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Nan
AU, continues from The Blood Is the Life. As Spike and Buffy try to
hold onto their partnership and their love, recently unsouled Spike tries to
secure his position as self-proclaimed Master Vampire of Sunnydale...against
the wishes of The Powers That Be and the Slayer's ancient mandate. Magic, new
arrivals, old friends (and enemies), dreams, visions, e-Bay, tribute blood,
and cookies all play a part in the tense give and take between vampire priorities
and human necessities.
Disclaimer: All is Joss's. None is mine. No profit. Just more Spikejoy for everyone.
Half awake, Buffy picked up the buzzing cell phone, at first under the impression
it was her alarm going off. Turning the phone right-way up, she blinked at the
lighted clock face: 5:33. When she recognized Spike’s voice before the phone
was even near her ear, she knew: one of those calls.
“--all right?”
Leaning back on the pillow, Buffy sighed. “Start over, Spike, I didn’t hear you the first time. It might have something to do with its being five thirty in the morning!”
“What?”
He sounded as muzzy and blurred as she felt. The end of his day; the beginning of hers. Whoever thought meeting in the twilight was romantic never had a boyfriend who worked third shift. “Never mind, what is it?”
“Just don’t, all right?”
Buffy shut her eyes. She wished she had his neck in reach: she would have given him a thorough shaking. Not that it would have done any good. “Don’t what, Spike?”
“What? You try that and I’ll pull you to scraps and flinders! You’re--”
Dial tone. With luck, he might not have dropped the phone or flung it at someone and broken it. Again. She turned on the bedside light, squinting, and hit the #4 speed dial. It rang, so at least his phone wasn’t broken. She waited. After twenty-two rings, there was a connection, and Spike’s voice barked, “What?”
It’s not his fault, Buffy told herself, like a mantra. He doesn’t really understand phones, forgets I can’t see him, forgets everything except his own cockamamie impulses and urgencies. “Spike, I didn’t hear you the other time. What don’t you want me to do?”
“Oh. Buffy.” He didn’t think to look at the caller ID, either. “Just don’t come up here for the training today, all right? Some other time, all right? Yeah.”
Dial tone again.
Buffy shut the phone off. Sliding her legs from under the covers, she sat slumped on the edge of the bed for a minute, then made herself get up, grab a robe, and head to the bathroom for the shower she’d apparently been too thoroughly conked to take last night. She didn’t even remember getting home.
Some night. Some morning.
Leaving the bathroom, still toweling her hair, Buffy stopped when Willow popped out of her room, dressed and frazzled, demanding, “What is it?” By the look of her, Willow hadn’t been to sleep yet.
“Mystery Spike-o-gram. About a five on the hysterical scale.”
“About what?” Willow seemed to expect some dreadful revelation.
"No clue. Probably some trailing agenda item he wanted to unburden himself of before surrendering to the sweet sleep I'm not gonna get any more of, thanks a lot. But not enough to actually say it. Like to hit him with a rock--that would put him to sleep, all right. I think he's drunk. At least. Sounded like some kind of free-for-all going on up there." Buffy paused to yawn.
“You mean, at the factory?”
Buffy nodded, waiting for her jaw to unlock. “Best guess. So I better check. What are you doing still up, Will?”
Willow leaned against the wall. “That stasis. Dawn won’t tell me how to lift it.”
“Dawn? What does Dawn--?”
“Oh, you must have slept through that part. Dawn’s not Dawn. And the stasis was her doing. But she won’t tell me how to lift it, and Amy’s been like that nearly three days. Awful.” Willow shuddered, looking exhausted and haunted.
Buffy tried to take that in. It wouldn't fit. Anyway, Willow wasn't freaking about that but something else. So it was probably OK, as nonsense went. Buffy shook her head, dismissing it for later explanation, and went back to her room to dress, calling over her shoulder, "Well, see she gets off to school all right, OK?" and took Willow's indistinct mutter as agreement. One maybe-semi-crisis at a time. There was just about time to drive up to the factory and find out what kind of mess was going on up there, hopefully sort that out, and get back to the high school by eight.
Grabbing coffee at the new Espresso Pump drive-thru window, Buffy noticed a hand-lettered sign, NOW OPEN 24/7. Interesting. Maybe foolhardy, but interesting. Vamps had strange ideas about take-out.
The sky behind her was just beginning to pale when she carefully maneuvered the SUV up the potholed drive. In the bouncing headlight beams, it was clear that the factory (no surprise) was still standing in all its weedy, decrepit glory. No invasion, no pitched battle in progress. Hadn’t sounded like that anyway, but you never knew. More like Spike drunk and teed off at some minion…and wanting to keep her out of it. Like he wanted to keep her out of nearly everything, it had begun to seem to her. Well, that was so not gonna happen….
As she made her way to the annex, stepping carefully in the near-dark, she could hear Spike shouting. No other noise, though. The annex door stood open, and no sentry was on duty. That was odd and probably not of the good.
She went on through and stopped just past the inner door, waiting for her eyes to adjust so she could find out what Spike was hollering about in what otherwise was silence. Somebody had crossed him, that was plain. In full-out rant mode: berating his crew, both as a group and as individuals, by name, in language graphically foul even by his standards. With expletives, most adjectives, and body parts removed, the general gist seemed to be that they were worthless, disobedient parasites unfit to stand on the earth and he wanted to be rid of them and start over with more promising material.
Dim, indirect light came through the unpainted slit windows at the top, greying the big open space. She could make out Spike vaguely: his hair, and his motion--pacing, wheeling, coming to a tense abrupt halt to yell something, then pacing again like something caged, furious. Gesturing, of course: for an instant Buffy thought the shine of something in his lifted hand was a weapon, then realized it was a bottle when he hurled it against the cinderblock wall.
Not a rant--an explosion in progress, the sort that had wrecked Willow’s bedroom. Not much, in this bare, functional space, for him to vent the rage on. So what was he…?
