I do with my vam— with my... with... What I do is none of your business,” she declared, striding over to the table in the corner and dropping her books. “I think we’re supposed to be sparring—let’s go.”
“Now, what I suggest is—” Lydia began, but it was already too late, Faith had kicked off her shoes and the two Slayers had started taking swings at each other, moving onto the ratty, blue mats. “I say! This is sparring, not mortal combat!” the Brit called, moving up to the edge of the sea of blue as Buffy swept a leg out at Faith’s shins. Faith leapt over the kick, coming down with hard jab at Buffy’s chin, but the blonde rolled away before it connected, coming back up onto her feet out of reach of the other Slayer. The girls circled each other, bouncing on their toes, fists ready to strike, looking for an opening.
“Shouldn’t you at least put on head gear?” Lydia asked worriedly.
Faith and Buffy both snorted in response. “Vampires don’t let you put on headgear,” Buffy retorted, keeping her eyes on the other Slayer. Faith dropped her right shoulder, a sure sign she was going to lead with a jab. Buffy ducked to Faith’s left and landed a body blow, sending the brunette stumbling back. Buffy followed her, raining down jabs and hooks, but she was driven back by a roundhouse kick from the other girl.
They both backed off, still bouncing, still watching the other warily, both breathing hard. Faith grinned as she wiped a trickle of blood off her split lip. “Nice hook. You’ve been practicing.”
“You haven’t,” Buffy shot back. “You still drop your shoulder.”
“More to life than Slayage, girlfriend. I’ve been having fun,” Faith replied conversationally as they continued circling each other, fists raised into guard, looking for an opening.
“I heard. Limp Bizkit? Seriously?”
Faith grinned. “Trust me, they weren’t that limp... well, they were when I got done with them.”
Buffy faked a kick to the knee, coming around instead with a haymaker to the face. Faith managed to block the punch at the last moment and land a vicious jab to the ribs for Buffy’s trouble. That was gonna leave a bruise. They both backed off again, circling.
Buffy’s eyes went wide. “All of them?” she asked as if nothing had interrupted the conversation.
“And a couple of the roadies too,” Faith bragged.
Buffy shook her head, her face pinched in disgust.
“You need to loosen up, B! Geez! You’ve got two hotties following you around like horny puppies, and you’re too tightly wound to get your dirty on. You need to live a little before you die.”
“You recall hearing that getting ‘my dirty on’ with Angel leads to badness, right?” Buffy wondered.
“Yeah, sure once, but you must really have a high opinion of your skills if you think that’s gonna happen a second time. I mean, only got one cherry to pop, little miss virgin sacrifice. Let’s face it, B, after that you’re just another prude with a stick up your butt. You couldn’t find a ‘happy’ if it bit you in the ass.”
Rage bloomed inside Buffy, fueled by her own fears and doubts. Red flashed across her vision and she charged forward, slamming into Faith with every ounce of fury-driven strength she had. The two Slayers tumbled onto the ground, fists flying. The soft mats cushioned their fall and subsequent struggle as each one tried to gain the upper hand, Buffy pinning Faith down only to be kicked off, then Faith diving atop the blonde, who rolled to the side and dislodged her.
“Girls! Miss Summers! Miss Lehane!” Lydia exclaimed in panic as the two Slayers raked at each other’s eyes, yanked each other’s hair, and rained down powerful blows on the other’s flesh.
And then, as suddenly as it began, the two Slayers broke apart, scrabbling to their feet and drawing stakes from who-knew-where. They were both gasping for air as they turned toward the open door of the garage, weapons raised, bodies tense, ready to spring.
Spike sauntered in, thumbs hooked over his belt, fingers splayed beneath, framing the prominent bulge that pressed against his fly. “Don’t stop on my account,” he drawled with a lecherous smirk. “Though I wouldn’t object to you ladies losing some o’ those togs. Come to think on it, a bit of oil might make it that much more interesting.”
Buffy lowered her stake, Faith following suit a moment later. “You’re a pig, Spike,” Buffy ground out, wiping blood from her mouth. She ran her tongue along the inside of her lip, finding a gash where her teeth had cut into the tender flesh when Faith had elbowed her in the mouth. She looked over and was happy to see Faith doing the same, and she had a nice shiner already swelling her left eye.
“I must say,” Lydia huffed. “This is not proper training at all. You could’ve seriously injured each other! Is this the type of training Mr. Giles encourages?”
Faith snorted and tucked her stake away. “Just having a little fun, Miss Marple. Right, B?”
Buffy shot Faith a withering glance from the corner of her eye before agreeing, “Sure, just a little fun.”
“See?” Faith continued, waving a hand at her sister Slayer.
Lydia made a skeptical face. “It looked like anything but a ‘bit of fun’ from my perspective.”
“I hear there’s something in the water around here that puckers everyone’s ass,” Faith contended, looking at Lydia. “You might want to lay off so you can tell the difference next time.”
“Looked like a brilliant bit o’ fun to me,” Spike put in appreciatively, letting his eyes drift over Faith, head to toe, in a slow, sultry caress. “’Course, I never drink water.”
“Now that’s my kinda man,” Faith purred, flashing him a wicked grin. She preened wantonly under his heavy gaze, acting as if she were simply stretching, rolling her shoulders, arching her back, and lifting her arms above her head, accentuating her figure to the fullest.
A jealous fire ignited in Buffy’s belly, spreading up like a towering inferno of green flame, licking her heart with bitter, acrid sparks. Her scowl deepened, if that was possible, and the grip she had on her stake tightened until her fingers ached, though just who she wanted to shove it into was a toss-up. The irony of it didn’t exactly escape her, but it was a distant, irrelevant notion that she resolutely ignored.
Lydia seemed to be almost as annoyed as Buffy, and for the first time Buffy felt a small connection with the woman, but not enough to take her off the ‘possible staking targets’ list.
The Council woman cleared her throat. “Yes, well, be that as it may, I believe it would be wise to see just where your skills stand so that I may pass on training recommendations to the new Watcher. May I suggest we begin with the crossbow and then move on to the throwing knives...”
“Booorring,” Faith droned. “Up close and personal is how I like my... slays.”
Spike grinned wolfishly. “Only way to slay, if ya ask me,” he agreed, his voice dripping with sex wrapped in bacon.
Buffy rolled her eyes and stalked over to the weapons’ rack. She grabbed up the nearest crossbow and had a bolt notched in a moment. In a blink, she turned back around, raised it, and fired, straight at Spike’s heart.
Lydia let out a girlish yip of surprise, her eyes wide in horror as the arrow whizzed past her. Her head whipped around, following the trajectory, expecting to see dust, or at least a bleeding vampire with a wooden bolt protruding from his chest. Instead she found a smirking demon, the arrow clasped tightly between his palms, stopped just an inch above his left pectoral. When a trio of throwing knives whistled past the British woman a fraction of a moment later, she instinctively ducked and called out a warning, but Spike had already stepped to the side and the knives embedded themselves harmlessly into the wall behind him.
“Nice shot, luv,” Spike drawled, tossing the bolt back to Buffy. “Seem to be gettin’ your mojo back. Nearly on target for the heart.”
“Not ‘nearly’,” Buffy argued. “Keep your hands down and I’ll show you,” she threatened, snatching the arrow from the air, nocking it back into the crossbow, and raising it in one smooth motion.
Spike chuckled darkly. “Been there, done that, got the tattered t-shirts t’ show for it.”
“Cos you know I’m right,” Buffy huffed. “Not ‘nearly’.”
Spike grinned a playful Big Bad grin and gave a shrug. “May o’ been closer than I thought,” he admitted.
Buffy rolled her eyes then turned and, with barely a glance, she fired into the target on the opposite side of the room. It hit with a loud thud of impact and stuck right in the middle of what used to be the bull’s eye.
She dropped the crossbow and turned back to the still gobsmacked Council woman. “Exhibit A: Crossbows and throwing knives are useless unless you’re up against a slimy slug demon or some other really dim monster with a target painted over their hearts. For them to work with a vampire, you’d have to run across a clueless fledge or catch them completely off-guard. Which, by the way, is practically impossible, with their creepy smelling and Superman hearing.”
“Are you sure Superman has super hearing?” Faith wondered idly, unimpressed and unconcerned by the display.
“Of course he does, he’s Superman!” Buffy insisted with a derisive huff. “Everything about him is ‘super’.”
“Everything, huh? Sounds like someone I need to meet and get to know intimately,” Faith replied huskily.
“Of course you would,” Buffy grumbled with another eye roll.
“Superman’s a Nancy boy,” Spike asserted, running a hand down his chest and over his abs to settle pointedly on his belt buckle. “Slayer needs a little monster in her man, if ya ask me.”
“Pretty sure no one asked you,” Buffy muttered darkly as Faith eyed the blond ravenously. “What are you doing here anyway?” she demanded of Spike.
He pulled his come-hither gaze from Faith and settled it on Buffy. “The Council bird asked me to make an appearance.”
The ‘Council bird’ was on the verge of hyperventilating, looking like she might pass out, her bright blue eyes huge behind her glasses as she looked from Buffy to Spike. “You... he... You...” she stammered, unable to form a coherent thought.
