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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.
Sunday, Buffy attempted a cake. Frowning at the recipe, she decided margarine should do as well as butter, and besides, she didn't have any butter; and all that sugar certainly would be bad for anyone, so she used half; and the recipe didn't specify exactly how long or vigorously the cook was supposed to stir the batter, so she stirred like fury until it was practically hardened in the bowl, and it plopped into the pan like cement. She had to push it into the corners.
All that could be said of the result was that it was the right shape: square. It was black, and hard as a brick. So maybe she had left it a little longer than required, being distracted by Xander showing up to measure windows; and maybe the oven ran a few degrees hotter than it was actually set for (she thought she recalled Willow saying so, but wasn't sure). Whatever.
She got up first thing Monday morning and bought a cupcake. No way she could have fit 123 candles on the square thing anyway.
It was symbolic, she decided. And it was the thought that mattered, wasn’t it?
Rushing through the two scheduled conferences based on her evaluations (done over the empty, miserable weekend, with only a few uncaught typos) got her clear about eleven thirty, which should be in time because her impression was that Spike generally retired about noon. Grabbing her tote and her jacket, she broke several speed limits driving out to the factory.
The vamp sentry said his name was Huey. Buffy vaguely recalled seeing him before, though she didn’t know where. She didn’t really care, except she was making a dutiful effort to learn their names. It would have been easier if there hadn’t been a different one every time she came. She asked, tentatively, after Deuce and was told, politely but mystifyingly, that Deuce was gone. So she just said, “Oh,” and let it drop, with the disquieting suspicion that meant she’d dusted Deuce on patrol without recognizing him, only Huey was too polite to say so, right out.
Maybe it wasn’t such a great idea, trying to learn all their names.
Anyway Huey passed her right through, let her go back to the office without an escort. The factory seemed deserted. She wondered where the vamps were in the daytime, when they apparently weren’t here.
Spike, though, was right where she expected him to be: in the office, at the desk, at the computer. Not how she expected him to look, though. Never would have expected that.
Halting in the doorway, she stared, then blurted as he looked up, “You’re wearing glasses!”
Annoyed and defiant, he reared back his head a little and said nothing. She couldn’t see his eyes at all.
They were big, tinted, aviator-style glasses. Thin silver metal frames. Rather showy, actually, not that that should be a surprise. But she was surprised because she found she’d expected something old-fashioned, not something so aggressively new. Not that she’d ever imagined him wearing glasses at all. But the glasses she’d imagined him not wearing were little clear granny glasses, like you saw in old photographs. Not in fashion accent ads in GQ.
She blurted, “You look like a movie star. Slumming as a clerk.”
“You got a problem with that, Slayer?”
“No, no, no. No problem. Just real surprised, is all. Never thought you’d break down and actually do it.”
“Yeah, well. Doin’ this, now,” (he waved at the computer) “made me reconsider. No good bein’ half blind and headachy all the time. And that laser surgery, s’not an option. Would only heal back to what they were. So.” He shrugged, then folded his arms: still all defensive, except that she couldn’t see his eyes, to be sure.
Way to go, Buffy, she thought: piss him off, first thing.
She grabbed in her tote for the cupcake--protected from squashing by a clear plastic shell--popped it on the corner of the desk, and opened the shell. Inserted a single candle from the pack. Held out her hand, requesting, “Lighter.” When Spike passed it over, she lit the candle, returned the lighter, and took a deep, fortifying breath.
“Happy Birthday to you,
“Happy Birthday to you.
“Happy Birthday, dear Spi-ike,
“Happy Birthday to you!”
Finding only the impassive glasses gazing at her, she explained, “November 5th. Your new official birthday, courtesy of Giles.” She gestured at the burning candle, now running wax onto the icing. “It’s symbolic. I made a cake, but it came out wrong. Bad recipe. You’re supposed to make a wish and blow it out. And I hate not being able to see your eyes!”
He consented to remove the glasses. His eyes were bright blue in this light: wicked-happy and speculative. He leaned forward and blew out the candle with a single short poof of breath. “Are there prezzies?”
“Yeah, just a second.” She grabbed in her tote and brought out a gift-wrapped, angled oblong, about the shape of a pancake-turner, and plopped it onto the corner of the desk next to the cupcake. Smiling, Spike delicately unwrapped it, having cut through the curly blue paper ties with the viciously sharp knife he used to whittle stakes.
“Well, now,” he said, holding up a right-side mirror for a Honda Shadow. “Isn’t that just fine.”
“I knew it was something you needed, something I hoped you’d like, and I know it’s not your real birthday but you wouldn’t tell me that, and it’s all symbolic anyway. I love you,” Buffy said, all in a burst.
“Love you too, and do I have to eat the cupcake?”
Buffy shook her head hard.
“Then give us a kiss, love,” he said, pushing out of the chair, and proceeded to prove why Buffy had long ago acknowledged him the champion kisser in the known universe.
Eventually he let her breathe, still holding her, foreheads touching.
