Author's Chapter Notes:
This is my first fic, so feedback will be much appreciated. I'm going to blame this particular story on reading too much Anne McCaffrey. Fans of her books will understand the connection and I would be remiss in not recognizing her. I would also like to thank my beta, limitlessd, for her encouragement and help. I wouldn't have worked up the guts to post this story without her. Thanks also to LMBossy, for the lovely banner.



Aces and eights. There’s some irony for you.

Spike’s lips twitched, trying to curve into a sardonic smile around his cigarette. Tells were less of a problem for the vampire, what with his lack of breath and pulse, but none of the other players would miss the significance of a smirk. The card game was going well; there were more kittens in his box than when he had started, and a few trinkets lined his pockets. With any luck, his streak would hold and his winnings would keep him in whiskey and smokes for the next couple weeks.

It was Sept’s night to deal, which was regrettable because the m’bwoga demon had an uncanny ability to notice if too many cards went missing from the deck. Cheating at poker was a fine art that Spike took pride in having cultivated over the years.

“I’ll start the bidding at one,” Sept announced in a watery voice, making good his statement by dropping a skinny tabby into the center of the table. The other players followed suit, adding kittens of various breeds and colors to the pot.

Leaving the cigarette dangling from his lips, Spike snaked one hand under the table and pulled out two Siamese kittens from a litter he had found behind the Bronze the night before. They joined the growing mass of mewling fur on the table. Spike propped his feet on top of his battered cardboard box to keep the rest of his “cash” from escaping.

“I’ll see that and raise you one,” he drawled. Then he took a long drag off of his cigarette and sank back in his chair to observe his opponents’ reactions.

Clem was the easy one. When he had a really good hand the trailing ends of his ears twitched. Spike was fairly certain that the loose-skinned demon did not know about that particular reaction and friendship only went so far. Spike would not give up his edge in their weekly poker games. Two hands ago, Clem’s ears had virtually hummed and Spike had smartly cut his losses early in the bidding before his friend revealed a straight flush. This hand, the dangling folds of skin remained still even as he added an Egyptian Mau to the pot.

Pro’bly has a pair.

Sept was much harder to read. M’bwogan culture demanded stoicism and this calm extended into poker as well. However, if Sept had a particularly good hand, Spike was fairly certain that he would have opened the bidding a little higher than at a single kitten. Sept was slow to add another tabby to the pile.

Even odds he has two pair or three of a kind.

The new guy, Wha’s his name, McLain, Mr. Clean… Maclin!, had been steadily loosing all night long. The human’s features were as memorable as his name compared to the other players, demons all. Maclin was the one tossing in magical trinkets and charms instead of the usual feline fare. He was also roaring drunk and seemed not to notice that he held his cards angled so low that the entire table could see the pair of sevens he held.

Oh yeah, no problem there. This one's definitely worth seeing through.

Carl and Xirus had already folded and were sipping at their drinks disinterestedly.

Sept looked around the table and, when no other bids were forthcoming, laid his cards down: tens and fours. As predicted, Clem revealed a pair of kings and the warlock laid down his sevens.

“Looks like this round goes to me, mates. Dead Man’s Hand for the dead man.” Spike flashed a triumphant smile as he tossed his cards face up on the cheap folding table. Clem sighed good naturedly and Carl shook his head in disgust as the blond started scooping kittens into his box. The handful of magical baubles made their way into the pocket of Spike’s coat.

The drunken warlock pushed back from the table and stood unsteadily. “Well boys, I’m afraid y’all have cleaned me out for the night. It’s been real fun, but I’m thinking I should head out.” With that, he knocked back the rest of his beer and staggered to the door, followed by farewells and some good-natured teasing.

Good riddance, kittens'll get me more dosh than cheap jewelry with simple cantrips anyway.

Sept silently collected everyone’s cards and started shuffling, so Spike turned all his attention back to the game.

*****


Ten hands and at least twice that many shots later, Spike made his way out into the streets of Sunnydale. He had traded his kittens to Clem for more traditional cash. The weekly poker games provided him with much more money than his occasional attempts at petty robbery. Not that scaring the daylights out of unsuspecting teenagers wasn’t fun, but it was almost too easy and the amount of cash he typically got wasn’t really worth the effort.

With money filling his pockets and his veins running with roughly equal parts whiskey and blood, Spike was thoroughly enjoying the evening. The haze of alcohol tempered his anger at his sometimes-allies' duplicity and his worries about the slayer. Spike had reached that stage of drunkenness where all men were witty and all women were beautiful. Given his state of inebriation, some of the witty men were probably women and at least a few of the pretty girls may have been sporting beards, but that was beside the point.

The point was that his slayer had returned from the dead, his pockets were full of cash, and all else seemed right in Spike’s world. The night sparkled with possibilities.