“And you just came? Just like that?” Buffy demanded, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at him. That jealous green flame was still curling around her heart, burning her from the inside out. And she was still mad at him about something... what was it? Oh... Denny. Well, crap. Buffy clenched hands into fists, inexplicably angrier than ever.
Spike shrugged and tucked his other thumb over the buckle, a matched set. “Seemed the polite thing t’ do,” he explained nonchalantly before turning burning blue eyes back to Faith. “Had nothing to do with seeing two Slayers face off being a vampire’s wet dream.” That much was true, though he’d nearly forgotten the whole thing, furious as he’d been with the sodding Slayer. It was only two Felis demons growling and extending their claws at Willy’s that had reminded him of the request Lydia had made the previous night. Even then he’d nearly ignored it—let bloody Denny get the Slayer new weapons, a clothing allowance, and a proper salary—which was why he’d been late. The cock-stiffening thought of two Slayers going at it... well that had been his undoing. He might never get another chance to see that again.
“You shot a crossbow at him!” Lydia exclaimed, suddenly finding her voice, though still looking flabbergasted.
“Wow, are you sure you aren’t a Watcher, cos, gotta say, excellent observations skills there,” Buffy chided.
“You shot a crossbow at him!” the woman repeated, apparently stuck on some sort of incoherent loop.
Buffy rolled her eyes. “You get an A-plus on the overstating of the obvious. Keep this up and you’ll get a cookie.”
“But you shot a crossbow at him,” Lydia repeated, now sounding indignant.
“You wanted to start with crossbows and throwing knives. I was just following orders,” Buffy said with a shrug.
Lydia blinked. “Do you generally target your allies in your training? You might’ve...” The woman swallowed a gasp as she saw her interview, and her subsequent promotion, fall to dust in her imagination. “You might’ve dusted William the Bloody!”
“Yeah, and?” Buffy replied flatly. “Isn’t that my job? I bet Travers would give me a cookie if I did that.”
Lydia began to splutter again, no words forming as she looked between the two blondes.
Buffy rolled her eyes in exasperation. “He wasn’t in any danger, geez! I thought you Council types would be a little better informed about vampire abilities,” she scoffed. “Christ, maybe if you actually read some of the diaries you stole, you’d know the Master pulled that same ‘catch the flying arrow’ trick on me—it’s how I came down with that case of extreme deadness.”
“And you simply assume that William the Bloody had the same capabilities as the Master?” Lydia demanded.
Buffy looked at Spike, her eyes unreadable—some combination of pride and fury flashing in their emerald depths. “Spike’s better than the Master. I dusted the Master.”
Spike grinned, catching his bottom lip with his teeth, and rolled up onto his toes then back on his heels. “Never a truer word spoken,” he agreed, sniffing smugly. “Bested two Slayers in my day, and came to a stalemate with a few more besides. What’d he ever do? Thrall one and barely have a taste ‘fore leaving her to drown? Couldn’t even manage that properly, the pillock.”
“Of course, stalemates can still be broken, the night’s young,” Buffy grumbled threateningly.
“That it is, luv, that it is,” Spike purred, sauntering over to the weapons’ rack and retrieving two of the long, wooden staffs. “Time to get up close and personal.”
Buffy straightened, fully expecting him to offer one to her, but instead he turned and tossed it to Faith. Buffy glowered, her entire body tensing again with barely restrained anger. At this rate, her face—not to mention her body—was going to freeze this way, just like her mother had often warned might happen when she was a kid.
“Think it’s time to have a bit of the rough and tumble with the new chit,” Spike rumbled, pleased with the visceral reaction that he had elicited from his Slayer. Two can bloody well play this game. ‘Denny can suck my fucking prick.’
Faith caught the weapon with a feral grin. “Now you’re playing my tune,” she boasted, twirling the staff easily. “Come and get me, big boy,” she challenged shamelessly, moving back onto the blue mats.
Buffy glowered at the other Slayer, her hands curling into impotent fists. ‘My vampire!’ her mind screamed, the fire behind her eyes flaring up in shades of jade and emerald with touches of flinty granite thrown in. Damn it! How had she’d gotten here? Gotten to be nothing but an angry bystander watching as Faith twitched her hips and lured her vampire away. Buffy swallowed the hot, salty tears of frustration that wanted to fall along with the desire to pummel Faith’s smug face into a bloody pulp. She, Buffy, had chosen this, hadn’t she? She’d said no. She’d run away. She’d decided that her heart and her body had to go together. She’d made her bed, now apparently Faith and Spike would be the ones sleeping in it. Or probably doing something much more energetic than sleeping in it.
“This isn’t the schedule I’d contrived for this evening,” Lydia complained as Spike stalked forward after the dark Slayer, his tongue curled tauntingly against his teeth, his own bō whirling in his hand.
“Welcome to the Hellmouth,” Buffy growled bitterly as she leaned back against the wall and watched her heart shattering with every step Spike took away from her and toward Faith.
“Why does everyone keep saying that to me?” Lydia wondered in exasperation.
Buffy snorted, keeping her eyes trained on the Slayer and the vampire who’d begun feeling each other out—figuratively, for now—with their weapons clacking in rapid-fire jabs and parries. “The sooner you figure out that plans are nothing but cannon fodder around here, the better off you’ll be, Lucinda.”
“Lydia. My bloody name is Lydia!” the woman screeched at Buffy, her proper, BBC accent slipping dangerously.
Buffy just smiled malevolently, never looking over at the exasperated blonde, her eyes locked on the other blond in the building. Spike moved like a wraith, like a sleek, graceful, deadly panther. There was no wasted motion, no hesitation, no uncertainty in his actions. There was a wicked grin plastered on his face as he took every attack Faith threw at him and blocked them easily. The sound of the staffs smacking together filled the room, rebounding off the bare walls in low booms. Spike’s chuckling laughter was a deep accompaniment to the irregular beat, while Faith used her breath to taunt the vampire, tossing out innuendos and insults in equal measure.
Buffy’s lips quirked. Faith wouldn’t distract Spike with that. Buffy should know—it had never worked for her. She shook her head, letting her eyes slip to the other Slayer. The brunette telegraphed too many of her moves; she was dull and slow compared to Spike. If this had been a real fight, Spike would kill her. She’d be his third notch. Not that Faith would be a pushover, but she just wasn’t the honed blade that Spike was. Too much time making Bizkits limp and not enough time training. The natural instinct was there, the strength certainly wasn’t lacking, nor the desire, but there was just some small something that was missing from the less experienced, less dedicated Slayer, that final piece that brought it all together into a razor’s edge.
Buffy turned her attention back to Spike. He leapt easily over a low kick Faith had thrown, trying to take his legs out from under him, then lithely ducked a high arcing sweep of the bō meant to crack his skull. He was still chuckling, seeming to be expending no more energy than if he’d been on a leisurely stroll as he countered her attacks, getting Faith more and more frustrated, and more and more careless with her attempts to take him down. Buffy smirked, realizing exactly what he was doing—making Faith wear herself out with attacks while he just parried them, ducking and weaving away from high blows and hopping over the low ones—laughing in a low, rumbling snigger the whole time.
Buffy couldn’t help being mesmerized by the grace of his movements. He was like a deadly dancer, shifting left and right, dodging and bending, swaying like a cobra, biding his time, waiting to strike. His weapon seemed to be an extension of himself, twirling easily in his long-fingered hands, changing directions within the space of a heartbeat to meet one of Faith’s increasingly awkward attacks. Buffy had heard the term ‘poetry in motion’ before, but had never experienced it so fully as right now, watching the master vampire. Even the ice skaters she’d admired so fervently as a child didn’t have the fluidity or elegance of the Slayer of Slayers.
Spike was in his element, and that was a big part of Faith’s problem. She’d let him choose the weapon, something he was clearly more adept with than she was. She was letting him lead the dance, while making her think she was in charge. She was letting him steer her to her death... or, since he’d not ended the truce, to her defeat, at least. And Spike hadn’t even called his demon forward yet.
Faith was getting desperate, and it was showing, but Spike was getting overconfident, and it made him sloppy. The Slayer feigned a jab with her weapon to Spike’s ribs and when he moved to block it, she adeptly changed directions and caught the vampire under the chin with a resounding blow. Spike’s head snapped back and he flopped onto his back, shaking his head, clearly trying to scatter the stars from his vision.
Buffy held her breath as she watched Faith bring her weapon down like a club right at Spike’s forehead, but he rolled at the last moment and the wood bounced harmlessly off the mat. Another strike from the Slayer, another roll from the vampire, again and again, until, finally, Spike rolled back toward the attacking woman, taking her off guard. Faith had to jump over him to keep from being bowled over like a ten pin and, by the time she turned back around, Spike was on his feet.
“Nice shot, luv,” he conceded, licking a trickle of blood from his lips, grinning his devilish grin. If he wasn’t back to his full faculties, he was putting on a show of being unhindered by her shot.
“More where that came from, stud muffin,” Faith assured him as the click-clack, attack and block, of the wooden weapons began again.