“Not yet,” he said softly, “and not here. But soon. Someplace.” Before Buffy had thought of any response to that except more kissing, he released her to turn away and open a lower desk drawer. Holding out a small white box, he remarked, “Kept meaning to give you this. Either didn’t have it with me, or it wasn’t a good time. Maybe it’s the good time now.”
Buffy removed from the box a thin silver ankle chain decorated with a silver skull with ruby eyes. She laughed. “Like my engagement ring!”
“Put me in mind of it, yeah. Except that was only a spell. And this is real. And you don’t wear rings, and I know why. Silver’s break-away: won’t hobble you up, fighting. Not for your birthday or any occasion. Just because.”
“Because is the best reason of all. Put it on for me?”
Feeling a little shy, Buffy dropped into one of the plastic chairs and extended her left foot. As Spike fastened the chain around her ankle, she said, “Right foot means you’re available. Left foot means you’re taken.”
“Yeah.” He bent and kissed her ankle-bone. “All symbolic…. Missed you real bad, these past couple days.”
Buffy held in the comment that the separation was his doing, his choice. He knew it. No point saying so except meanness, and she tried not to do that.
Instead, she said, “Hard times,” on a sigh, and kissed his bent head.
“Hard times, true enough. So you don’t think the glasses make me look like an utter git?” he asked diffidently, looking up with a wary expression.
“They make you look dashing, dangerous, and mysterious,” Buffy said firmly.
“Kind of the effect I was going for, yeah. Won’t wear ‘em in public, only need ‘em for reading, but….”
“Did you wear glasses, you know, before?” Buffy asked carefully.
Asking a vamp anything about the before was always tricky, she knew, and felt as an intrusion.
Kneeling at her feet, Spike nodded solemnly. “Was an utter git, if you must know. Lied about that, what I told you once. Thought I’d got shut of it, tossed it all away forever. But it all comes back. For all the pretending, I’m still what I was. This, that I’m doing now, brings it all back to me: wet, silly chap that knew attic Greek, basement Greek, fancied himself…a kind of scholar, I suppose. Ruddy git. Don’t mind you knowing, but….”
“Your secret is safe with me.”
“Bit, she knows, claims not to think the less of me for it. Which reminds me: her birthday’s this week. Turns seventeen, this Thursday. What’d you figure to do about that?”
“Nothing! Oh, I have her presents and everything, but I’m not gonna give Lady Gates--”
“Think again, sweet. Bit’s there, too. She knows. Would want her due, regardless.”
“How can I pretend it’s normal when that bitch--”
“It’s special: maybe she’d feel bad, not to let Bit be there for it. And Bit will know, regardless. Would know if she’d been stinted. Do it extra, not less. Only once, that a girl turns seventeen. Symbolic. Make a proper do of it.”
“All right,” Buffy agreed slowly, thinking of the singular disaster that her seventeenth birthday had been--soul-losing Angelsex--something that she did not want to discuss with Spike. Or anybody. Ever. Glancing at her watch, she felt a small internal jerk. “I have to go. But I’ll be back after, like I promised. And you need to grab some sleep.”
“Want to hold you,” Spike said, rocking back, away, sitting on his heels. “Grudge the time apart. Every minute.”
Again, Buffy kept herself from pointless meanness. “Motivation,” she said. “To get past this time.”
“You being so good, so steady, about it all--that’s been a help. Dunno if I could have managed, otherwise.”
“We deal the best we can,” Buffy said. “Just like always. Got to run now.”
“Yeah. See you later, then.”
“Absolutely,” said Buffy, rising, feeling the slight weight of the ankle chain acutely. At the doorway, she added, “And next time? Ditch the glasses. Not that they look bad, they don’t. But…I need to see your eyes.”
“All right,” he responded with a chuckle, straightening. “But don’t you make fun. It’s a bit of a sore subject.”
“You know what? I’d figured that out all by myself. I do that sometimes.”
“Yes, you do. Sometimes.”
**********
Hostile 17 has survived the procedure. The degree of ancillary damage, we won’t know until it regains motor functions.
Yeah, that was one of the regular repertoire, that was. Indifferent anonymous clinical voice reporting. ‘Cause of course they’d only paralyzed him, not knocked him full out, so they could tweak and test reactions all the while they were doing it. Feel muscles firing off, no control over himself whatever. That was enough for him to rouse with the shakes and the suffocated desperate panting when it made its visits.
Giles’ soft, shaken voice announcing to nobody, I believe she’s gone.
That was fit for a good few hours of sleeping misery and grief but couldn’t compare to what came afterward, his own unspoken awareness of helpless loss that encompassed that and cast it forward into an unendurable future of never. Hadn’t had that one lately, which was a blessing. Had him staggering and staring and making aimless convulsive gestures for days afterward when it hit.
But this one, now: this was new.
An unfamiliar voice remarking warmly, What a delightfully savage pet you are! And the sense of his demon stroked, rousing, warily uncurling to bask in the approval no one had ever given it except Dru. The sense of warm, seen, valued, lifted into light that was frightening but didn’t hurt at all, the bright wicked appreciative gaze of something as large as a skyscraper that could pick him up in two fingers and then a spread hand to inspect and pet him, all approving of what it had found. Reflexively, despite yearning toward the bright/warm, the demon snarled out its defiance that it served no one, nothing, and was its own. And the voice in his mind replying, as if shocked, Of course not, dear boy! An unthinkable waste, a crime against such fine experience and potential. No, I think I’ll have you as my pet, small creature of Chaos. And I’ll teach you such tricks and we’ll have such a time of it, you and I!