In the strengthening high light, she saw them: the vamps, his crew. About a dozen, perched like so many blackbirds on one of the steel rafters at least twenty feet up, utterly still in the way only vamps could be. They’d drawn up the ropes. And Spike raging below, back and forth, unable to get at them.
They were trapped up there. And though no sunlight could reach the factory floor, Buffy wasn’t so certain about the combination of the rafters, the high slit windows, and the rising sun. But none of the vamps showed any sign of moving. Either they knew they were safe or they were more afraid of Spike than of the sun. At least going up in flames would be quick.
Sometimes, Spike was not to be approached. Sometimes, he’d lash out at anything that startled him or just whatever he found within his reach. Sometimes, he wasn’t anything approaching sane. Not aimless, frightened babbling, like when he’d first returned, freshly souled. Full-out violence. Explosions. Not for months, now; until an eruption last Saturday--the one that had reduced Willow’s bedroom furniture to splinters and scraps. Compulsive. Uncontrolled, pretty much unthinking. For no outer reason at all.
Before the sparkly powder and whatever spell it had carried. Just Spike himself, as far as Buffy could tell.
Saturday, Buffy had stayed clear until it ended on its own. Somehow she wasn’t inclined to do that now. So, big deal: he was dangerous. So was she.
The fact was, she’d have had no use for him if he wasn’t.
The fact was, she liked him that way.
Except the crazy was a problem; and the collateral breakage was hard to justify.
Assessing the situation, she hadn’t made a sound or a move in about five minutes. Except her heartbeat, when there was no other; except her breathing; except her warmth, when everything else was a steady room temperature and that on the chilly side. And then there was her smell. All things that vamps were hyper-aware of at near-incredible distances.
Buffy didn’t know which of the involuntary cues was the trigger. But out in the middle of the floor with his back to her, Spike went as still as the vamps on the rafter and she knew he was aware of her. He said, “Get out,” in his ordering-vamps voice.
Pushing away from the door frame, Buffy strolled toward him. “You said not to come after school. You didn’t say anything about coming now.”
“You got no business here. Get out.”
It was a delicate matter, she understood instinctively: the Slayer wasn’t under his orders. Yet she mustn’t make him lose face in front of the troops. Face was very important to vamps and Spike’s authority was only what he claimed and could enforce.
She mustn’t jeopardize that.
He was like a lion tamer, she thought. And he was also like the lion. He could be sudden and unpredictable.
She recalled what had happened in her bedroom. Mostly her fault, she conceded in retrospect. They'd both been taken by surprise, and he'd simply reacted. He hadn't apologized because there'd been no choice involved…except hers, to bring him there, to have his spelled sleep out; to set the stage just so; and then wake him by dumping blood in his face. Something like getting punched out by somebody in the throes of a nightmare.
This was different. She hadn’t naively blundered into it. She’d decided and come, and wasn’t backing off. And he wasn't asleep. Only fighting drunk and homicidally nuts.
She circled a little until she could make out his profile. Of course in the cellar-like gloom, he was game-faced. They all would be, to see. If she came too close, he’d flash out at her. So she kept circling--an easy, unthreatening stroll. He didn’t turn, although his eyes followed her. He was holding himself still.
Under other circumstances, she thought, he would have backed off, removed himself until he could settle. But he couldn’t afford that here. Not with an audience. Not with his demon to the fore. Staying still, she understood, was as much as he could manage.
“Looks like you’re still having Halloween up here,” she found herself saying, as if casually. She paused. “Spike, did the leftover box of smell ever get put in my office?”
He puzzled at that. “Dunno,” he said finally.
“If it’s been down in the gym all night, probably a lot of it has walked. But then, that’s the idea, right? To get it out, in circulation. If I need help with it, I guess I can get somebody to help me. Maybe Maintenance.”
That was good, she thought: dazzle with details, that he wasn't taking in but still trying to get his mind around. Like she'd tried to take in Dawn not being Dawn, whatever that might mean. Wouldn't compute, so she'd set it aside like Spike was trying to set aside the problematic location of the box of smell. Should make sense but didn't. Distract and deflect. Defuse.
It was definitely getting brighter now. Buffy resumed her circle and, when she was behind Spike's back, chanced a glance at the vamps roosting up on the rafter. They'd moved as far as they could get to the right, huddled up under the slant of the sheet-metal roof. West: into the deeper dark, away from the dotted-line strip of narrow east-facing windows. So. That question answered. The beam was gonna become real uncomfortable in a few more minutes.
Her impulse was just to wade in and slug him, be done with it, but that would have confirmed the rumors that Spike was her bedmate and no more, that the whole new order was some dire Slayer plan to rid Sunnydale of vamps altogether. That she already towed Spike around on the imaginary leash she’d threatened him with. Couldn’t do that.
There were several crude words for a woman who’d do that and Spike had called her most of them, one time or another. Not lately, though.
Mostly, they had an understanding.
Mostly, they got on just fine.
“Hey,” she said, circling back around in front of him again, “d’you have any more of those pills? Coffee just isn’t getting the job done here.” She only wanted to get him moving: out of this situation, away from his treed quarry and out of public view. But something indefinable in his expression or his body language conveyed an inner zing that said her random request had hit some unknown hot button. Watching his reaction, she pushed it a little farther. “I can see you’re having a thing here, so I don’t want to interrupt. They’re back in your office, right? I’ll just--”
So fast she didn’t even see him move, he’d grabbed her arm. “No. I’ll get ‘em.”
Good thing she was wearing a long-sleeved blouse and jacket: the finger marks wouldn’t show. “No problem,” she said, moving away but not pulling hard. Just sort of leaning. “I know the way, and I can turn on a light. In your desk, right?”
“No.”
She turned full around, and he’d shed game-face. He looked exasperated, a bit panicked, and too stupid-drunk to think of an answer. Deliberately misunderstanding his blanket No, Buffy prompted, “Then where are they?