Buffy couldn’t help feeling a swell of pride in her vampire. It washed over her like a warm tide —a lesser vamp would’ve been defeated by that blow. Then her jaw clenched—not her vampire. Not hers at all. ‘Not if you don’t fight for him!’ one of her helpful inner-voices insisted—the one driven by her heart.
‘He doesn’t want my heart!’ her logic-brain argued back.
‘Oh, please! Stop being denial-girl! He cares about you or he wouldn’t have come.’
‘Yeah, he cares—as a friend. A fuck-buddy, maybe! But that’s it!’
‘Are you seriously this stupid? He jumped in front of a gun for you—that wasn’t for Giles! He saved your mom for you! He’s here because of you! He could’ve left, he could’ve broken the truce—he’s healthy now— you heard Giles. There’s no reason for him to keep the truce now, except for you.’
‘What if you’re wrong? You’ve been wrong before!’ logic demanded of her heart.
‘What if I’m right?’ her heart retorted. ‘And you just stand by and let Faith take him away from you?’
Buffy pulled herself from her ruminations, refocusing on the fighting pair. As she knew would happen, Faith was losing. Spike had taken her down. Faith was on her back on the soft mats, the vampire pinning her down with his hips. He was still laughing, returning the taunts she’d thrown at him earlier. One of his elegant hands was wrapped around her throat, the other was holding one of her arms above her head in an iron grip. His demon had emerged now, grinning down at her with those deadly fangs, his eyes glittering an unearthly gold. Faith was still fighting, struggling to pull his hand from her throat as she gasped for air, trying to buck him off with vicious jerks of her hips. All her efforts only made Spike press down harder, grinding his body against hers, squeezing her throat just that much tighter in his vise-like grip.
“Reckon this makes you number three, pet,” Spike purred, lowering his fangs toward Faith’s carotid, which was hammering valiantly, trying to keep blood flowing, keep her conscious and fighting.
His fangs were inches from her burning skin when the struggling Slayer finally managed to slip the stake from behind her back. Faith mustered the last of her strength, barely holding on to consciousness, as she drove the deadly wood toward the vampire’s chest.
STORY BOARDS
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link: https://flic.kr/p/2m3Pioc
GIFS
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link: https://flic.kr/p/2m3HNsT
End Notes:
Eeep!! That’s not good! Do you still trust me?
Thank you so much for reading and for your patience as I try to catch up with your wonderful comments! RL things are starting to slow down a little for me, so hopefully I’ll get caught up soon. I love reading all your notes! They keep me incredibly inspired!
As always, my undying gratitude to my wonderful beta readers and friends: All4Spike, Paganbaby, and TeamEricNSookie. Holi117 has switched to a pre-reader, which I’m so happy she’s finding time for that. All mistakes are mine because I keep fiddling with stuff. If you see any, PM me and I’ll fix it.
Chapter 39: My Turn
Chapter Text
Chapter Notes:
I knew you guys didn’t want to wait until Thursday to find out what happened. I had hoped to have this posted much earlier in the day today, but my plans are a lot like Spike’s: Rubbish.
This is it for this story! More will be coming, and I promise it will be less frustrating. Thank you for sticking with me and Buffy and Spike through all their insecurities and misunderstandings. I really can’t tell you how much your encouragement has meant to me, and how it will continue to inspire as I work on completing the next in this series. My humblest and greatest gratitude to you all!
Chapter 39: My Turn
Spike’s fangs were close enough to Faith’s hot, tender flesh that he could feel the pulse of her thudding carotid vibrating the air against his lips. Perhaps just a little nip, a love bite...
One fang had barely touched her skin when pain exploded through his chest.
Then he was flying. Unanchored. Disconnected. Afloat.
Had the little wench actually found his heart with that stake of hers?
Was this what it felt like to dust? To shuffle off this mortal coil?
Spike expected his life to flash before his eyes, but as he soared, seemingly weightless, it wasn’t his past that haunted him, it was his future. Or what he’d hoped his future would be.
Buffy. Her eyes. Her hair. Her warmth. Her wit. Her radiance. Her lips twisting deliciously, trying not to smile at his piggish jokes. Her small, strong hand in his. That ghost of a kiss stoking the fire in his gut.
A future lost. A future he’d never see. A future that was drifting away into the ether as motes of dust.
His heart cracked with the loss of what might’ve been.
Desperate to stop his tumble through the gates of hell, Spike windmilled his arms, stretching, reaching, trying to find something solid to latch onto, something that would keep him here. With Buffy.
Spike found something very solid when his legs hit the wall next to the open door with a deafening thud. His head and torso sailed through the doorway, spinning him around and dropping him hard onto the threshold, half in and half out of the garage. He groaned, stunned, clutching at his aching ribs as he tried to sit up and get his bearings.
Had that future been obliterated? Had he just landed in hell?
But no. It wasn’t that at all.
“What the bloody fuck?” he muttered, squinting up to see the Slayer—his Slayer—striding purposefully toward him. A momentary flicker of pure elation was immediately doused by the waves of fury boiling off her. Behind Buffy, he saw Lydia rushing over to Faith, who had begun choking, gasping in great lungsful of air as she sat up on the blue mats.
Everything came back into sharp focus for Spike, reality settling in.
“You’re welcome,” Buffy grated out, coming to a stop, hovering over him, her body stiff with tension.
“You... you kicked me!” Spike realized, turning his demonic, glittering eyes on Buffy, still rubbing his ribs. “Fuck’s sake, Slayer! Wasn’t gonna bite the little slapper!” he complained, struggling up to his feet. “Much.”
As soon as he straightened, Buffy slugged him in the jaw with a punishing right jab, sending him stumbling out into the backyard. He hit one of the faux headstones that was part of his furry namesake’s obstacle training course, and tumbled ass over tits onto the ground on the other side.
“I know,” she agreed amiably, walking around the obstacle casually. “Not the point.”
Spike sprang back up to his feet, his saffron eyes flashing in the moonlight. “What the fuck’s yer point then?” he demanded, rubbing his jaw tenderly. The Slayer seemed to have recovered from her walk on the mundane side if that punch was any indication. No more damsel in distress... not that she ever was, even without her Slayer strength. She had too much fire in her blood for that, and too much stubborn shirtiness to boot.
Buffy moved in and swung at him again, but Spike blocked it, catching her fist in his hand. He started to turn her arm, meaning to spin her and twist it up behind her back, but she slammed a side kick into his knee and he released her with a grunt of pain. “The point is, Faith didn’t know that, and she still had a stake, you stupid vampire!”
Buffy followed up with a backhand blow, which Spike ducked, delivering a hard jab to her ribs before moving out of range of her deadly fists. He backed away from the obstacle course and onto open ground, not wanting a repeat of the Humpty-Dumpty act while the Slayer was in such a snit.
Suddenly a mound of coppery fur appeared between them, seeming to simply coalesce from the dark shadows of the backyard. The dog swung his concerned eyes back and forth from one blonde to the other, hackles raised but tail wagging—clearly not sure if this was a game or a battle.
“Spike!” Buffy exclaimed in surprise, but then swiftly shifted into dog-mom mode. “Stay out of this! Go, sit,” she ordered, waving a hand toward the back porch where he must’ve come from. Joyce had probably let him out after he’d heard the commotion and gave her his ‘I’ve got to go out’ whine, intent on joining in.
Spike gave the two hoomans one more wary glance, but did as he was told, backing off with a whimper.
The vampire used what he thought was a distraction to launch a hard kick at Buffy’s solar plexus, but she blocked it with a forearm, spinning away from him. They both came back to guard positions, facing each other.
“So, instead’a just taking the stake from the chit, ya decided to kick me in the danglies?” Spike asked as they eyed each other warily.
“I didn’t kick you anywhere... dangly,” Buffy defended. “It just seemed like the best way to keep you undusty at the time. Faith was about to stake you, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“So, didn’t have anything t’ do with the strumpet wriggling her curvy little body against me, then, eh? Just worried about my health, were you? Not burning with a bit of the old green demon?”
Buffy felt fire color her cheeks at his too-accurate accusation of her jealousy. “Get over yourself already,” she scoffed. “I was just keeping my end of our bargain—keeping the truce, making sure you stayed undusty.”
“You shot a sodding crossbow at me not a quarter hour ago!” he reminded her indignantly.
“It was more like forty minutes,” Buffy corrected, prowling after him as he backed away. “Do you always play with your food so much, or just Faith?” she sneered.
“Sometimes a bloke needs a proper dance. What’s the matter, Slayer, rather it’d been you I was waltzing with? Afraid I’ll take a fancy to the girl?”
“I couldn’t care less!”
“The lady doth protest too much, methinks,” Spike chuckled.
“Methinks Faith dothed you upside the head too much... or maybe not enough!” she protested, her gaze turning icy.
“Was just having a bit o’ fun. Nothing serious,” he explained unapologetically, maintaining the distance between them.
“Oh, sure, it’s all fun and games until someone gets poked in the heart. You didn’t even notice Faith reaching for her stake, getting it out, or shoving it toward your stupid chest. Too busy gloating about notches in your belt and enjoying her wriggling,” Buffy asserted, her tone betraying that damn green-eyed monster that wouldn’t stay in its cage.