And his demon submitting ecstatically to the immense petting hand, never having developed any defenses against being loved.
Cold and naked and perfectly still under the thin blanket, Spike stared at the vague dark ceiling and felt the aftershocks of the dream running through him, replaying the words and sensations and his demon’s adoring responses.
Only a dream. Probably.
When he could move, he grabbed the cell phone, hit a speed dial, and waited.
When the line was opened with silence, merely attending with no need for words, he suddenly didn’t know what to say. Blanked out.
“Spike, I know it’s you,” murmured her voice patiently. Quiet because she’d be in some class, others around, interrupted by the sound or vibration of her phone.
That sense of context made it real and freed him. Not Bit; but yes, Bit! Needed her: right away. Now!
He didn’t know what he said. Her reply was made in the same calm murmur: “I’m coming.”
Finally he set the phone down without dropping it. Kneeling by the desk, he poured two of the wake-up pills from the vial and downed them with as much liquor as he could take at one go. Waited for it to hit, for something to be real to him besides the dream. Went on methodically drinking because that was all he could think of to do.
Nothing from memory. Not a dreaded future. This had been real, present, now. Never had one like that before. And surely never wanted it again.
No defenses whatever.
He knew if that voice called to him again, he'd go.
**********
Mike noticed at once: Spike was paying no attention to him. However, Spike was paying no attention to anything. Wearing only bluejeans, Spike was in the wandering around stage of drunk, and smelled scared. Instantly enraged, lacking only a target, Mike admitted the near non-presence of not-Dawn, the Lady with nearly no smell who looked down her nose at everything, even things bigger than she was. Mike growled, “What’s happened?”
She was sitting primly on one of the pink plastic chairs, watching Spike pace the office like some wind-up toy. Aimless motion. Couldn’t be still. Eyes unfocused, might as well be blind. Bottle in fist, nearly to the tossing-away point.
The Lady remarked, “We have another player.”
Mike made a disgusted noise at the cool non-answer and stepped right into Spike’s pacing route knowing it might get him hit. Didn’t care. Spike wasn’t mad, though, which wasn’t right. Finding an obstruction, he simply stopped.
So Mike hit him a good one on the side of the face. Spike rocked back a little, was all. Didn’t come back at him. Seemed to barely notice--too anesthetized by the liquor, maybe. So Mike popped him another one. Spike took that as a hint to choose another direction and started circling the desk.
Standing in his way again, Mike demanded, “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Spike said nothing, waiting for his path to clear; but the Lady commented in that dry, passionless voice, “He can’t say. He’s being blocked.”
“So what the hell are you doing about it?”
“Thinking,” said the Lady tartly, as though certain she was alone in doing that.
“Then do something else, because that’s no good!”
Spike said roughly, “Let her be,” and pushed Mike aside, continuing to move.
So Mike put him down, good and hard, and then sat on him for good measure. As Mike had thought, Spike had wanted to be stopped: he curled forward and hid--arms folded over his head, forehead against Mike’s knee. Safe, because locked down. Mike understood that. And at least Spike was finally acknowledging Mike was there. But the dreadful fear smell, of almost human intensity, didn’t let up. Tasted like fear, too, when Mike had a small nip at the thick of his arm. Other things, though, too--too subtle for smelling. Still not the anger Mike expected. Something nearer to collapse. A blankness that was way past blurred sight, way past liquor-stupid. Maybe the block the Lady had spoken of.
“Who’s done this?” Mike demanded.
“That’s what I’m trying to determine. I do not like my instruments being interfered with.” Bright color came into her cheeks, and her blue eyes snapped. Looked nearly human there for a second. Then it all flattened out again, pulsebeat dropping back into calm. “Spike. Replay it.”
“No,” Spike responded hoarsely.
“Just once more,” the Lady wheedled.
“No.”
But they both went still, and plainly something was going on between them. The Lady sat forward in her chair, intent. Mike used their distraction to take another taste. Happy with that but also took meaning from it. Not Spike pacing: his demon, agitated, yet not showing. Spike was doing the hiding part.
After a few minutes more thought, the Lady stood and reached across the desk to collect the cell phone and tapped in a long string of numbers. Following some sputtering from the other end, she said, “I have no interest in the time there or your plans. Spike’s been bespelled. The accent is British and of your generation, I think; a Chaos Mage of considerable power; thinks in terms of ‘tricks,’ phrases include ‘my dear boy’-- Ah. That’s at least a beginning. How well do you know him?” The Lady listened awhile, then said, “Recently?” She listened some more. Giles was being indignant and using what, for him, was bad language. Mike could hear the other end of the conversation well enough despite intermittent static.
Had a name to keep in his mind. Poking at Spike’s shoulder, he said it aloud: “Ethan Rayne.”