“Just stay here, all right? I’ll get ‘em.” He released her arm and started, a little uncertainly, toward the back.
The last thing she wanted was more of those wretched pills. So she said the first thing that popped into her head: “Why don’t you want me to go back there? Have you got a girl back there, Spike?”
He wheeled around and looked at her like that was the most insane thing he’d heard in decades. “In the office?”
That was OK, she realized. That was an accusation that wouldn't make him look bad in front of the nervous, trapped audience. Given what he'd bluntly told her about vamps' common approach to sex, they'd probably think the better of him for it. Made her look like a total dork; but that didn’t concern her.
She took three strides and seized his arm the same as he’d grabbed hers. “No way you’re gonna brush me off now. Come on, show me the girl you don’t have back there.”
“What?”
“Come on. This, I have to see for myself!”
She assumed the flurry of muted thumps she heard behind her was a dozen or so vamps bailing out before they fried.
She hadn’t done it for them: she just wanted to get Spike settled in time to get to work.
Hauling Spike toward the barricade of dead machines, Buffy thought it would serve her right if he really did have a girl on the cot: she imagined Candy. She imagined Mae West (vamped, naturally) in post-coital dishabille. With some unease, she imagined Dru, which actually might be possible.
What she didn’t expect to find, when she turned on the desk light, was Mike. Fully clothed. And out cold.
**********
“Spike?”
It was Rona’s voice. The tribute. Finally.
Spike thought of calling, but she’d figure it out. Before she came through the barricade, he left Buffy in the office and headed for the west wall. Light was on in the office. She’d figure it out, Rona would.
He could hear and smell the blood coming. All the blood.
No. Not gonna do her like that. Not starved, he told his demon, only hungry. His demon wasn’t convinced. Wanted to take them both. Spike shut his eyes but that was no help because he could feel it, what it would be like.
“Spike?” Rona’s voice called someplace behind him again. She sounded pissed. She mostly sounded pissed these days. No help for it. “Spike, there’s nobody on the door.”
Oh. Right. Should see to that. They’d still be someplace inside, with the sun up. Hadn’t gone down the drain because they’d have had to go past him, and they hadn’t. So they were still inside.
Have to think of someplace to lair up. Not here. Someplace else.
Wasn’t thinking straight. So hard to think of anything, feel anything but the raging bloodthirst. He’d gotten as far as daylight, and that pretty much put paid to hunting. Could stop thinking about that now. Little flashing scenarios. Pictures in his head. The good taste in his mouth. An ache, a lack, through the whole of his body. Deep in need.
Rona asked where he wanted the tribute put and he didn’t know what to tell her. Couldn’t have her bring it to him or he’d take her first. In the office, Buffy was there and mustn’t be near her now. He thought he’d told her but maybe he hadn’t. It all swam together, and Rona was coming toward him.
“There,” Spike directed, not turning, with a loose gesture.
“On the floor?”
“Yeah. On the floor. Just leave it. And if you can come up with any more, bring it.”
“You mean, like, now?”
Spike held himself still. “Soon as you can.”
She was coming toward him. “Spike, what’s wrong?”
“Don’t. Go on now, Rona. See if you can scare up some more. If you can.”
She ordered, “Say ‘pet.’ So I’ll know you’re OK.”
He felt the shift come and go through his bones, his flesh. “Pet,” he said obediently, through fangs.
“All right, if you say. You gonna be here?”
Another thing to think out, sort. “Dunno. Leave it here regardless.”
“Or you could cell me--”
Would the child never shut up and leave? “Just leave it and go, Rona. Stat.” That was hospital jargon. He’d learned that from Amanda, who meant to be some kind of nurse or doctor or something. He was used to all the children, all the SITs. Meant them no harm. Had to remember that.
“OK,” said Rona uncertainly, moving away. “If you say….”
She only went as far as the office and was talking to Buffy, but Spike didn’t care. He was down on his knees on the cement floor, pulling open the cool box and tearing into the blood. The usual three bags. Would barely begin to supply the lack. Have to do, because that was all there was that was tolerable.
At least he’d made it through to daylight. Couldn’t hunt now, if the children would quit dropping into his lap with their puzzled, concerned voices and their thundering hearts. Wanting to talk to him as though he couldn’t drink them down in a second, and more besides.
At last, Rona was going. Her pulse became more distant and finally he couldn’t hear it at all. Nearly quiet, except for Buffy and the stronger, sweeter life in her he’d nearly taken too much of once already and wanted now so bad….
Having finished the last bag, he held himself completely motionless while it spread through him. Better. But not nearly enough. As Buffy’s heat floated toward him like a red-shifted mirage, as she walked toward him to the accompaniment of the beat of her blood, Spike thought maybe he could manage. Do this, now: enough to get her gone, anyway. Until he could get himself fed back up and be answerable for himself again.
He made himself shift aspect, to present a human face. That other, that wasn’t what they were to one another.
But he knew his mark on her, and it pulled. And permitted. It was nearly more than he could do to keep his demon from getting past him altogether, it wanted her so bad. In all ways. Regardless and indiscriminate.
Likely the liquor hadn’t helped much, in terms of control. But it had been a distraction, a blurred insulation between him and what he was in aching need of. Good enough to get him through to morning, even at the price of scaring the hell out of the crew. Those he hadn’t dusted. Anything to keep him here, keep him from going where he wanted to be, doing what he wanted to do. Keep him from flying apart in all directions, like wrecking Red’s room except with things that couldn’t be mended or replaced.
“You find the pills all right?” he asked, and added, “Pet?” because it seemed saying that was sufficient proof of normalcy.
“Changed my mind,” she said. “The being hyper part isn’t all that great, and conking out in the middle of conversations isn’t too hot either.”
“Then you should go.” Spike glanced at his watch without noting the time. “Or you’ll be late.”
“I can be a little late. I’m like a single parent, and things happen. And I should have some credit to draw on, punctuality-wise.”