Spike scowled; the expression even more disturbing than normal as it twisted his demon visage. “What the fuck do you care ‘bout who I dance with, anyway, Slayer?” he demanded, twirling forward suddenly and connecting a hard kick with Buffy’s sternum, sending her flying back away from him.
Buffy tucked and rolled when she hit the grass, bouncing back to her feet, though she couldn’t stop her hand from rubbing the spot he’d battered, the imprint from the heel of his boot clear on her flesh. “You think I don’t care?” she screeched at him as they both moved forward again, like two charging bulls on a collision course, each waving big red flags at the other. “I fucking care!”
“Got a funny way o’ showing it!” he screamed back, hands curled into fists, ready to strike as soon as she was in range. “Playing your prancing little girl-games! Pulling me in then pushing me away! Dating a bloody ponce named Denny! Thought you were better ‘an that bollocks. Clearly I was wrong.”
“Me playing games!” Buffy exclaimed as they started circling each other, two apex predators facing off, bodies as tense as coiled cobras, ready to strike. “What about your games? You practically shoved your nose right up that Council bitch’s skirt! And don’t even get me started about Faith and your ‘stuck zipper’,” she barked.
“Like you’ve been any better! Dropping a kiss then scurrying off like you’d just tasted fresh shite! And I told ya I didn’t want the little custard tart! Told ya exactly what I wanted, and what did that get me? Another look at your backside as you ran off like the bloody Virgin Mary!” Spike roared back at her, darting in and landing a hard jab to her jaw.
Buffy retaliated before he could move away with a quick hook-jab combo, rocking his head back. “I’m supposed to fall to my knees and suck your dick because you say you want me? News flash! I’m not Faith or your ho of an ex!”
“Never thought you were! But clearly the thought o’ touching a monster like me brings bile to your throat!” he alleged, shaking the stars from his vision, and refocusing on her.
“That’s ridiculous!” she asserted, before working her jaw to ease the pain as they began prowling around each other again, bouncing on the balls of their feet, ready to strike.
“Ridiculous, is it? Then why don’t you explain it to me, Slayer? Explain why any time I get within a sodding foot o’ you, you turn tail and scarper! Do I offend your tender sensibilities? Afraid I’ll tarnish your lily-white reputation? Or do you fancy yourself too bloody good for me? Ole Spike, just something to be used when ya need him to fight the monsters, and scraped off the bottom o’ your shoe when you’re done!”
Buffy ground her teeth together, her indignation exploding in a rain of fire in her gut. She spun, aiming a high kick at Spike’s fanged mouth in answer to his accusations. He leaned away, out of reach, his back arching unnaturally, Matrix-style, and grabbed her ankle. He twisted brutally. Buffy had no choice but to go with the motion lest her hip or knee be wrenched out of it socket. She spun in the air, golden hair flying, and landed with a thud on the soft, damp grass when he released her. The Slayer scrambled up to her feet in a flash, fury driving her, intent on mayhem.
“Sod it! Done waiting for the bloody cat,” Spike growled to himself, stepping forward and gripping her upper arms. He yanked Buffy’s body against his and, fangs still flashing, his lips crashed into hers in a feral, blinding kiss.
Shocked, Buffy broke his hold, shoving him away, her eyes wide, her fingers going to her tingling mouth. “What the hell was that?”
“Catnip.”
Buffy looked at him blankly, her head shaking, trying to figure out what the hell he was talking about now. More of his indecipherable, so-called ‘Queen’s English’.
While she was standing there gaping like a fish that had just been dynamited out of the water, Spike closed the distance between them again. His lips closed over hers possessively, angrily, hungrily, his arms snaking around her, tugging her supple body tight against the hard planes of his.
Buffy was drowning. Drowning in fury. Drowning in lust. Drowning in jealousy. Drowning in Spike. She couldn’t stop herself from responding just as madly, returning the kiss with as much fervor, as much vehemence as she was receiving. She could feel his fangs pressing against her lips; it would take next to nothing for her tender flesh to be shredded. She didn’t care. If anything, it only heightened her fervor. Her mind blanked, then raced off in a hundred different directions. Her hands closed around his impossibly handsome face and held him fast, their lips and teeth and tongues battling for dominance as surely as they had with fists and feet.
And then she was shoving him away again, breathless, desperate for reason to return to her whirling mind.
Spike stumbled back several steps, his own breathing inexorably ragged, his knees rubbery, his blood boiling with the heat of her. “Tell me you don’t want me,” he challenged.
Buffy’s head was shaking again. She did want him, that wasn’t even a question, but she wanted MORE. More of him. ALL OF HIM. And that was what she couldn’t have. He wasn’t willing to give her what she needed, not just his body, but his heart.
“Fuck you,” she hissed and turned away. She had to get away from him, away from the danger of him. He’d break her. He’d drown her and she’d never resurface, never find all the pieces scattered at the bottom of the ocean, never be whole again.
It had been Spike who had helped her glue them all back together after Angel, jagged and awkward as they were. It had been his truces, his horrible music and unrelenting pigginess, his comforting purr rumbling against her in the dark, his postcards and friendship, his bravery and sacrifice, his insistence that she was glorious and smart and brave. It had been Trivial Pursuit and car karaoke and The Price is Right. It had been cheeseburgers and onion rings, and chocolatey snacks left in her bag on the road trip. It had been his thoughtfulness, his snark, his stubbornness, his sense of humor, his passion, his honesty, his kindnesses, large and small.
It had been the war and the roses.
It had been Spike.
She knew Spike. Knew him like she’d never known Angel. Cared about him more than... more than she dared say aloud. And he knew her. He’d seen her weak. Seen her vulnerable. He’d know just where to stick the dagger in to shatter her if she let him get too close.
Spike grabbed her arm and yanked Buffy back around to face him. “Don’t fuckin’ walk away from me, Slayer!”
“Why shouldn’t I?!” she demanded, her eyes flashing with wild fury as she whirled back to him.
“Cos we’re not done here, and I’m bloody well through with you turning tail, no matter how much I like the view of your arse!”
“You’re a pig!”
“And you’re either a liar or a coward!”
Buffy gaped, shocked. “How fucking dare you—”
“What else you call it, hmm? You say you care, but here you are, running off again! So, either you’re a liar, or a sodding coward, too afraid to stand here and have it out with me proper!”
“Why would you even want me to stay?” she demanded, her eyes blazing, her breath coming in angry gasps. “All you get around me is beat up, skewered, shot, nearly dusted several times over!”
“Still bloody standing, aren’t I?”
“Oh, so this last week has just been a walk in the park for you?”
“Had worse.”
Buffy scoffed. “You’re demented,” she accused turning away again.
“Maybe I am, but at least I’m man enough to admit it!” Spike declared as he darted past her, blocking her escape, making her pull up short to keep from plowing into him. “Don’t go prancing off when things get tough, do I? Not like you!”
Buffy’s anger and frustration exploded again. With a howl of fury, she launched herself at him, knocking him onto his back on the ground. She landed atop him, her emotions overflowing, erupting like a long dormant volcano. “I run away because you terrify me!” she screamed at him, pummeling his face with frantic blows. “You stupid, stubborn, shirty vampire!”
Spike captured her fists, one in each hand, and wrenched her arms behind her back as he glowered up at her through swelling, blackened eyes. “Yeah, you seem bloody terrified, what with assault and battery raining down here!”
Buffy glared at him, her chest heaving with exertion combined with pain and fury. Tears glimmered in her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. “You terrify me,” she repeated, barely a whisper.
“What the fuck are you on about?” he asked. “Got a truce, don’t we? Told ya I wouldn’t break it... Not to mention, you’re sodding winning, if you hadn’t noticed.”
“It’s not that kind of terror,” Buffy admitted, blinking, fighting to hold herself together, struggling to find some dignity, to find some way to get out of this with even a shred of her heart left intact.
Spike clenched his jaw in frustration. “What the hell are you terrified of then, Slayer?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Fuck complicated.” Spike glared at her, challenging, not relenting.
Buffy swallowed hard. Her heart thundered in her chest, threatening to break her ribs, the tears that had gathered in her eyes were on the verge of falling in a wave of misery. Her mind told her to run, to break his grip and just run away, don’t look back, never look back. It was the only safe thing to do—for everyone. Her heart began to crack under the strain, fighting to keep her in place, make her speak, make her say the words she was terrified to say. Her chin quivered and she looked away from his demanding, golden eyes—even the demon seemed like it could look right through her, read too much.
“I care about you,” she whispered, pushing it out through her clogged throat. “And that terrifies me. You were right... I am a coward. I’m afraid of... of what you could do. You... you could shatter me... rip me to shreds, leave me... broken. And I... all I do is hurt you... everyone around me gets hurt. I don’t want to hurt you.”
Spike snorted, licking blood from his cut lip. “Yeah, can tell how much ya worry about hurting me, Slayer. Nothing like a crossbow to the heart t’ say you care.”