Moving one arm slightly, Spike blinked at him. “Oh. That git.”
That seemed encouraging. Mike got up and took the phone. “It’s Mike. Describe the bastard.”
Giles’ voice asked, “Who are you? And who have I been talking with?”
Mike thought answering would probably make things go faster. “Spike’s my sire. And the Lady, she says she’s Dawn’s ma. Come into her, now won’t leave. A Power, everybody says. So what does the son of a bitch look like?” Mike found corollaries for each item and came up with a resemblance to a know-it-all captain he’d been acquainted with, back in the before. Looks like Captain Hawkins, if the jumped-up asshole had survived to forty would do for a picture in his mind. “Anything still left around here, would have his smell on it?”
“I have no idea, and what do you mean, Spike’s your sire? Is he killing again? Is he--”
Since Giles seemed unable to supply any more useful information, Mike ended the call and set the phone back on the desk. Then he noticed the Lady glaring at him, like she might turn him into something. He didn’t know if a Power could do that. Not real clear on what a Power was, actually, except that they thought pretty high of themselves despite having manners not fit for a barnyard.
The phone buzzed. The Lady picked it up and listened. “Yes, substantially. No, I have no reason to think so. No, he eliminated all of them…. Quite certain: Dawn was a witness.”
Mike quit listening. The subject had no interest for him. He asked Spike, “Want me to get the pads laid out?”
Leaning on an elbow, Spike looked at his watch. “Fuck. Is she here?”
“The Slayer, you mean. Not yet. ‘Manda and Rona are, though. Maybe Kennedy. Didn’t see her. And two squads up and waiting, like you said.”
Mike could no longer smell the frightened. Only the drunk.
“Fuck.” Rubbing his eyes, Spike got slowly to his feet, then carefully bent again, holding the corner of the desk, to collect his shirt from the floor. “Tell Huey to get the gear out: that’s his to see to.”
“I can take the training, if you want. Dance with the Slayer a bit. Don’t think she’d dust me.” That last, Mike had meant as a small joke, but Spike didn’t take it that way.
“Slayer’s mine, Michael. You and ‘Manda lead out for the rest.”
Mike went as far as the door. “You sure that’s a good idea.”
“Hell, no. But that’s how we play it.” Spike’s attention shifted, and they both noticed the Lady holding out her locket on its chain.
When Spike made no move to take it, she said, “You are our instrument. I will not allow you to become another’s.”
“Yeah, sure. That makes me feel all kinds of better.” Pointing at the locket, Spike asked, “Little bit of clay gonna keep my head all secure?”
“Perhaps not. However, I’ve now identified the player. On this plane, his power may be considerable but in my own realm of action--”
Spike was lighting a cigarette. Breathing smoke, he said, “Fine, you got your name. What you came for. Great idea: you go home, leave Bit to help us clean up the mess. You do that.”
The Lady let the locket slide to the desk. Showing a small smile, she said, “Nice try, Spike.” Then she went knuckles-down, arms braced, on the desktop, asking, “Why do you want her and not me?”
“We’re used to each other’s ways, Bit and me. She and my demon mostly get on. She looks after me. Want her here now.”
Not until I have what I want!”
“And what’s that, pet?” Spike inquired, nasty and silky.
The Lady turned bright red and stomped out, past Mike, chin high. Couldn't smell anything off her, but that was no news. Mike figured Spike had things besides smell to go by.
“And that was real bright, too,” Mike commented. “Piss her off, why don’t you.”
Studying his cigarette coal, Spike admitted, “Think maybe I did. Have to admit, there’s worse than her. She’s a wretched bully if she’s let to be. Used to having her own way, and what high lady isn’t? But however loud she gets, she’s always left me my own choice. Never tried to force me, that I know of, anyway.”
“Yeah. Guess so. I’ll get that all set up, then.”
Answering Mike’s concern, Spike responded, “I’ll be all right. Just took me to a place…. I’ll be fine.”
“Yeah.”
Going toward the barrier gap, Mike looked back and saw Spike drop the locket chain around his neck.
**********
Wasn’t true nobody had ever cared for his demon: Bit did, Spike reminded himself, dizzily trying to locate his boots. Properly cautious of it, she was, Bit, but she liked it well enough and except for the brief time of marking her, his demon showed no special interest in her either, which was the way it should be.
But not the same, memory told him uneasily. Not the same as sharing in full measure the joy of busting things up, tossing things high just to watch them go smash. What he’d been fighting in himself, beating down every day, from the time he’d set himself to the ordering of Sunnydale. Part of him was sick of self-discipline, sick of being forethoughtful and reliable. Sick of meeting expectations, including his own. Sick of even trying to keep track of every fucking detail.
Part of him sided with the Powers. Just wanted to say the hell with it and let it go. How much of that was him and how much was Lady Gates nudging at him, he’d never tried to sort out, except to acknowledge that some of it was him, no question. The pushing hadn’t put there anything that wasn’t there before.