The only thing that would make the evening even better was a good fight. Unfortunately, Sunnydale’s demonic population did not seem to want to oblige. Spike covered two graveyards and most of the alleys in the warehouse district without even the smallest hint of violence. It was more than a little disheartening.

For the past half hour, he had been humming an old tune from his early days as a vampire. Angelus, Darla, and Drusilla had once taken the newly turned William to a seedy, dockside bar to teach him the fine art of the kill. Angelus in particular had imparted a variety of tactics and strategies for luring out victims to the newest member of the Aurelius line. William had listened to the advice attentively and, once out of earshot, promptly disregarded all of it. Three hours after entering the bar alone, he had drunk more ale than an entire frigate’s crew, picked up a large repertoire of bawdy songs, and started a fight with the roughest group of sailors he could find. The fact that he had won the brawl, killing four men in the process, did little to impress Angelus and Darla, who had been waiting for their share of William’s first solo kill. Drusilla, on the other hand, was delighted with her childe's antics. Long after picking up the moniker “Spike,” he had often used those old shanties to drive Angelus to distraction. The song and his memories gave Spike an idea about how to get his nightly dose of brawling.

Upon reaching his own cemetery, Spike scaled the tallest grave marker he could find, a stone obelisque carved with the name of some local notable, long dead. From his vantage, he perched like some crazed crow and launched into an off-key, raucous rendition of "Spanish Ladies." The slurred strains of the sea shanty shattered the silence of the cemetery.

"Farewell and adieu to you fine Spanish ladies."
I wish Peaches could hear this all the way in L.A. Cor but Angelus hated this song!
"Farewell and adieu you ladies of Spain"
Bet Dru didn't think I'd still be singing it over a hundred years later to start fights.
"For we've received orders to sail for old England"
C'mon, I’ve got to have interrupted someone's kip with this.
"But we hope in a short time to see you again"
Ah, there you are!

Three female vampires burst out of a nearby crypt, looking more than a little displeased for being disturbed. The bones of Spike’s face shifted and realigned as he watched the approaching trio. The transformation served to make his voice even rougher and more obnoxious as he launched into the chorus. The leader of the group looked particularly incensed at the interruption. Spike promptly dubbed her Alecto, and her two compatriots: Megaera and Tisiphone.

“What is your problem? Some of us are trying to relax around here!” shouted Alecto.

“Yeah!” cried Tisiphone.

“Shut the hell up before we drag you down here and stake your ass!” added Megaera.

“Yeah!” echoed Tisiphone.

Obviously not the brains of the operation.

All three stopped mid rant when the singing abruptly ceased. “Well, since you asked so nicely,” Spike said in honeyed tones, “I suppose I can find something else to pass the time.”

With that, the peroxide blonde threw himself from his perch and landed on top of Alecto. Both went down in a tangle of fists, fangs, leather, and torn flesh. With her two friends watching, mouths agape, Spike grabbed the writhing vampiress by both ears and great handfuls of blond hair before twisting her head violently around. There was a sickening crack and Alecto went limp beneath him.

Spike rose and arched an eyebrow at the two staring fledglings. “I could be mistaken, but I think I broke her,” his innocent tone of voice was completely ruined by the wicked glee splashed across his face.

That shook the two from their paralysis. With twin shrieks of rage, Tisiphone and Megaera threw themselves at him. Never one to avoid dramatic flourishes, Spike spun under Tisiphone’s wild punch, coat flaring as he swept her legs out from under her. Glancing to watch the vampiress fall, he then turned just in time to catch his remaining opponent midair.

Rolling backwards with the collision, Spike managed to plant one booted foot right in Megaera’s stomach, launching her far behind him and into a nearby headstone. Both quickly regained their footing. Spike was on her in an instant, launching punches and kicks in rapid succession. The fury of his assault rocked the fledgling back on her heels. She managed to block the first few attacks, but a strong uppercut sent her stumbling backwards. Retrieving a stake from his coat pocket, Spike plunged it into the heart of the dazed vampiress.

Spike stood among the ashes of his first kill of the evening and waited for Tisiphone to attack. “’S just you and me ducks.”

Teeth bared, his last opponent reached up and snapped a low hanging branch off of one of the cemetery’s many trees. She then broke the limb over one knee, held the make-shift club above her head, and charged, shrieking like a banshee.

Well, this might be a bit of fun after all.