“Please, Buffy--just go.”
“Two pleases in two days: you’re making me nervous now.”
Spike guessed that was supposed to be a joke.
She was close: he could feel her, smell her, sense her as sure as eyes. Her hand landed on the back of his neck and started stroking there.
But he could still do it. Hold himself still. Not take her. And eventually she’d leave, and he’d find a place to lair up and sleep, and it would still be all right.
Balanced on the edge of destroying what he loved most in the world, the most precious thing he’d known in all his long unlife, he stayed where he was and didn’t turn.
She asked quietly, “You gonna tell me?”
“Thought I had. Not a good day to start the training visits, after all.”
“No, you did tell me that. Sort of. No, I mean what’s set you off like this. This is twice in under a week, Spike. Don’t give a damn what you do with your minions, but…I think I need to understand these…explosions. And why you’re trying so hard to shove me away when you don’t even have a girl in the office.”
Another joke, likely. Or a try at one, anyway.
She wouldn’t leave until he’d said something to content her. So he supposed he had to.
“Michael needed a sign.”
A silence. Then she said, “Well, that’s real helpful. In the sense of not.”
“He needed something from me. Thought it was his death, we both did, and that made good enough sense. But I couldn’t. Couldn’t do what he wanted, neither: hunt with him. Do like vamps do, indiscriminate. Gave me my fucking watch back--with Red’s spell in it, like the lockets--so it wouldn’t be lost when he dusted, the bloody sentimental git. Couldn’t.”
“Oh: that watch. The gold pocket watch inscribed to you by your father. That one.”
“Yeah. Gave it back to me.”
“Yeah. I can see how that could be a gut-wrencher. He’s obviously not dusted. So what did you give him?”
Almost, Spike said My life. Whatever of it he wanted. As much as he needed. For a sign. But he didn’t think Buffy would have understood, and it would take too long to explain, assuming he even could.
Coldly, factually, he said, “I let him feed from me. And all I wanted…was to come to you. And I knew I couldn’t. Not then…and not now. Not until I’ve got myself fed up again. You being here…it makes everything harder, love. Damn near impossible. Let me be. I’ll be fine. In a while. Rona, she’s gonna see if she can wheedle me some more. ‘Cause this, this is all gone, y’see.”
“You didn’t hunt.”
“No. Nor Michael neither. No need, after I’d done for him. But…you can’t do for me. Not that way. S’not what I want. Except….”
“Except right now, it’s hard to remember that. I think I get it. Enough, anyway. Now’s not so important, we’ll have the weekend.” Her hand, her warmth retreated. “Call me when you wake up.”
“Right,” agreed Spike dully.
Now he just needed to think of where to lair up, since Michael had needed the cot. Yeah, and get somebody on the door. Kennedy would show up in another hour or so. She could see to it. He should leave her a note if he could remember what he'd done with the pen.
**********
Waking about midday, Spike uncurled in the storm bypass where he’d laired up and phoned an order for coffee while having his first cigarette of the day. It should be waiting for him by the time he got back to the factory. Then he called Buffy, as he’d promised. First item on the day’s agenda. Not much to talk about, really. Yeah, he was OK. Yeah, he was still hungry but not so crazy-starving as earlier, so yeah, her weekend plans were still on and he’d be where he’d said (Casa Summers) come sundown.
He didn’t think Digger (or any of the District Masters) had the wit or the equipment to monitor cellphone calls, but human services could be purchased and there was no reason to be completely dumb about things, naming places where he’d spend the night. That started him thinking about other human services, besides coffee, he might use himself, and when he reached the factory and got the computer running, he ran a couple of searches and saved the results.
Finally the coffee came--he’d hit the lunchtime crunch, the delivery kid explained, apologizing, but Spike still withheld the customary tip. It didn’t do to encourage such things, and an apology was no excuse. He expected his orders to get priority, and said so.
Settling back at the computer, he was following up on the results of the first of his searches when Kennedy came in. She’d rearranged the roster to have the door covered at all times, allowing for the shorter muster roll, taking account of the crew he’d dusted last night. He seemed to have done for about half of them but fortunately nobody he couldn’t afford to lose. He’d had that much sense, he noted with scant satisfaction.
Ken wanted to know what the culling had been about and he told her to mind her own business, whereupon she pointed out that his business was her business now, and he gave her a stare and told her only as far as she was useful, which made her back off and go away, which was good.
He didn’t feel like dealing with humans today, at least not face to face. Too many messy complications he didn’t feel like bothering about.
Michael, of course, was still asleep. Still near enough to a fledge that he wouldn’t stir till sundown. The minor dust-up with Ken hadn’t even made him twitch. Leaning back in his chair, finishing the first cup of coffee, Spike regarded the lad fondly for a little while, then went back to work, setting up appointments, and visits from those available only during the day at inconvenient places.
Emil had the day watch, and was a little nervous of Spike at first. Spike ignored Emil’s edginess, giving orders for a duty crew to complete an assignment at Casa Summers, and Emil settled down, seeing that the storm had passed. So that was all right.
Never any harm in instilling healthy terror in the minions from time to time, for any reason or for none. Couldn’t have them getting complacent or slack. Lots more where they came from, and he’d see to that first thing this evening.
Then he turned on the light, pulled up a fresh document, and methodically started on the translation. What he had in mind wouldn’t come cheap, and he was still playing catch-up on the money end. After about an hour, when the headache started, he took a break to phone Willow to tell her to expect the duty crew and let them through the spell barriers protecting the house, and no need to mention it to Buffy, it being a sort of surprise. Willow was still all wound up about that Amy, still no progress on lifting the stasis, and Lady Gates wasn’t being cooperative, no surprise, so he gave her the number of a witch he’d dealt with out of town, who might have some suggestions. The Devon coven still hadn’t got back to her.