Demon, it was restless and angry, being mostly denied at every turn. Sometimes got past him, exploded at whatever he found to hand. Like in Willow’s bedroom. Like the other night, putting down whatever he found in reach. And harder to control without the balance of the soul. Hard to feel the need for the restraint, the rules and limits he’d set on himself. Only ideas, things he had to make himself mindful of, not things he felt.
And maybe this new git getting at him some of that time.
As avid for destruction as Spike’s demon, praising and affirming it, rewarding it with that deep satisfaction when the lattice of rules came suddenly unglued and he just struck out. Feeding it what it wanted. What not even Bit would give it: freedom to act out its nature. As though he were no more than a fledge. Relapsing to an earlier state, losing what he’d learned and fought for.
He thought that was the trick of spelling a vamp: to latch onto some secret wish, some weakness already within him. Turning an inclination into a compulsion. Making him not only accept it but want it.
Despite the years since the chip being all about not wanting what he wanted. Wanting another thing more. Training himself up with the blinding pain as limit and correction until he’d believed he could do without it and still be fine. Set the soul aside and still understand enough to follow the course he’d set for himself. To make this new thing well enough to have it survive his supervision and stand on its own. Continue beyond him.
But he still wanted what he wanted. That hadn’t changed and never would. Because demons didn’t. Not so much evil, like he’d learned to think of it, but a creature of chaos. Deeply inclined to destruction of any order he found himself within. Breaking through the barriers. Doing the impossible, the forbidden.
Shutting a Hellmouth. Loving a Slayer.
The only thing better than killing one. Two, he’d done, so he should know. And it wasn’t in him to regret any of it.
But he’d never imagined anybody loving him for that, or that in him. Fear, respect, maybe--those were appropriate responses. He understood them. But the self-assured love bypassed all that and spoke to his demon direct. And his demon understood that and responded in kind.
Couldn’t get at him except through what was already there.
That was what scared him.
For the first time, he seriously thought he might not last this out. Capable of imagining it only. Not capable of the execution. And leave everything worse than if he’d never begun.
Which was what Digger had contended all along. That Spike didn’t have the “bottom” to stay the whole course. That it was just stupid naïve vanity to suppose otherwise. Might be Digger was right and the farther along Spike pushed his plan, the worse it would be when it inevitably got away from him. Therefore the best thing Spike could do was abandon it immediately before the repercussions of failure spread to everyone he cared about. Because they’d trusted him. Taken him at his word and depended on him. And therefore caught in the backlash when it all started coming apart.
Nobody he could say this to. Nobody who could offer any reassurance he’d believe. And belief the only thing moving it all forward or holding it together.
Dressed and still drunk, full of manic, shaky alertness from the pills, he crossed the factory, seeing that the gear from the Magic Box annex was nearly all set up and Mike and the three SITs beginning to demonstrate lead and second in a fight, dull weapons only. The SITs watching him pass: this wasn’t what they wanted from him. Wanted him showing them something new, not just going through the motions of what they already knew, reflexes trained into habit. Wanted edged weapons drill, that he didn’t think he was capable of today, not without somebody getting hurt. Couldn’t think through all the cautions, not in motion. Could second Buffy, maybe, when she came. That could be all right and nobody hurt.
Could do. Maybe an answer.
His healed right hand riding the descending rail, he went into the dormitory--mostly cleared out except for the fledges and a few fucking by pairs or bunches: the usual, he didn’t bother noticing--and singled out Sue. Woke her, drew her aside as far as a bench, the way he had before. She seemed a little less dopy than last time, assuming he was in any state to judge that. All the bruising and scabs were gone, anyway. And having fresh clothes moderated much of the stink. Mostly, she smelled like Deuce, whose clothes they’d been before.
He asked her, “You fed up all right?”
“Is there more?”
Should have expected that. He shook his head. “Not till tomorrow. One delivery a day, comes in on the plane from L.A. in the morning.”
“They say other masters have cows, you can just drink from them anytime--”
“We don’t do that here,” Spike replied evenly.
She looked for a second as though she’d argue, but kept silence, swallowed it back. She’d learned that much, then.
“Want you to do something hard, and something easy,” Spike told her.
“What’s the easy part?” she asked warily.
“SITs are up on the floor now, taking my crew of pathetic wankers through patrolling drill. Lead and second, point and flank. What you lot had down pretty much the first evening. When we ran into those Bringers.”
“Yeah. I remember that. That’s easy. You want--” She stopped herself, changed phrasing. “What do you want me to do, Spike?”
Not assuming. Not thinking it would be a good thing to show off, get ahead of him, before he’d had a chance to say. Coming along fine, for a fledge.
“Like you think,” Spike said, indirectly praising both her quickness and her holding back. “Go up and train with the crew, in the colors. ‘F even a fledge can pick it up, they’ll try harder. Keep to it, if you do.”
“Yeah, all right. I can do that. And the hard part? Do I have to keep trueface shed? Because I can’t--”
“No, that’s all right. Doesn’t matter within these walls.”
“What’s the hard part, then?”
“Don’t eat anybody.”
“Oh.”
Spike waited while she thought it out. Finally she looked up, met his eyes. “I’ll try, Spike. Try my best. Could I be sort of toward the back? So they’re not in striking distance?”