Rage flashed in Buffy’s eyes as she met his again. She wrenched her arms free of Spike’s grip, delivering another star-inducing blow to his jaw. Spike growled and backhanded her across the face, knocking her off him. He followed her over and the two scrabbled for dominance, rolling over and over on the cool grass. Spike ended up atop her, his saffron eyes like furious fires burning into hers. “Tell me again how much you fucking care,” he growled, pinning her down with his hips, holding her hands up over her head in a brutal grip.
“If I didn’t care, would I have done everything I could to heal you?” Buffy shrieked at him, trying to pull her arms free. “Would I have tried to take your pain away? Would I have given you my fucking blood?” she screamed as she struggled frantically to get loose.
Spike went stone still. “You... what?” he croaked out blankly, his mind trying to process the words that made no sense.
“MY BLOOD! You stupid, fucking vampire! How do you think you were up and walking so fast!? LET ME GO!” she ordered, writhing beneath him, trying to dislodge him.
Spike blinked, but didn’t release her, fighting back against her efforts to get loose. His demon faded back, his golden eyes shifting to blue as he stared down at her, gobsmacked. “Gave me blood from the hospital... said yer mum got it,” he reminded her, his voice flat and dull, clouded with confusion, all the rage from only moments before drained away.
Oh, God, what had she done? She shouldn’t have said that! She didn’t mean to say it. She’d never meant to tell him that. Never meant to show him just how much she lo—how much she cared. Buffy froze, her eyes clamped closed, her jaw set in a rictus of frustration as she realized what she’d done.
“Slayer?”
Buffy shook her head. Dead leaves crunched and clung to her hair with the movement. New tears burned the back of her eyes. She gnawed on her bottom lip, then winced when she opened an already healing split.
“Buffy?”
The Slayer swallowed and blinked her shimmering eyes open to look up at him. His eyes were like obsidian chasms in the shadows of his is face, threatening to swallow her, to devour her stupid heart which he didn’t want. “Not just... blood from... the hospital,” she admitted in a halting voice, hating herself for being goaded so easily into such a momentous declaration. “My blood. Slayer blood.”
Buffy had lost the fight with her tears and now they were leaking from her eyes, leaving glittering streaks down her cheeks in the low light. She wasn’t fighting Spike, just letting him hold her prisoner beneath him. She looked away from those eyes of his, which always seemed to see right into her. She’d said too much, admitted too much, and now he was going to do exactly what she’d feared—a smirk was going to twist those full lips and he was going to gloat, he was going to throw everything back into her face and crush her with it.
Spike shifted his hold to her shoulders and shook her lightly. “What the fuck are you on about, Slayer?” he asked again.
Buffy shook her head. “It doesn’t matter,” she muttered. “Let me up.”
“No.”
“No?” she echoed incredulously.
“No! Not until you tell me what the fuck you’re babbling about!” he insisted as he loomed over her, grabbing her chin and not letting her look away. Memories of dreams flashed through his mind. Slayer blood. Slayer blood in his mouth, hot and tangy—powerful and sweet. Buffy bleeding. His bite on her neck. Swimming in a river of it. Green eyes, dead and yet still accusing.
Buffy slipped the stake from beneath her and held it between them, point up at the vampire atop her. Hadn’t she just saved Spike from Faith doing this very thing only a few minutes ago? Was it only minutes ago? It seemed like a lifetime.
Spike didn’t lower his head or torso down toward her—didn’t challenge her to stake him—but otherwise he ignored it. “Please,” he begged, his voice cracking. “Buffy... please tell me what I did.”
Buffy blinked the tears from her eyes and looked up at him. Even in the dim light she could tell the smirk wasn’t there. The gloating twist of his features was absent. He looked... confused, anxious... maybe stunned? “When you were... you were knocked out, injured, shot. I...” She absently clamped one hand over the ragged scar on her forearm.
Spike’s eyes followed the movement. He pulled her empty hand away. “Said I didn’t bite you,” he reminded her solemnly. ‘God, please, say I didn’t bite you! Didn’t break my word.’
“You didn’t,” she confirmed soberly as his eyes locked on the scar—not a bite mark, but a cut. “I... the glass cut me, I just... I opened it more. I gave it to you—you didn’t bite me. It got harder and harder to get you to swallow it. You fought me, like you didn’t want it. But I knew you needed it. You were hurt because of me. I made you take it.”
Spike’s head tilted in that disarming way he had. He couldn’t believe the words coming from her lips, though he knew inside that they were true. He thought he could still feel the heat and power of her blood in his veins, wrapped around his dead heart. He could remember trying to spit the Slayer blood out, remembered the horror from his dreams. “You said... no. No means no. Said you’d never...”
Buffy choked back a sob, swallowing hard. “It was all my fault. I had to do something... had to help. I couldn’t bear to lose you, even though I knew...”
Spike stared down at her, waiting, his blue eyes full of too many emotions to name. Those emotions bubbled up from his chest where they danced and whirled in a crazy quadrille made up of hope, delight, passion, and love. She’d given him her blood. Given it freely because she couldn’t bear to lose him. Bloody hell. She cared. She fucking cared. More than he’d ever hoped or dreamed.
“Knew what?” he prompted gently when she didn’t go on, his heart swelling with a desperate yearning in his chest.
Buffy gnawed on her bottom lip, ignoring the pain from the cut. Her eyes darted to his then away again, looking up at the dark sky beyond his left ear. “I knew you didn’t want my heart. I knew you’d leave as soon as you could. Why would you stay around someone who brought you so much pain? I knew... I knew you’d crush me, but I had to... I had to help you. I couldn’t... stop my heart... couldn’t... can’t stop it from caring.”
Spike’s expression grew even more confused and the lively dance inside him faltered. “What the fuck are you on about now, Summers? Who said I was leaving? Who said I didn’t want your heart?”
Buffy’s eyes flashed, shooting over to meet his. “You did.”
“I bloody well did not.”
“You most certainly did!” she asserted angrily, pushing the confused vamp off her and scrabbling back to her feet. The stake was still clutched in her hand as she backed away, putting a few feet between them.
Spike got back to his feet as well, facing off with her again. “Did not!”
“You did!” she screamed at him. “We were talking about Angel and... and Dru and you said you had no use for a Slayer’s heart!”
Spike startled, his mouth dropping open, staring at her with horrified shock. After a moment his jaw moved, but no sound came out. He shook himself and tried again. “I said,” he began very slowly, enunciating each word carefully. “That I had no use for a Slayer’s heart in a box,” he reminded her. “Never said a sodding word about not wanting yer heart, you dozy bint. Meant I’d never want it caged, locked up, drained of life, and kept in the dark, far from the light, like sodding Angelus does.”
“You said the only use you had for Slayers was fighting us and killing us!” Buffy shot back.
“Yeah, well... migtht’a left off one or two things from that list. Least when it comes to one certain shirty Slayer,” Spike admitted. “But you said yer mum thinking you could be attracted to me was bloody ridiculous!”
“Pretty sure I never said the word ‘bloody’!” Buffy contended. “And it was clear you didn’t want me to be attracted to you anyway!”
“How in the name of all that’s evil do you figure that, Slayer?” Spike asked, his eyes blazing with contempt.
“You said ‘friend’! When you first got here, and then later, you said we could be friends. Lots of times—friends!”
“I said that cos that’s what I thought you wanted! You kept on about being mortal enemies and truce friends and then cobbled it all together into a new one for the OED: ‘frenemies’.”
“I only said that because you said you didn’t want my heart!” Buffy countered.
“I never bloody said that!”
“That’s what I heard you say!” Buffy insisted, her mind caught in a cyclone of confusion and slowly dawning comprehension, as her shimmering eyes met his.
“Clearly Slayers have piss-poor hearing!” Spike declared, his hands planted angrily on his hips. “It’s a sodding wonder you lot survive as long as you do.”
“B-but, that night... the nightmare night. Y-you left... I thought.... Why didn’t you stay with me?” she asked plaintively.
“Didn’t want to be staked by your bloody mum,” he replied, as if ‘duh’.
“Oh.” She shook her head, dazed and confused. “But I thought you... I thought you couldn’t stand to stay the night with me.”
Spike snorted. “That’s rich. Was you calling yourself an ‘idiot’ the next morning for letting me in. Takin’ the postcards down, cursing me on yer way out the door.”
“No! That wasn’t why! I was upset that you left. I thought... I thought I wasn’t good enough, I thought... when I woke up, it was like An—” She stopped talking, her throat closing up over the name, over the memory of waking up alone in Angel’s bed, and the feelings it had stirred when Spike had left her alone.
“Bloody hell...” Spike muttered, rolling his eyes to the sky.
“Are you saying... what are you saying?”
Spike looked back down at her. “Saying if ya hide the sharp, pointy, wooden objects from yer mum, I’d stay in your bed and hold ya for-sodding-ever, pet.”
“Oh.” Buffy’s brows furrowed, her mind on the verge of a meltdown as her heart soared. “But, all you get around me is mangled,” she pointed out.
Spike looked down at his body, healed but for the fresh wounds from the sparring and the dance with Buffy. He shrugged as he looked back up at her. “Flesh heals, luv. And none o’ that was your doing.”
“Being around me is dangerous.”
“Being anywhere is bloody dangerous. I’m a vampire—danger’s my middle sodding name.”