The occasion seemed appropriate. Checking his watch and adding the five hours for London time, he called Giles, got a machine, and left a message. Giles returned his call within the hour. Watcher sounded cautiously cordial enough. Spike explained about Willow’s problem and was told the coven were on some kind of retreat tied to All Hallow’s and the run-up to the winter solstice, or some such crap. The bottom line was that Giles knew a non-telephonic way to contact the head of the coven, though she wouldn’t like being interrupted, and grudgingly promised to do so, which was all Spike cared about anyway.
“And how are things going there?” Giles inquired.
“Well enough, I suppose,” Spike replied, lighting a cigarette and resigning himself to chat, since Giles seemed to expect it and Spike was asking for a favor. Had to keep in the Watcher’s good graces, after all. Wanker. “Direct assassination attempts seem to have let up for the moment. Likely gearing up for something more general. Run into a pack on a sweep, or try to take out the factory, most like, since I’m a bit short-handed at the moment.” Changing the subject before Giles could ask why, Spike went on, “Buffy’s class is going over a treat, though. Had at least sixty, last go-around. And the first of the smell’s been distributed. So that’s started.”
“What sort of reception does it seem to be receiving?”
“Hard to tell,” Spike responded diplomatically, since saying he hadn’t seen a single vamp veer away from it so far would sound like total failure. “Early days yet. Have to bang a few more heads or something, I guess. Tisn’t a natural association, after all. Have to wade in with a hammer to get a vamp to learn anything.”
“Quite,” said Giles dryly.
“I learned phones,” Spike shot back, with more indignation than he felt. “An’ didn’t roust you out of bed at three ack emma, which is more than Buffy does.” Bloody twit..
“Point taken. And how are things otherwise?”
The SITs, all three of them, were coming through the barrier, all serious looking. “Sorry, have to tend to a deputation now, good talking to you,” Spike said rapidly, and rung off, wondering what the hell the SITs were peeved about this time, knowing he’d have to deal with it regardless, so no use conjecturing, since he was about to find out.
Amanda was leading off, the other two behind her; so they considered it SIT business. Amanda in her school clothes, the ugly plaid skirt and white blouse of the new order, which reminded him of Dawn. He put away for later the inward wince that thought gave him.
As the three came inside, but only barely, crowded in the doorway, Spike said disagreeably, “So what is it this time? I forget somebody’s birthday again?”
Amanda glanced at Michael on the cot.
“Oh, you won’t budge him,” Spike said. “Don’t worry ‘bout that. He knows I’m here, won’t let you children molest him.”
Amanda colored up, snapping mad. The impulse to come out of the chair and take her was controllable. “I’m skipping a history test for this,” Amanda shot back, “and not to listen to you being an asshole, Spike.”
“Fair enough,” Spike said, folding his hands, concentrating on her face because humans liked eye contact, didn’t have much of any other way to know about things. Also because it might distract him from their changing scents, the triple-time triphammer counterpoint of their pulsebeats. He could do this.
“Are you gonna listen, or are you gonna be an asshole?” Amanda demanded, folding her arms.
“Probably both,” Rona put in snidely.
“Shut up, Rona. We agreed, I make the running here.”
“Just saying,” Rona responded, eyes turned aside, backing off but smelling like buried laughter.
Not a one of the three of them the least frightened of him. His own fault: how he’d taught them. Likely too late to change it now without making them hate him. And he guessed he didn’t want that.
He said, “So get to it, then.”
“You don’t have any mirrors, that’s a given,” said Amanda, pulled up to her full scarecrow five-foot ten, looking at him down her nose. “So you probably need somebody to tell you, you look like shit, Spike.” That was strong language, from Amanda. She had to stop a second and brace to make herself say the S word. “You’re so pale you’re practically transparent, you’ve probably been sleeping in drains and you look it, your hair is a mess, and you have unhealed scabs on both hands. And you have them folded hoping we won’t notice they’re shaking. We notice, Spike. Rona called me, got me out of bed. Then Ken took one look at you and called me out of lunch. Do you think nobody will notice, or do you think nobody will care?”
Spike folded his hands harder, controlling the impulse to hide them, conceal the scabs. Truth was, it hadn't occurred to him they'd notice. Or care. Hadn't thought about them at all. “There gonna be a point somewhere in all this detailed sartorial abuse?”
Rona muttered, “Asshole.”
Kennedy said, “I actually know what ‘sartorial’ means, and it doesn’t include unhealed scabs.”
“Your point?” Spike said to Amanda.
“We understand why you ended the rotation, the roster. There’s not enough of us anymore to do that. And there’s the tribute now, and it’s generally enough. But not always. Not now. You’re down a lot more than a quart, the dipstick’s coming up dry and you’re right on the edge of starving, and we know what that means. You get crazy. You do things. And you can’t afford that. And we’re really insulted and angry, Spike--we’re angry!--you’d let yourself get into such a state, such severe blood debt, and not say a word to any of us.
“Are we a part of this operation or not? If we’re not, I have things I could be doing instead of showing up for Buffy’s class, to make a show of humans in the colors. I don’t need jumping jacks, or to learn how to do throws. We don’t have weapons drill anymore. You’re not teaching us anything anymore. We don’t even patrol. So what are we doing here, Spike? Are we just window dressing, your token humans you trot out to make a point and then send away until the next time you need to make some point? Which, I might add, you never explain to us! You have to choose, Spike. Are we in, or are we out? Call it. Right now.”
If they’d been minions, he’d have known what to do: just slap ‘em down so hard they’d bounce for open insubordination. But they weren’t. They were human children and required him to relate to them as such. And that was increasingly difficult. Damn near impossible, in fact. He hadn’t the patience for it. Or the insight, the common ground that would let him understand and see a problem before it’d reached boiling point.
“You’re in,” Spike said softly. “I need you in. So tell me what you need, because I don’t know that kind of thing anymore unless you tell me.”
“Without the soul,” Kennedy commented in a smug I told you so tone.