“Need you to the front, love. Where they all can see you. ‘Manda and Rona and Ken, they know striking distance, and they all have their tasers. You won’t hurt nobody, even if you go for them. But I’d like to see if you can keep yourself from that. Let you come on a sweep if you can make it all the way through.”
“Even truefaced?”
Spike nodded.
She looked both eager and anxious. “How long?”
“An hour. Maybe a little more.”
She took a quick, nervous breath. “I’ll try. I’m fed up all right: I should be able to keep from going after the first warm meat I find.” She cocked her head. “I can hear their heartbeats. Isn’t that weird? It will be so strange…. But I’ll do my best, Spike.”
“Never expected any different. Come on, then.”
Weaving among the mattresses, she asked him, “How can you be this drunk and keep focus?”
“Practice, love. More than a century’s practice. S’my birthday, you know: Watcher said so.”
“Celebrating, then.” She nodded as if that made sense.
“Something like that. Now, don’t you look too sharp, right off. Ease into it a little.”
“Got you.”
She was shaping fine. As Mike was.
He found hope in such tokens.
**********
For no good reason except being reminded, Buffy had been angsting all afternoon about her 17th birthday.
How could she have been so dumb?
And how could Angel have not known a seventeen-year-old would be that dumb and exercise adult (250, that was adult, right?) judgment and restraint and not frelling fuck her?
Had he known about the “perfect happiness” clause at that point? How could he not have known?
Driving toward the factory after an unscheduled but unavoidable counselor-parent conference occasioned by a student bringing a nail file to school (nail files being currently categorized as weapons of deadly force (WDF), and the penalty for being caught with a WDF was summary expulsion and therefore failing all your classes), Buffy decided she was gonna ask Spike. He’d been around then, right? Sure he had: in the wheelchair, up at that same factory he’d occupied now, though she hadn’t known that at the time--about the wheelchair, anyway. With Dru-goddam-silla, a thought that set her blood boiling right there, that crazy vamp skank he’d trailed around after for better than a century, so what did that say about his judgment and taste in women?
In short, she was spoiling for a fight, and since Angel wasn’t available, pretty nearly anybody would do.
Toting a gym bag containing her workout clothes, she stomped up to the sentry alcove (slight sense of accomplishment when she recognized the sentry as Emil) and demanded where she could go to change.
Big Emil looked nonplussed. “Office?” he suggested.
Big open space, glass walls: the height of privacy. Fulking factory didn’t have restrooms, or if it once had, they’d torn them out like they’d torn out everything else that made the place habitable for anybody but vamps. No restroom, no lockers, no shower. A tad short-sighted, maybe?
That reminded her of the glasses, which made her snicker: she’d pretty much promised not to razz Spike about them, but that wouldn’t limit Dawn, whenever she was allowed to surface and first caught sight of them: Dawn would never let him live them down.
“Thanks,” she said to Emil absently, and went inside. Vamps and SITs were squaring off against each other at the opposite side of the floor. Buffy gave them a cursory glance, passing by to the gap in the barrier--mostly confirming that Spike was there, which he was: leaning on the far wall, talking to a female vamp…who was Suzanne. Former SIT. Frowning, Buffy couldn’t decide offhand if that was a good thing or a bad thing. She’d have to think about it. She was inclined to think “bad thing,” though, because Spike hadn’t shown any sign of noticing she’d arrived. She was fifteen minutes late: he should have been watching for her. Anxiously. Eagerly, even. Instead of obliviously chatting with some nubile, fresh-faced (albeit game-faced) she-vamp.
In the office, she laid out her sweats and sneaks, then turned off the light. Wouldn’t actually help much, given vamp vision, but it made her feel somewhat more secure. For extra concealment, she sat between the desk and the wall to pull off her counselor attire and wriggle into her workout togs and sneaks, that Giles had always called “trainers.” No mirror, of course, to check her hair or makeup. So she turned the light back on to inspect herself in the inadequate mirror of her compact, deciding her hair was gonna be all over her face in two seconds of moderate exercise and pulling out all the pins and securing it with a knotted scarf, fountain style, in a topknot pony-tail.
Then she tramped back into the open space to start her bends and stretches.
The place, she had to admit, had some deficiencies as a training space. For one thing, the floor was cement. No give. No bounce. And frickin’ cold. If she was gonna use it full-time, she needed to invest in leg warmers and sneaks with thicker soles.
The half-light provided by the painted-over windows and the high strip windows above was also non-standard but she could live with that, she decided. She patrolled at night anyway. So perfect lighting conditions for training weren’t a requirement.
The vamps were now facing off against each other by teams--one team unorganized, the other divided into triangular fighting units of lead and seconds. The triads were making figurative mincemeat of the singletons, even though the seconds kept getting in the lead’s way, each of them wanting to engage independently and first. The trouble wasn’t getting vamps to fight--it was getting anybody to hang back. As Buffy finished her warm-up and strolled nearer, Mike had called the mock battle off and was trying, with two of the SITs, to show how a fighting triad was supposed to behave while everybody else stood around and looked bored…or stared nervously as Buffy passed.