“I thought it was ‘the’,” she quipped flatly, her face a study in uncertainty.
Spike chuckled darkly. “I’ll have it changed legally, just for you, luv.”
“So... you... want to stick around. Like... around me?”
Another shrug from Spike. “Had crossed my mind.”
“But what about the places and other places in California that Sunnydale is between? You really don’t have somewhere else you’d rather be?”
“Told ya before, I’d say forever, if you’d let me.”
“When did you say that? I never heard you say that.”
“After Red’s little spell... you were talking about everyone leaving, some bollocks about you not being good enough... You don’t remember?”
Buffy shook her head, dazed.
“Then I’ll say it again. You listening this time?”
Buffy nodded, then shook her head, trying to clear her rampaging thoughts and emotions which were trampling everything she thought she knew into motes of very dusty dust.
“That a ‘yes’?”
“A definite maybe.”
Spike pursed his lips, figuring that was the best he’d get. “I said that anyone who doesn’t stay with you is a bloody prat ... gits, the lot of them. Cowards and fools. Not enough sense to see the wonder of you.” Spike took a single, prowling step closer to her. “I said I’d stay with you forever, if you’d let me,” he swore, his voice a low rumble in the night.
Buffy blinked. “B-but what about that night after you were healed... visiting your old ‘non-him’ friend?”
Spike smirked. “You’ll find out on Saturday.”
“What happens on Saturday?” Buffy’s confusion cleared a moment. “Oh, the chocolate thingy?”
“Mm-hmm... Promise you, Slayer, it’s nothing t’ be fussed about.”
Buffy’s lips twisted into an incredulous smile. “You aren’t planning to crash through the window of the Bronze with a gang of minions, upsetting my doilies, are you?”
Spike grinned, pleased that she had gotten his reference. “No. Had something much better in mind.”
“Better than carnage and violence?”
“It’s close, but... yeah, I think so... Hope you’ll think so too.”
“So... I’m...” Buffy tried to make sense of everything he’d said, but sense had rocketed into space and was currently in orbit around Pluto. “What are you saying?” she stuttered again, staring at him with astonishment as the stake slipped from her suddenly numb fingers and landed silently on the grass.
Spike sighed, his head dropping back so he was looking up at the sea of stars, which were clearly having a laugh at them.
Buffy waited for some answer, something to make sense of the senseless, her mind spinning. What the hell was Spike saying? That he did want her heart? But, that couldn’t be right... could it? He’d only ever... he’d said ‘friend’ and then his declaration of, ‘I want you’. Had he meant... had he meant that in more than a carnal way? Had he meant... could it be that he really wanted all of her?
Spike looked back at her, his blue eyes blazing in the dark as if with an inner fire. “What I’m saying, Buffy Summers, the Slayer, from Sunnydale,” he said in a thick, honeyed voice as he began closing the distance between them with predatory grace. “Is that I want your glorious body, and your infuriating mind, and your wounded heart,” Spike proclaimed, stalking forward. “I want your quips and puns and your sodding mangled English. I want your fists and your lips and your beguiling eyes. I want your fire and your ice, your laughter and your tears, your anger and your tenderness.” He stopped right in front of her and reached out, cradling her damp cheeks between his gentle, deadly hands, wiping away her tears with the pads of his thumbs. “I want all of you; I need all of you. You’re under my skin, in my veins... in the very marrow of my bones, Summers. Not leaving you... not gonna crush you, and I’ll bloody well never cage you,” he promised.
Buffy stared at him in silence, taking in his words, his voice, his expression, trying to make her dazed mind comprehend it all. “Y-you... want my heart?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“A-and not in a gross, literal way?”
“Definitely not that way.”
“A-and my mind?”
“Said so.”
“A-And everything?”
“Want every beautiful, maddening, glorious, frustrating thing that makes you Buffy Summers, the Slayer, from Sunnydale.”
“And you don’t mind danger-land?”
“Better than Disney.”
“Oh.”
“But the real question is, what do YOU want, Slayer? Tell me no, not a chance in hell, and I’ll accept it. Can be friends if that’s all you’ll ever want, or tell me to leave. But just bloody talk to me, woman. Tell me what’s going on in that beautifully twisted brain o’ yours. Tell me what you want.”
He was close enough to kiss. All Buffy had to do was wrap her arms around his neck and pull him to her. The butterflies were fluttering madly in her stomach and her heart was doing an Olympic, gold-medal-worthy gymnastics routine in her chest. Her mind may be whirling, but the rest of her was focused on one thing.
“I... I want to kiss you.”
“Got no arguments from me,” he murmured, closing the short distance between them.
Their lips met softly, gently, a feather’s touch. So different than the furious kisses of only minutes before, but no less passionate, no less thrilling. The touch of his palms cupping her face so tenderly with his fingers tangled in her hair had bolts of pure fire pulsing through her blood, burning her deliciously. The scent of him was intoxicating, cigarettes and whiskey and the tang of blood. The only thing missing was the leather, which had been replaced oddly by the flowery scent of fabric softener drifting up from his clothes. Buffy was lost, drowning yet again, but now the terror was gone, replaced with a hopeful yearning. He wanted all of her. He wanted all of her!!
Wait... back up. Blood? Where had he gotten blood? He’d been gone for hours. Buffy stiffened against him, slowly pulling back from the kiss, the stubborn Slayer demanding to be heard. She met his eyes, her breathing ragged, but her voice steady. “I’m still the Slayer, Spike... that won’t change,” she stated solemnly. Her hands closed over his, pulling them from her cheeks and holding them between them.
He gave her an ironic smile. “Sussed that out myself, pet.”
“A-and you’re a vampire.”
“Two for two.”
“We’re... umixy. The streams shouldn’t cross. Badness ensues. World-endage.”
Spike’s brows furrowed. “Where’d you get that bollocks?”
Buffy swallowed hard, her eyes darting away from his. “The...” She started to say ‘Council’, but changed it to, “empirical evidence. Been there, done that, got the scars to prove it.”
“I’m not sodding Angel,” Spike reminded her sharply.
Her gaze snapped back to his. “I know that!”
“World-ending bollocks happens ‘round here every other Tuesday, whether the sodding streams cross or not.”
Buffy scowled, unable to argue with that.
“Wouldn’t another strong fighter at your back keep the tide back all that much better?”
Her scowl deepened. “Maybe, but...”
“I’ve got it on good authority that we wouldn’t be the first vampire and Slayer t’... team up... and more.”
Buffy blinked. “We wouldn’t? What authority?”
“Got sources, don’t I? Looked into it.”
“You did? What sources?”
“Reliable sources,” he assured her.
“How many others? Who? When?”
Spike shrugged. “Dunno for sure. At least one, but... it’s not just us, is it? And the world clearly hasn’t ended.” He tilted his chin, motioning to the yard around them, to demonstrate the lack of world-endage.
“Oh.” She was saying that a lot tonight. She didn’t know what else to say. Her brain was muddled, trying to take everything in.
“Waiting for more details. When I get ‘em, I’ll share.”
Buffy nodded absently, her eyes drifting out of focus. She wasn’t the first ‘bad’ Slayer? There had been others? Working with vampires. Attracted to vampires? Sleeping with a vampire? That had to be what Spike meant by ‘and more’, she was sure. Why didn’t Giles tell her? Why didn’t she know that?
Buffy took a deep breath then licked her lips nervously, refocusing her gaze on Spike’s earnest blue eyes, still holding his hands tightly in hers. She still needed more from him. A lot more. She could tell if he was lying if she watched his eyes... right? “Okay, yeah, I’d like to see what... who... how that worked for them. But, if you stay...”
“No ‘if’ about it, luv. If you’ll have me.”
“If you stay,” Buffy repeated more strongly. “If you want us to be... together.”
“Just said that I did,” he interjected.
“You’ll have to keep the truce,” she continued, as if he hadn’t spoken. “Even if... even if I’m not right there with you or... I don’t know, even if you go out of town or if I don’t know where you are. Even if you’re mad at me for something. If you’re with me—in a... a dating sense—then you can’t... you can’t be hunting, no matter where you are. It won’t work otherwise.”
“In a ‘dating sense’?” he asked, tilting his head, studying her. “Are you asking me t’ go steady, Slayer?” Spike’s voice was teasing, but his heart was dangling by a thread over a razor. If she cut the tether, it’d be sliced to ribbons.
“Um, kind of.” Buffy shrunk in on herself, dropping her eyes to the ground. “That sounds stupid, doesn’t it? I guess it seems uber-childish to you. I must sound ridiculous...”
“Not ridiculous, not childish, luv. It sounds perfect. Never went steady with a girl before.”
Buffy looked up at him disbelievingly. “You were with Dru for how long?”
Spike shrugged. “Was different. Didn’t exactly date, did we? Did about everything else under the moon, but wouldn’t call it ‘dating’.”
“So, you’ll keep the truce? I mean, like... indefinitely? Can you do that?” Buffy asked hopefully. “It wouldn’t be asking too much? You said... with Dru, that she asked too much. But I have to... I have to have this.”