Coming from a fledgling or not, Spike had little interest in taking a blow from a cudgel. He widened his stance and flexed his grip around the stake. He waited until the last possible second, when the vampiress had completely committed to her attack, and dove to the right. Tisiphone pressed her advantage and swung her branch one-handed at his head as he rolled to his feet again. Instead of dodging away from the blow, Spike closed the distance, jumping within the arc of the club. His left hand wrapped around the vampiress’ wrist while his right hand, stake leading like a hook, slammed into the side of her neck. With a pivot that brought his entire strength and weight to bear, Spike spun the vampiress away and neatly disarmed her in one move, stripping the club from her loose hand as she fell.

Maybe not.

Letting the broken tree branch fall, Spike casually strolled over to where Tisiphone was staggering, clutching her throat where the stake had torn through the thin skin. With barely a sideways glance, he slammed the stake into her back and continued to where the ringleader, Alecto, still lay. He quickly dispatched his fallen target and started brushing the dust from his black clothes, features shifting back into human guise. Three dead fledglings made for a slow evening, but sunrise was only an hour away. It was time to call it a night.

Spike took a quick look in the crypt the trio had exited. The remains of a few past meals lay like broken dolls across the back wall. Spike sniffed and wrinkled his nose in distaste.

Little ripe.

He could muster very little respect for anyone, living or undead, who would foul their nest so. Despite the decaying remains, the nest looked fairly new. He managed to salvage a nice Oriental rug, a couple pillar candles, and a set of shot glasses from amongst the clutter and trendy junk. Hidden under a truly hideous bean-bag chair, he also found a small, slender dagger, ornate and far too small for his hands.

I bet the Nibblet would love this. Not a bad haul.

Rolling all of his loot up in the rug, Spike carried the bundle across the graveyard to his own crypt. He nudged the door open with his foot and dumped his burden next to the recliner before continuing towards the entrance to the chambers beneath.

After a joint-cracking stretch, Spike ambled to the dresser that stood opposite from his bed. He removed the stake, smokes, cash, and assorted magical knick knacks from the trench’s pockets and dumped them unceremoniously on top of the battered piece of furniture. The jacket itself was then carefully folded and placed in the top drawer along with his silver Zippo. He shed the rest of his clothes and tossed them haphazardly to the far side of the room. The feel of new silk as he slid into bed earned a soft hum of approval. The black and red sheets were spoils of a late night raid on the local Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Tucked beneath his pilfered linens, Spike soon slipped into the deep slumber of the undead.

*****


As per his custom, Spike rose from bed many hours before sunset. His dreams had been strange, full of flashing feathers, dark forests, and dappled sunlight. The unusually sharp edge to his hunger rushed his hands as he donned a clean pair of pants and scaled the ladder to the crypt’s main floor.

With a mug of blood warming in the microwave, Spike wandered over to the far alcove where he lit candle after candle until the main room was filled with flickering light. After giving Dave a cheerful thwack, Spike threw himself into his easy chair and turned on the television.

Dave had been a constant companion since Spike had claimed the crypt as his own. The name Dave was short for David, the patron saint of poets. The little statue was one of the crypt’s few original decorations and Spike had named him in a flight of alcohol induced whimsy. Upon sober reappraisal, the name was simply too ironic to pass up and, as long as he remembered to avoid the tiny carved rosary, Dave was a favored fixture of the vampire’s decidedly eclectic décor.

At heart, Spike was simply too talkative, too social a creature to deal well with solitude. When Spike was feeling particularly down, Dave had become the recipient of tirades, confessions, and rants, especially over the long summer of Buffy’s absence. The only person who knew this little secret was Dawn, who had surprised the vampire while he was shaking his fist at the statue and raving about Harris, of all people, the year before. Dawn had teased him mercilessly while Spike sat in sullen silence until the teenager finally relented and swore to take the secret of his "Wilson" to her grave. As if he would ever sink to talking to a volley ball.

Well, not unless he got really desperate.

Or bored.

Or really, really drunk.

Thankfully, Spike had Dave to keep him from sinking that low. After all, speaking to saints, though not popular in most demonic circles, was fairly common among humans, and therefore much more excusable for one who had once been among the breathing. At least that’s what Spike told himself when it occurred to him that he was addressing a little stone man.

The microwave buzzed and Spike hurried to retrieve his meal. Downing the mug in one long gulp, he was confused to find that the blood did little to alleviate his hunger. Three glasses later, his stomach felt both completely full and echoingly empty at the same time.

Huh, that’s new.

Choosing to ignore the disconcerting sensations, Spike returned to the rooms beneath the main crypt. He had baubles to trade, smokes and whiskey to buy, and a newly resurrected slayer to check on. His misbehaving stomach would just have to be ignored for the time being. Donning t-shirt, coat, and boots, Spike only paused long enough to refill his pockets with the objects on his dresser before setting off down one of the many tunnels that connected his crypt to the sewers of Sunnydale.

As it was, he did not notice the pair of red eyes watching him from the shadows behind his dresser.





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