“Yeah. That’s part of it,” Spike admitted. “And the rest is that I don’t stretch that far. Something always getting past me, too fast for me to catch it before it hits. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry is a good beginning. I think we had an apology coming, and that’s good enough. How about the rest of it?” Amanda still had her arms folded.
Spike shut his eyes. Already late for one of the appointments he’d set up. Have to reschedule. Put that on the agenda. “Slayer says, starting next week--Monday, I guess--she’s gonna come up here after work, after the school lets out, and train. Maybe even with my people. If you want, you come too. We have all the gear from the Magic Box. Got the weapons you used to use, still there in the chest…. By then I’ll have new crew and they’ll need to learn lead and second, flank and point, rearguard…. Could work it like that. If you want.”
“Acceptable. Maybe not every day, I’m on the yearbook committee now. But most days. And? What about the rest of it?”
“What rest of it? Lost the thread here.”
“Some agreement and mechanism for emergency feeding. As in now. Today.”
Spike shook his head, suddenly angry. “You’re not my cows.”
“If we’re in, we are. When that’s what’s needed. I’m not all that crazy about the terminology, but--”
“Kim was my cow. Marked and claimed. And she died for it,” Spike said flatly. “From it. No. And now there’s Suzanne, turned. No. Got to keep you clear of all that.”
Unfolding her arms, Amanda came forward a step and bent a little to set her long, girly hand on his rigidly folded fists. “That wasn’t your doing. Or your responsibility.”
“Happened, just the same. Don’t want that for none of you, that are left. Keep it away from you.”
“None of us are gonna let ourselves be turned. Not even Rona.”
Rona muttered sullenly, “I never really meant it. Not really. I just--”
Kennedy said acerbically, “Everybody knows, Rona. Old news. Just shut up about it, all right?”
Rona retorted, “You are a grade-A, brass-bound bitch, you know that?”
“A badge I wear with pride. I work at it. So sod off.”
Spike started laughing. He couldn’t help it. He found their company and their bitching off at each other, and him, a comfort, and he couldn’t help that either. “All right. Have Emil fetch you some cups.”
“We can do direct,” Rona argued proudly. “We’re not afraid.”
“No. Not gonna mark you, and that’s not up for discussion. One was enough. And too much.” That was a sufficient reason; no need to tell them that if he started, let the eager demon take what it wanted, he was just about certain he couldn’t stop. “No more than a cup each: you’re not Slayers, to make it back in a night.”
“We know, Spike. We’ve done this before--remember?” Amanda said, patting his hand. “We’ll call it ‘cup detail,’ and that’s what you say whenever the tribute isn’t enough. Agreed?”
“Maybe. Won’t promise. But…I won’t forget I can.”
“Not good enough: I want a promise.”
“Well, you’re not gonna get it, so get stuffed!”
“’Manda,” Kennedy put in, “you know he’s impossible when he gets like this. You’re only pushing him into asshole territory again. The point’s made. Now settle.”
Amanda insisted, “But it’s important. He has to--”
“’Manda, I see him every day. And Rona sees him first thing every morning. You think we’re not gonna notice when he looks like death, not even warmed over? Let it go. We got what we came for--enough, already.”
Grumbling and unsatisfied, Amanda consented to go in search of cups. Never happy if every T wasn’t crossed and every I dotted all precise.
He knew these children: it was frustrating that he couldn’t hold them and their ways in his mind the way he was accustomed to. Just his good fortune they were stubborn and determined enough to bridge the distance between when he couldn’t. To literally share their lives with him in the most immediate possible fashion when he was too much in need to ask.
By and large, they were good children. He should take better care of them.
**********
Since the training session had been called off, Buffy didn’t expect Spike to be home when she got there after work. Willow was on the tethered phone, sitting on the weapons chest, talking a mile a minute, enthusiastically. She acknowledged Buffy with a wave, then pointed at the phone several times and silently mouthed some word Buffy couldn’t make out. At least she was enthusiastic. That was probably a good thing.
Buffy started disarming: cell phone to its charger base on the hall table, car keys in the yellow saucer, tote under the table, jacket on the wall peg. She had to write up two evaluations on interviews with students officially “in trouble,” but supper came first, and the blessed weekend was before her. Deal with that later.
Straightening, she was startled to find Dawn watching her from the far side of the banister--sitting on the steps, looking through the spindles like something in a cage. Eerily sudden and still.
“Dawnie, you scared the crap--”
“I don’t think we’ve been introduced. You may call me ‘Lady Gates.’ For practical purposes, it would be simplest if you thought of me as Dawn’s mother.”
Buffy blinked a few times. Dawn wasn’t Dawn. Oh. No wonder Spike had gone off the deep end last night.
“You’re mistaken,” Buffy replied coldly. “Dawn’s mom was Joyce Summers. My mom. Dawn is my sister.”
The whatever-it-was smiled. It needed practice. “I’m her other mother.”
Buffy set her hands on her hips. “What kind of first name is ‘Lady’?”
Not-Dawn shrugged. She needed practice at that, too. No way was she even human. “A matter of convenience, only. It suffices.”
Willow came slinking out of the front room, standing just close enough that Buffy could hit her if she wanted. Making intense anxious-face, Willow said, “I tried to tell you.”
“Not hard enough,” said Buffy grimly. Grabbing Willow’s arm, Buffy steered her through the kitchen and onto the back porch, and shut the door behind them. “OK, spill.”
“My fault entirely. And Spike, a little, because she’s no longer anchored to his soul, except she is, really, and heaven knows where that is. But my fault, I claim the blame, because I’m the one who took her charm. The locket thingie. Like you have on, that was Spike’s.”
“Still listening. Still waiting for sense. Keep working at it, you’ll get there.”