“Buffy, ya just pointed out that I stayed with Drusilla for-sodding-ever. Did everything in my power to make her... make her love me, most of it was a lot worse than drinking cow’s blood from a novelty mug. You gave me your blood, Buffy. Fuck’s sake, woman. Don’t think I don’t know what that means. Blood is life, blood is... it’s everything. Already shown me more affection, more kindness, than Dru ever did. It’s not asking too much. Not gonna turn on you, pet. Not gonna break my word.”
Buffy’s tears had begun again, she didn’t seem to be able to stop them. “What if... what if I’m not good enough. What if I can’t... I can’t be what you need? What if I let you in and... and I’m just not worth it? Not worth what you’re giving up?”
Spike’s head shook, his gaze softening. “You’re the most amazing woman I’ve ever known, Summers. Your strength, your heart, your wit, your bloody infuriating logic... the way you twist the language into knots with your sodding malapropisms. How you give everything to the world, how you care, how you try—it’s like a drug and I’m sodding addicted. Bloody hell, woman—you never stop trying, no matter how many times ya get knocked down, you just keep getting up. It’s not you that won’t be good enough, pet, it’s me. Know I’m a monster. Know I don’t deserve even a sliver of your heart, but you make me want to be better, to be... to be a man. To be someone you can count on and be proud of. To be someone worthy of you. If you give me a chance, I’ll not squander it... just a crumb is all I need, pet. I promise I’ll not let you down.”
Buffy shook her head in a mirror of Spike’s motion. She released his hands as she leaned in and rested her damp cheek on his chest. His arms slid around her, holding her in a gentle hug. Hers wrapped around his lean hips, relishing the feel of his body against hers, as his words flowed around inside her like a comforting blanket. “We’re pathetic,” she muttered against the soft fabric of his tee, her breath warming the place just above his undead heart.
“Speak for yourself,” he sniffed. “I nearly offed my third Slayer tonight. If not for this bloody truce, would’a had that chit’s notch on my belt.”
Buffy rolled her eyes and pulled back to look up at him. “She was going to dust you, you dummy. She had the stake in her hand, about to shove into your heart.”
“Knew she had it. Wasn’t anywhere near my heart. Best she could’a done was skewer a bit of a hole in my lung.”
“You are so full of shit. I saved you.”
“Broke my bloody ribs is what you did,” he argued, smirking down at her.
“Oh, poor thing,” she said in mock sympathy. “Do you want me to kiss it and make it better?” she offered, the corner of her mouth quirking up in a barely suppressed smile.
Spike swept his tongue across his lips. “Reckon that might help,” he agreed. “Though now that I think on it, ya split my lip as well.”
“Did I?” Buffy asked softly, lifting one hand to his battered cheek. “Close your eyes, let me see,” she requested, guiding his face down toward hers.
Buffy’s warm lips touched down on the corner of one closed eye and a shiver ran through Spike. Then she brushed a tender kiss over his eyelid as her fingers danced gingerly over his scarred brow and down the other side of his face. Her lips followed suit with feathery kisses dropped against his bruised flesh, making the pain of each bump and cut vanish beneath her touch. His body thrummed in anticipation as she worked her way slowly down toward his mouth, the heat of her rolling over him in waves of fiery passion. His cock stiffened even more than it had during their dance, each graze of her soft, damp lips against his skin sending more blood surging south of the border.
“Miss Summers! What... are you quite all right?” Lydia interrupted from the garage door.
Spike’s eyes flashed open, golden sparks glittering in the field of blue as he glared at the woman. “Sod off!” he barked at her.
“But...”
Buffy turned and shot her a withering look. “I’m fine. Go inside and shut the door.”
“But... I dare say,” Lydia objected. “Miss Lehane—”
“Is fine,” Buffy growled. “Get some ice from the minifridge and put it on her neck. Her headache will go away in an hour or so. God, you’d think she’d never been beat up and strangled before. Now go away,” she ordered.
As the woman, still spluttering a bit, backed up and pulled the door closed with a soft click, Buffy turned back to Spike. “Now, where were we?” she asked coyly.
Spike grabbed her hand and pulled her with him as he moved into the deep shadows beneath the large oak and out of view of the training room door. “I think we were just about here, luv,” he murmured, turning and pulling her into his embrace.
He gave her a beat to pull away, but Buffy only leaned in tighter, wrapping her arms around his neck and tilting her mouth up to his. “It’s all coming back to me now,” she agreed as their lips met, tentatively at first, nipping and teasing, but with growing fervor with each passing moment.
He moaned into her mouth and Buffy thought she’d melt. Her breasts pressed against his hard body, her heart thudding in her chest, drumming its frenzied beat into him as if his heart beat along with hers. His lips were cool against her overheated flesh, his tongue, when it nudged her lips apart, was almost shy, but when she responded instantly to his silent request, he became bolder, sweeping into her, tangling with her tongue in a passionate dance.
Buffy could feel his erection pressing into her stomach. The shiver it produced shook her world and weakened her knees. Her body tingled with little electrical shocks that skittered over her skin and burned her in the most delicious way. It had never been like this before—not with any of the boys she’d dated in the past, not even with Angel. Spike was, in a word, overwhelming. And she was ready and more than willing to be completely drowned in the overwhelming-ness of him.
For Spike, kissing Buffy was like kissing a sunbeam—a whirling dervish of heat, wrapped in silk and satin and painted with ferocity. She responded to his every nibble and suck, giving as good as she got, her tongue lashing against his in a seductive dance that had him moaning into her mouth. He couldn’t help but pull her tighter, press his hardness, his need, against her. If she didn’t know what she did to him before, there could be no doubt now. And to his unending delight, she didn’t pull away, only pressed closer, if that was possible. Her hardened nipples teased him, and he longed to feel them against his bare skin, longed to suck them between his lips and watch her squirm and melt beneath him.
But all that was nothing compared to her heart. Not her physical heart, which slammed into his chest as if daring his own to beat, but her spiritual heart. For all the pain it had endured, it was generous and strong. The broken bits had been mended, glued back together with resolve and determination, and he could feel the pull of it, drawing him in deeper and deeper. He vowed to himself to never break it, never open those cracks that had been filled with spackle and spirit, but to protect it with his unlife. It was the least he could do for the privilege of being invited inside, into the circle of her arms, into her fierce, tender heart.
Buffy broke the kiss only when she thought she’d pass out from lack of oxygen. Spike kept his grip on her waist, holding their bodies pressed together, and rested his forehead on hers as she gasped for breath.
His own breaths, unneeded as they were, came in gulping pants, his entire body thrumming with arousal. “Bloody hell, woman. You’re a wonder... a sodding revelation,” he murmured to her when they’d both gotten their breathing under control. “Anyone who had you and didn’t stay had t’ be barmier than Dru at her worst.”
Buffy felt her face flush and her heart swell. “Yeah?” she asked tentatively, her teeth denting her lower lip, the cut there completely forgotten.
“Yeah, pet,” he assured her, his blue eyes dark beneath the canopy of the tree, but somehow still just as bottomless and sincere. He released one hand to brush strands of golden hair back from her damp forehead, his eyes drifting over her face as if drinking her in, memorizing every feature.
“I... I guess this means I should call Denny and cancel our date, huh?”
Spike growled, the rumble enough to shake the leaves above their heads. “Think that’d be wise, luv.”
Buffy giggled, and pulled his mouth back to hers. “Later... I have something else I want to do first,” she whispered against his lips before capturing them in another knee-wobbling kiss, which turned into to a literal knee-wobbler when a giant furry shape broke free of the shadows and barreled into the blondes.
Buffy and Spike tumbled down onto the soft grass and were immediately covered in sloppy kisses and swishing fur.
“Bloody hell, Cujo!” Spike exclaimed, raising his hands in a futile defense against the massive dog. “Thought we were mates!”
“Argh! Spike kisses! Kisses of Spike!” Buffy joined in, laughing and trying to cover her face as the dog trod over their sprawling bodies with his huge feet, spreading more slobbery kisses with each pass of his tongue. “Get me some Listerine! Get me some bleach!”
Things deteriorated from there as the blondes wrestled jovially with the great, furry beast. Laughter filled the back yard along with squeals from Buffy when the dog’s tongue hit its mark. The cacophony of joviality was accompanied by playful growls from the vampire as he worked to defend Buffy, and himself, from the barrage of doggie love.
“Oi! Get yer own girl!” Spike insisted, endeavoring to push the dog away when he tried to squirm his way between the two blondes. “This one’s mine!”
‘Spike’s girl!’ Buffy’s heart swelled with warm, fuzzy delight as she turned onto her side and buried her face in her vampire’s chest to escape the slobbery kisses of her dog.
“Bloody hell,” Spike grumbled as the pup gave up trying to get between them and flopped down atop the couple on the ground, panting happily, eyes glittering, clearly pleased with himself.
Buffy could only laugh against Spike, her whole body shaking with mirth, which made Spike’s heart nearly burst with delight and wonder, and, yes, love. Though he hadn’t said the words to her, they were there, the feeling growing in leaps and bounds inside him.
He’d finally figured out what he wanted ‘his turn’ to be.
This.
This right here. Right now. A laughing Slayer in his arms, her warm body pressed against him, and even her bleedin’ dog mucking up the works.