Buffy awarded herself extra points for recognizing Mike. She didn’t think he was making much headway.
“OK,” she said to Spike, “how do you want to work this, coach?”
Spike shut his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall as though she’d asked him something impossibly difficult. She noticed then that he’d been drinking.
“Fine,” she said, swinging away. “We don’t have to do this. I don’t even have to be here. It was all your idea anyway.”
Spike shot out a stiff-arm shove. Buffy stumbled and couldn’t catch herself, landing on knees and the flat of her hands. She protested, “Hey!”
“Balance needs work, Slayer.”
She checked he was still against the wall before warily rising. “Not gonna play around with you, Spike. This is mine: for me. Not to make you look good in front of the troops, wow ignorant teenies by showing a bit of flash. What I need is a trainer or else a mobile dummy, either one. By the smell, I guess I know which one you’ve opted for.”
Spike didn’t say anything. Buffy thought he was counting.
He pushed away from the wall, commenting mildly, “Right you are: one dummy coming up. Let’s get your hands taped first.”
“Look, I only have an hour--”
“Only take longer if you stand around bitching about it,” he responded, so she trailed along behind him to a bench and straddled it sullenly while he, seated facing her, made a meticulous job of taping her hands.
“You’re right,” he said, without looking up. “This is for you and about you. It’s plain you don’t like the audience. So next time you come, they won’t be here. Figure it out as we go. No need to get your knickers all in a bunch about it.”
“What are you doing, drinking in the middle of the day?” she challenged indignantly.
“Well, had myself a bit of a bad dream earlier. Needed to settle myself down, after.”
“When you knew I was coming,” Buffy barged on, unheeding, then caught what he’d said. “A bad dream? You figure a bad dream is an excuse to get drunk? And when did you ever need an excuse anyway?”
Spike finished taping her right hand and began on her left. “If it wasn’t for the fact you’re a blessed saint descended, I might think you were trying to piss me off.”
“Well, sitting and having you tape up my hands isn’t exactly my idea of a good time either,” Buffy shot back, shifting restlessly on the bench. “Tell me: did Angel know about the curse?”
“Don’t understand, pet.”
“When he and I, you know, and then he went all sarcastic and Angelus, that once, did he know?”
“Hold your hand still, pet.”
“But you were there, here, afterward, he must have said something about whether it was what he expected or if it was a surprise or something!”
His face had gone tight and expressionless. “You’d have to ask him. Wouldn’t take Angelus’ word, myself, that water’s wet.”
“Sure, like I’m gonna ask him about something like that, after all this time! I’m asking you!”
“Don’t recall. Had my own problems then. ‘F he wanted to natter on about the Slayer, wasn’t nothing to me. Not then.” He shook his head. “Don’t want to get into this with you, Buffy. Too many fishhooks.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“Means…. No. Not gonna start with that. Let it alone.”
“This is important to me! Where do you get off telling me to--”
He smacked her ear open-handed and leaned back, avoiding her answering swing. Stepping clear of the bench, he said, “Too much talk. Come at me. Keep on your feet, if you can.”
He wasn’t fighting straightforward or fair. It was all lean and duck, sliding away, dropping into a roll, bouncing back. And tripping her. She was on the floor almost more than on her feet. Trying any kind of kick was an invitation to have her support foot hooked, and land hard on her rear. On the cement. He dodged a lunge by dropping face-down and yanked both ankles out from under her. She made a point of dropping on him elbows first, and braced: that slowed him down for a couple of minutes. Dumped yet again, she folded her arms and refused to rise. “You’re not doing this right!”
He stood comfortably hipshot just beyond kicking range. “I’m not the one with my arse on the slab. What’s it say, that I can get outside a fifth of Jack and still have better balance than you do?”
“But all you’re doing is falling down in inventive ways. Big deal. Anybody can do that!”
“Taking you with me, ain’t I? The point of this exercise, pet, is who’s left standing. So take a stance and hold it.”
She got up, lame and irate. “What, nail my feet to the floor? So you can dance around and make me look like an idiot?”
“Not the point,” he said, exasperated, looking off to where the rest were doing unarmed drills. “SITs, they want edged weapons practice. How about you take them through--”
Taking advantage of his inattention, Buffy bounced on the toes of her left foot and spun into a whip kick with her right. Her right heel connected with the back of Spike’s neck. That would show him! He went down loose: not guarding himself at all. His head hit the floor with an audible crack. He didn’t move.
Buffy was just bending to make sure he was all right when she was grabbed from the side and flung ten yards, airborne--nearly back to the east wall. With time to adjust, she landed in a balanced crouch, ready to spring off in any direction.
All the vamps were gathered at mid-floor. Standing by Spike, still down, Mike was game-faced, glaring at her. The SITs were edging away, to be between Buffy and the vamps if things went bad. Or worse: they’d already achieved bad.
Mike shouted, “That’s no kind of training. That’s pure meanness and spite. You got no business doing him like that!”
“Mike,” Amanda was saying, taser extended. “Back off, Mike. I’ll take you down if I have to.”