“Dawn’s keyness is because she was made from the Powers. You know: the Powers? Like Glory, only nicer? Except if you listen to Spike, which you don’t do very often, so that’s probably OK. What semi-controls everything--sort of like an agnostic’s version of Yahweh times about 200 or so. All jostling to be Head Egg in any given place, any given time. Anyway, this one is Dawn’s: what she was made out of, split away from. Dawn called it ‘Lady Gates,’ partly because ‘Dimensionality’ is kind of abstract, not to mention hard to say ten times fast. She’s reclaimed her part. Because she could. Because I’d taken away Dawn’s protection from that sort of thing happening, not that I ever thought it would or actually thought about it at all, to be completely honest about it, which I’m trying to be! What do I know about the Powers? Jewish lesbian witch-person: I know more about the properties of saxifrage than I do about the Powers!”
“Babbling, Will. I know about the Powers That Be: they Choose Slayers. I don’t know if they vote or flip coins or what, but they do. And they send Slayer dreams. You told me so yourself, last week. As the current Chosen, unless we take Faith into account, which I’d really rather not do, my question is What the hell is she doing here? And where’s Dawn?”
Willow performed a full-body wince. “Answer number one: she doesn’t like what Spike’s doing, but she doesn’t want the Hellmouth reopened either. So she wants to sit in on things in person. I guess. Answer number two, Dawn’s still there. Lady Gates let her manifest for a few minutes last night. As a treat for Spike, to keep him happy. Which he isn’t, but. Hasn’t gone for her throat yet, either. He’s biding his time, probably trying to figure how to oust her without her coming back at Dawn about it. Because they’re connected. Always have been.”
“So, what: I’m supposed to just pretend I don’t have some kind of cockamamie demigod in my house?”
“That would be one approach,” Willow responded hopefully.
“And what’s this about the Hellmouth?” Buffy demanded, appalled at how much she’d missed. Those pills were bad, bad, bad. A major pinnacle of badness. She put on her agenda a note never to be stupid-desperate enough to do that again. Once had been entirely too much.
“She says that’s what the bunch of mages you and Spike took out were probably doing. Trying to reestablish Sunnydale’s qualifications as the go-to place for vamps, assorted demons, power in the air so thick a knife wouldn’t cut it. Power for any purpose but the worse, the better. Which sounds strange, but never mind. You know what I mean.”
Buffy flapped her arms at her sides. “Great. Just great. That’s all we needed. Spike’s coming apart at the seams, and now we have a resident Power mucking things up!”
“He replaced my furniture today,” Willow mentioned brightly. “Not exactly first-hand, probably scavenged from deserted houses all over town, but I’m not complaining. The bed is really nice, Buffy: hand-rubbed cherry, with these big spindle corner-posts, I think maybe it had a canopy once but it’s pretty even without, and this great maple wardrobe--”
“I’ll take the tour later. Now I have to start supper. Does it eat? The Lady Gates thing?”
“Seems to. She ate breakfast. Half a box of the left-over Froot Loops, that Spike used to like. Eaten by hand. Or more by fist.”
“Let me announce, officially, how much I do not care. Gonna introduce it to spaghetti a la Slayer and it can deal or starve.”
As Buffy tried to pass by and open the door, Willow said, “Don’t count me. I finally heard from the coven, and they’re gonna help me about the stasis. They’d noticed it: meddling with time makes this little pinch in the fabric of reality, and things start to get strange around it after awhile. Not approved. Very much not approved! So they’re gonna help me lift it. Got to run now. Bye!”
Supper was therefore a truly uncomfortable and bizarre experience: sitting at the kitchen island with a sardonic, sly-eyed thing that considered a lecture on noodles through the ages and dimensions to be an acceptable substitute for conversation.
Couldn’t just say, “So how was the history test?” after that and not feel like an utter moron.
It twirled spaghetti like an expert and ate without slurping even once. Definitely not Dawn!
And no Spike. Dusk became dark and still no Spike. Buffy had made garlic bread for him. Finally she said, “Excuse me,” left the kitchen, collected her cell from the charger, and hit the speed dial pacing in the front yard. Only four rings before a pick-up, which was nearly a record.
“Something came up. I’ll be along, just a few minutes.”
“You’d better,” Buffy said. “I’m all alone here with Lady Godlier Than Thou and need extensive reasons not to smash her face in.”
“Yeah.” Spike sounded resigned. “But she’s goin’ to a movie. All set up. With an escort to keep an eye on her. All taken care of, love. Now I got to see to this, here.”
End of conversation. Spike wasn’t big on hellos or goodbyes. The next second, the phone buzzed, and it was Spike again: “Forgot to say. If Red’s not there, don’t go in the basement. All right?”
“Why?” Buffy asked blankly.
“Because.”
Dial tone.
He really doesn’t understand humans at all anymore, Buffy reflected, setting the phone back in its charger as she made a bee-line to the cellar stairs.
It was a bed. Slightly smaller than a tennis court. Made up, grotesquely and endearingly, in the colors: black satinesque sheets, a big red goose-down duvet that could have served as a cover for your average VW beetle. Three king-size pillows wide. Buffy wondered where he’d found such a monstrosity but then thought it was probably better not to know. It was possible he’d even ordered it, had it custom-built, delivered, and installed: it certainly hadn’t been there Tuesday morning, when she’d done the most recent load of wash as one of the distractions, passing the time until Spike woke….
Besides the bed, he’d turned the basement into an attempt at a bower: thick but probably not sound-proof tapestries, of the stag-at-bay Wal-Mart variety, tacked up to the rafters on both sides, ceiling to floor. Another swagged up at the foot, ready to drop at the tug of a cord. Be all cozy then. He’d had something like this in his crypt, on the lower level. To keep out drafts, mostly. Because she’d complained of the cold.
Really, she shouldn’t have come down. He’d want to have a Grand Unveiling, and she’d spoiled the surprise. Have to pretend she’d never looked. Anything else would be cruel.