“Hate you,” Buffy whispered against his chest, her tone conveying anything but hate.
“Hate you more,” he murmured into her disheveled hair, breathing in the utter joy of her.
“Hated you longer,” she replied, smiling against him.
“Not sodding likely,” he argued. “Hated you since...”
Buffy looked up at him when he stopped. Even the dog turned his soft brown eyes on the vampire, waiting. “Since...?”
Spike shrugged a shoulder, still holding her tight to him. “A good while...”
“Since Mexico and the postcards?”
Another shrug.
“Since the road trip?”
Spike couldn’t meet her eyes, he was looking off into the distance, perhaps into the past.
“Since... the first truce?”
Spike looked down then, locking gazes with her. “Think I hated you ‘fore I ever met you, Slayer.”
Buffy smiled softly and gave a little nod. “Okay, you win,” she acquiesced.
“Too right, I do,” Spike sniffed, tightening his hold on her, pressing her hot body that much closer.
The dog, still lying across them, chuffed happily and leaned in to show his approval with another slobbery kiss.
Buffy laughed and tucked her face against Spike’s hard chest again, escaping the worst of it.
“My Slayer,” Spike murmured into her golden hair as his heart swelled beyond anything he’d ever felt before.
“My vampire,” Buffy replied in a reverent sigh against his chest, feeling, for the first time in forever, that everything was right with the world.
The End. For now.
To whet your appetite, here are a few things to look forward to in the next story:
Cheezeburgers!! FINALLY!
Buffy and Spike talk. And keep talking. And even more talking. It’s a talk-athon! (you guys wanted them to talk, careful what you wish for!)
Angel’s return.
Rule #1, 2, 3 ... maybe more.
Amelia Earhart.
I hate you.
National Hot Chocolate Day!
Dancing at the Bronze.
Ginger vampires get their due.
Xander becomes a slayer.
Willow does a spell that DOESN’T go wrong.
Oz says, “Cool.”
Joyce does the Vulcan hand salute/greeting.
Lydia adjusts her glasses.
Faith rolls her eyes.
Anya thanks the gods of pestilence.
Rats! (Yay!)
Cats! (Grrr!)
Cheezeburgers! (again! Yum!)
Dru visits Buffy’s dreams.
The ‘Joy of Sex’.
Buffy hides in the bathroom.
The world is ending. It must be Tuesday.
STORY BOARDS
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link: https://flic.kr/p/2m4smmi
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link: https://flic.kr/p/2m4smox
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link: https://flic.kr/p/2m4xPEW
If you have downloaded this chapter and can't see the photo, you can find it at this link: https://flic.kr/p/2m4oJRY
End Notes:
The laughing Spuffy couple in the last story board is a manip by the wonderful Paganbaby.
The Savage Garden Song, “I Knew I Loved You (Before I Met you) didn’t come out until September of 1999, so Spike is not quoting it. In all likelihood, they are quoting him after some chance meeting in the coming months.
The next episode in this series will be called ‘War and Roses’ and it will pick up pretty much right at the end of this story. I had hoped to have it ready to start posting immediately, thinking that I’d be finishing it as I was posting this one. That did not happen. I’ve now learned that I have a ridiculously hard time posting one part of a story while trying to write another, so it’s not finished. Another thing I’ve confirmed recently is that I really must have the story completely written before I start posting.
So, I apologize for not having the next one ready to go, but I’ll be working on it diligently and get it posted just as soon as I can. Keep in mind that you will have to follow me as an author to be notified of new stories (following or favoriting the series does not send out notifications).
As always, my undying gratitude to my wonderful beta readers and friends: All4Spike, Paganbaby, and TeamEricNSookie. Holi117 has switched to a pre-reader, which I’m so happy she’s finding time for that. Holi117 had some wonderful suggestions for this chapter, which I appreciate beyond measure!
All mistakes are mine because I keep fiddling with stuff. If you see any, PM me and I’ll fix it.
Pages Navigation
highvalour on Chapter 1 Tue 09 Feb 2021 12:12AM UTC
Comment Actions
Passion4Spike on Chapter 1 Tue 09 Feb 2021 11:59PM UTC
Comment Actions
Severa_Cazadores on Chapter 1 Wed 17 Feb 2021 08:18AM UTC
Comment Actions
Passion4Spike on Chapter 1 Wed 17 Feb 2021 03:19PM UTC
Comment Actions
Tewdrig on Chapter 1 Sun 14 Mar 2021 07:08PM UTC
Comment Actions
Passion4Spike on Chapter 1 Sat 20 Mar 2021 03:00PM UTC
Comment Actions
highvalour on Chapter 2 Fri 12 Feb 2021 10:32PM UTC
Comment Actions
Passion4Spike on Chapter 2 Sat 13 Feb 2021 04:44AM UTC
Comment Actions
highvalour on Chapter 2 Sat 13 Feb 2021 02:35PM UTC
Comment Actions
Passion4Spike on Chapter 2 Sun 14 Feb 2021 05:16PM UTC
Comment Actions
Tewdrig on Chapter 2 Mon 15 Mar 2021 12:54AM UTC
Comment Actions
Passion4Spike on Chapter 2 Sat 20 Mar 2021 03:01PM UTC
Comment Actions
highvalour on Chapter 3 Sat 13 Feb 2021 07:44PM UTC
Comment Actions
Passion4Spike on Chapter 3 Sun 14 Feb 2021 05:15PM UTC
Comment Actions
highvalour on Chapter 3 Mon 15 Feb 2021 01:07PM UTC
Comment Actions
Passion4Spike on Chapter 3 Wed 17 Feb 2021 03:23PM UTC
Comment Actions
Tewdrig on Chapter 3 Mon 15 Mar 2021 01:56AM UTC
Comment Actions
Passion4Spike on Chapter 3 Sat 20 Mar 2021 03:11PM UTC
Comment Actions
V (Guest) on Chapter 3 Thu 22 Aug 2024 02:56PM UTC
Comment Actions
Passion4Spike on Chapter 3 Thu 22 Aug 2024 06:43PM UTC
Comment Actions
highvalour on Chapter 4 Tue 16 Feb 2021 01:19AM UTC
Comment Actions
Passion4Spike on Chapter 4 Wed 17 Feb 2021 03:28PM UTC
Comment Actions
Isabeasty on Chapter 4 Tue 16 Feb 2021 01:31AM UTC
Comment Actions
Passion4Spike on Chapter 4 Wed 17 Feb 2021 03:18PM UTC
Comment Actions
Tewdrig on Chapter 4 Mon 15 Mar 2021 02:33AM UTC
Comment Actions
Passion4Spike on Chapter 4 Sat 20 Mar 2021 03:12PM UTC
Comment Actions
Suncat on Chapter 4 Mon 02 Jan 2023 07:58PM UTC
Comment Actions
Passion4Spike on Chapter 4 Tue 03 Jan 2023 03:50AM UTC
Comment Actions
AngeliqueSpuffy on Chapter 5 Thu 18 Feb 2021 07:41PM UTC
Comment Actions
Passion4Spike on Chapter 5 Fri 19 Feb 2021 09:07PM UTC
Comment Actions
highvalour on Chapter 5 Fri 19 Feb 2021 09:22PM UTC
Comment Actions
Passion4Spike on Chapter 5 Sun 28 Feb 2021 03:47PM UTC
Comment Actions
highvalour on Chapter 5 Sun 28 Feb 2021 04:21PM UTC
Comment Actions
Passion4Spike on Chapter 5 Fri 05 Mar 2021 03:00PM UTC
Comment Actions
Tewdrig on Chapter 5 Mon 15 Mar 2021 03:28AM UTC
Comment Actions
Passion4Spike on Chapter 5 Sat 20 Mar 2021 03:14PM UTC
Comment Actions
Kemurikat on Chapter 5 Wed 16 Mar 2022 01:42AM UTC
Last Edited Wed 16 Mar 2022 01:43AM UTC
Comment Actions
Passion4Spike on Chapter 5 Fri 18 Mar 2022 04:34AM UTC
Comment Actions
AngeliqueSpuffy on Chapter 6 Sat 20 Feb 2021 06:56PM UTC
Comment Actions
Passion4Spike on Chapter 6 Sun 28 Feb 2021 04:10PM UTC
Comment Actions
highvalour on Chapter 6 Sat 20 Feb 2021 07:39PM UTC
Comment Actions
Passion4Spike on Chapter 6 Sun 28 Feb 2021 03:52PM UTC
Comment Actions
highvalour on Chapter 6 Sun 28 Feb 2021 04:31PM UTC
Comment Actions
Passion4Spike on Chapter 6 Fri 05 Mar 2021 03:05PM UTC
Comment Actions
Tewdrig on Chapter 6 Mon 15 Mar 2021 04:01AM UTC
Comment Actions
Passion4Spike on Chapter 6 Sat 20 Mar 2021 03:15PM UTC
Comment Actions
Tewdrig on Chapter 6 Mon 15 Mar 2021 04:14AM UTC
Comment Actions
Passion4Spike on Chapter 6 Sat 20 Mar 2021 03:16PM UTC
Comment Actions
Pages Navigation