“You can try,” Mike challenged, not shifting his attention an inch. The rest of the vamps, all yellow-eyed in the big dim space, were massing up behind him but waiting on a word nobody had yet given.
Knowing that how she handled this was critical, Buffy straightened and walked straight at him at a deliberate, balanced gait. She kept Mike within her peripheral vision--if he came at her, she’d know it; but she centered on Spike. In the next step, she’d have to choose to square off against Mike or put her back to him.
As she took the step and started to go down on her knees beside Spike, a vamp flashed past her and gave Mike the sort of rough shove he’d given Buffy, except that Mike didn’t move. “Are you crazy?” the vamp demanded: Sue’s voice. “Spike wouldn’t want this! ‘Manda, back off. Everybody, back off. Spike would--”
Mike backhanded her. She hit the west wall, fell in a huddle of splayed limbs, and didn’t move.
Spike had finally started to stir: forehead bloody, head bent, he pushed off the floor, rocked, and ended in a sort of sprawled sitting. Meanwhile Mike had called all vamps off to the short south end. Buffy didn’t care what they were doing down there. She pulled Spike to lean against her shoulder. “You took your eye off the weapon.”
He touched fingertips to his forehead, then automatically licked them. Gross, but predictable. “Guess so.”
“We didn’t plan this very well,” Buffy commented.
“Not a good day,” Spike responded, using her shoulder as a brace to push to his feet so he could look around and assess the situation. “Sue’s down.”
“Mike hit her. I don’t think Mike has quite grasped the concept of training.”
“Yeah…. No, you keep clear,” Spike told the SITs, waving them back.
“But shouldn’t we check on her?” Amanda asked, the other SITs turning with her.
“No need. Hasn’t dusted. She’ll be fine. Don’t put temptation in her way. She’s a fledge: she’d just come at you and then there’d be another right mess to be sorted. Leave her be.” Hand still on Buffy’s shoulder, Spike was silent awhile. Then he said quietly, “Could have gone better. Worth trying again, you think?”
“I loathe birthdays!”
“Never paid ‘em much mind, myself. Side mirror’s nice, though. Mice, they’ll enjoy the cupcake. Be awhile, probably, before all the mice can be got rid of. Harder to catch than rats. Taste about the same. What there is of ‘em….” He looked to see the disgusted face she obligingly made. “Can take everything back, if that’s what you want.”
“By now, Anya probably has everything stripped and painted and shelves up to yo,” Buffy reflected gloomily. “Leave it all as it is. Let me think about it some more. We’ll talk about it tonight, on patrol, all right?”
He was turned half away, his expression distant, his eyes vague. “Your call, Slayer.”
“Spike? You mad at me?”
“Had better days. The waiting’s hard….” Standing straighter, he cupped his temple and started toward the back, asking, “Name Ethan Rayne mean anything to you?”
“That prancing lightweight! Ruined Halloween!” Trotting to catch up, Buffy pulled at the tape ends on her right hand. “And then the band candy! That inspired my mom to…get groiny with Giles on the hood of a police car. Twice!”
Spike looked around, somewhere between pained and bemused. “That a fact? Not quite the impression I’d got.”
“Of Mom? I certainly hope not!”
“Of any of them, actually. Tell me about it.”
Buffy picked more tape and started unwinding. It would have to be cut, but she was too edgy and ill at ease to wait. “Actually, you should remember the first one. I chose this great dress, ancient fashion, real fainting-lady-wear, and Willow was a ghost, and Xander was soldier-guy.”
“Yeah, I do recall that dress. And you were acting all girly and helpless and I didn’t know what the hell you were trying to pull. Don’t recall Red doing a ghost, though.”
“Well, you couldn’t see her, idiot: she was a ghost!”
“Like invisible Buffy?” Spike asked, all innocence.
She felt her face go hot. “Not exactly.” Tucking her arm through his, she hurried on, “All the costumes went real. Ours, anyway. Courtesy of Ethan Rayne. Old pal of Gileses, from his Ripper days.”
“Figured they were close: gave Rupert an interesting day as a Fyarl. Luckily, I speak Fyarl.... Never saw the git, just heard Rupert ranting on about him. Fyarl profanity's pretty colorful.... Sounds harmless enough. Might be he’s come up in the world. Has minions now, seems like. Or had.”
“What do you mean?”
“Those Fire Mages. Seems they were Rayne’s.”
“But he’s a Chaos Mage.”
“Confusing, innit?” he responded amiably.
They’d reached the office. Spike went in first and started rummaging through a top drawer. Picking up a pill vial, he turned on the light and squinted at the label.
“Headache?” Buffy asked, carefully neutral. At least the bleeding had stopped. A purple bruise had started to spread.
“If it’s not one thing, it’s something else,” Spike responded, shaking out two pills and popping them into his mouth. “I’ll be fine for patrol.”
So that was all right. Still, she found herself asking again, “You’re not mad?”
“We’ve been better. Mostly not connecting right, and that’s not your doing….” He smiled. “I expect you’ll find some way to make it up to me.”
Talking around the edges had again brought them to the center.
“Oh, yes,” Buffy said most sincerely.
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