As she swung quickly around to go back upstairs--there wasn’t a foot of clearance between the bottom of the stairs and the foot of the bed--something caught her eye under a hanging corner of the duvet: the legs of the bed were bolted to the floor. She slowly sank down on the steps, looking at where the head of the bed was situated: out from the wall, a good foot and a half. No hanging suspended there. Mustn’t impede the shortened reach of the manacles whose slack was further taken up by the chains being wound twice around the top of the bolted-down bed frame. One manacle laid neatly at each top corner, not quite hidden enough by the pillows.
Her heart just sank. Though they’d played bondage games sometimes, by mutual consent and inclination, no way were the manacles intended for her. The bed and the hangings were only window dressing to make the bed’s position and the manacles less conspicuous and maybe marginally acceptable. They failed
She thought it was the saddest thing she’d ever seen, except her mom’s body on the couch. But that had been frightening. This was too, in its baroque fashion.
Long before she was ready, she heard the door creak. He came down maybe one step and settled there, waiting for her reaction.
“It’s very…ingenious,” she made herself say. “I can see you went to a lot of trouble for this. A lot of thought. It would have fit better in the sink end, though.”
“Didn’t trust those morons to mess around with your plumbing. Didn’t want you greeted by a flood. When you saw it. So. Bad idea, was it?”
She twisted around to see him. He was just looking down at her with no particular expression, hands dangling over his knees. The scabs were all gone from his knuckles, she noticed: he’d fed up, then, before coming. But of course he would. This was all about Tuesday…and preventing its ever being repeated.
About having sex with a man immobilized in shackles, instead.
Which was never gonna happen. Not like this. No way. Never.
Just the thought of it made her feel sick and wrong.
Not gonna nag him again about the soul. Already did that. He knew. Knew the demand. And this was his answer.
No. Not gonna think about it. She asked, “You got your bike?” He nodded. “Let’s go. I don’t care where--I’m just…sick of Sunnydale right now. Anyplace.”
“Noplace,” he said, looking at his hands. “Don’t think that would be a real great idea right now. Can’t answer…for what might come of it.”
“I trust you!”
“I don’t. An’ I’m not gonna risk it. Could I…maybe use your shower? I been informed by experts that I look like a bum. Or maybe a corpse. Corpse of a bum?” He put his hands over his face, bending into them. Not making a sound.
There wasn’t room for both of them on the step. Buffy shoved his feet aside and sat on the step below, gathering him in, holding hard, her forehead against his hands.
The shaking was too fast for sobbing. That’s what it was, all the same: she knew.
“Sorry,” he said eventually, pulling fingers down a face as empty and bleak as she’d ever seen it, “that it’s-- Sorry.” He stared straight ahead, looking at nothing. “Later. Tomorrow. I’ll send some…somebody to collect the rest of my things. What’s left. And take this--” (His hand waved vaguely bed-ward.) “--all away. Be useful for something. Sometime. Not a total….” He shut his eyes hard, swallowing words down unspoken. “Don’t know how to do this, love. Never did it before.”
Buffy said nothing. He’d left before. But it wasn’t the same. No comparison whatever.
Continuing the conversation they weren’t having, in his head, he announced abruptly, “Still turn out for patrol, and like that. An’ your class and all…. And the SITs, told them come Monday, you’d be turning up. To train, like you said, and they were gonna…. Gonna join in, they miss the weapons drill, seems like. I don’t know--” He looked at her then. Looked her straight in the eyes. “Might not be too bad. I’ve done worse. An’ had worse done to me. You were the one joking about a leash. Won’t you even try?”
“Some things, I don’t have to do even once to know I never want to do them again. And…I don’t want to tell you how it makes me feel to know you’d settle for that.”
“Settle for damn near anything you could name, pet. Not proud. Not real proud of myself just now, that’s true. Thought maybe…there was still an inch of ground that could be…. But no, ‘course you’re right, wouldn’t do, not at all. If there’s a good way to do this, I dunno what it is.”
She wondered if he realized his fingers were steadily combing through her hair. Probably not. He was as far away from himself as it was possible to get. Even the mouth was running mainly on automatic, disconnected from everything. Like getting one of his incoherent Spike-o-gram early morning phone calls, except in person.
Completely stuck. Balked. Blocked. She thought they could sit there till daybreak and he’d still be throwing out random, incomplete phrases, still not moving. Couldn’t go forward, wouldn’t go back. And unable to just disengage, leave it. He needed a push to get him out of that dead-ended rut.
“Take your shower,” she said. “Your experts were onto something. Then I’ll help you get your things together. And I’ll come Monday like I said I would. Mustn’t disappoint the SITs. Gets too complicated that way. When--”
“Could I stay here? Down here, just for tonight? Bolt the door, both sides? Be no trouble, only I can’t, don’t want to go back there just yet. Only for tonight.”
“With the door bolted. Both sides. That either of us could break down in a minute.”
“Yeah,” he said, and almost smiled. “Dunno there’s much we couldn’t get through that way. Except this.”
She took his hands and held them really hard. “You know what you have to do. When you’re ready, or when it gets bad enough, you’ll do it: put the soul back. Or I will.”
“No,” he said, like a whip crack. “That’d be worse than the shackles. Don’t even think about it. I’m not Angel. Nor Angelus neither. You do that to me and there’s nothing left. It all goes smash. If you can’t see that, believe it anyway. No coming back from that.”
“How could it be worse, putting it back, than taking it away in the first place? Something that vamps do all the time?”
“Not me. I don’t. No. Deal with it because I have to, but I don’t do it. The ones I made, was forced into turning, I did ‘em all. They’re gone. Bit, she helped me. You can ask-- No, you can’t,” he realized. And he went away somehow. Blank: eyes open, but nobody home behind them.
“Spike?”
He focused again. But slowly. And not all the way. “Lost the thread there. Sorry.
No matter. Nothing that concerned you anyway. Sometime, if you want, you can
have Bit tell you. Or not. Whatever you please.” He pushed to his feet and went
into the hall. But not up the stairs. After a couple of minutes Buffy heard
his bike start up and then recede.
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