Chapter 14: Shouldn’t be here
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“You shouldn’t be here.”
The simple sentence floated through the crypt before they’d even taken a step inside, and Daniel started.
“How does he do that?” he hissed in her ear.
“Vampire, remember?” Spike appeared from the shadows, a smirk dancing across his features as Daniel got another shock. It widened slowly, languorously. “Or… did you forget?”
He recovered quickly, however. “I’m not afraid of you, you know,” he said calmly as they stepped inside and then shut the door, cutting off the beams of sunlight seeking to burn Spike’s pale skin.
“Hmph,” Spike turned away, and hoisted himself onto the sarcophagus again. “You are. A little bit.”
“How…?”
Spike tapped one slender, pale finger against his nose. “I can smell it. Just a little thread of fear, tightening around your heart, your lungs… you should be more afraid, though. Creature of darkness, I am. Evil…”
“Yeah, you just keep telling yourself that,” Daniel returned, as he walked around the crypt, looking intently at everything. “I thought you said that his crypt was really nice.”
“Pardon?” Spike sat up incredulously.
“Well, I like the candles,” Cassandra said quietly.
Daniel shook his head, half-amused, half-exasperated. Cassandra seemed to swing in between the two extremes of assertiveness and absolute shyness. It appeared she was in a the latter mood at the moment.
“Like candles, do you?”
She moved to one, and slowly reached out a hand, stroking the hard wax surface in awe. God, I’m an idiot, getting so excited over being in Spike’s crypt. I can’t believe I’m touching his candles…!
Oh God, that sounded really, really dumb.
Cassandra cringed inwardly, wondering if anyone present could read her thoughts, but both Daniel and Spike just appeared to be looking at her, rather amused. “S-sorry.”
“No need,” he threw his hands around expansively. “Touch all the candles around you want. Hell, I’ve got more downstairs. You like Paraffin?”
“Prefer beeswax,” she admitted.
“Got a stash of both. What scents?”
As Spike led them downstairs into his sanctuary, Daniel smiled sardonically as he watched Cassandra stroking various candles with awe. “How ironic you picked up on her favourite hobby so quickly.”
“Favourite hobby, eh?” the vampire cocked an eyebrow at him. “Collecting candles?”
“Yeah. She’s obsessed with them.”
“They’re pretty,” Spike shrugged.
Daniel slid a sideways glance at him, and then burst out laughing.
“What, Junior?”
“Junior?”
“Never learnt your names,” Spike kicked at a rat that had stumbled in from the sewer entrance. “Junior’ll do you.”
“Oops,” Cassandra mumbled, as a few candles toppled over. “Sorry!”
“Careful, Platelet,” Spike advised. “You wouldn’t want those things catching, would you?”
She almost knocked over more candles as she heard him, and had to try very hard not to flush with pleasure. Junior and Platelet. He’s already out with the pet names. That’s a good thing… right?
“Sorry…” she stammered again.
“No need. Just as long as you don’t give me a reason to bite your heads off. There’s nothing much to burn here, anyway.”
Cassandra leant back and studied the vampire thoughtfully. She remembered the Spike of Season Four. Then, his façade had barely even cracked. Cockiness and arrogance had enveloped him in a protective shield just as surely as his leather duster had. But now? She could almost sense he was confused, and was swinging between acting completely tough in his ‘Big Bad’ mode, and relaxing to let the thoughts chase themselves across his features.
“What are you looking at, Platelet?”
“You,” she replied immediately. “I can’t seem to figure you out. Never… never really expected you to help them.”
“Neither did I, until I found out Adam was going to dust me,” he replied shortly. He slumped against the wall. “Come on, go back to the Watcher’s, Junior, Platelet. Shouldn’t be hanging out with an evil, soulless demon.”
The bitter, self-mocking tone in his voice hit both of them. “If it’s okay, I wouldn’t mind staying here for a while,” Daniel said cautiously. “I’m kinda new to all of this, if you get me.”
Spike was still slumped against the wall with his eyes closed, only now he had a cigarette between his lips. “What, new to the world of demons and Hellmouths? I never would have thought that.”
“Surprise, surprise,” Daniel retorted, nearly matching the phenomenal amount of sarcasm that had dripped from Spike’s words.
“Huh,” Spike took a deep drag. “I like you. Better than the Whelp, anyway. Not enough guys ‘round here. We’re being swamped.”
“Pardon?” Daniel asked, startled.
Spike inhaled even more smoke, if it was possible, and it was only then that Cassandra realized his hands were shaking. He seemed to blurt out his next words. “Just that it’s good to have company ‘sides the Slayer and her Scoobies and the…”
They heard the crypt door bang open with a bang, and a hideous roar rent the air to shreds.
“… demons…”
Daniel leapt up almost immediately to run to Cassandra’s side, but Spike merely took another breath of cigarette smoke and sauntered up the ladder. Cautiously, they followed him… only to see Spike crash into the crypt wall when they finally reached the upper level, trying to keep to the shadows for protection.
Spike jumped to his feet, laughing, and they saw none of the hesitancy and sudden vulnerability that had swept over him before. Now, he was Spike the vampire, killer of two vampire slayers, and he was loving it.
“Come now, Kraggy,” he grinned. “That’s no way to great an old friend.”
“Friend?” the ‘Kraggy’ demon asked ominously as it stepped up even closer, sending a fetid wave of over-fragrant scent towards them. “You’ve allied yourself with the Slayer, Spike. We all heard about it, and now we know, because you’re stinking hide isn’t dead yet, and at least fourscore demons saw you in her house!”
“Well, a bloke has to keep his friends,” Spike stamped out the cigarette that had flown from his mouth at contact with the demon’s fist. “Their enemies, too. Ah… the good times we had…”
“No longer matter,” Kraggy’s eyes were slits. “You betrayed us, Spike. A lot of us were killed in Adam’s downfall.”
“Your fault for shacking up with the guy in the first place.”
“You did too,” the demon countered.
“Yeah, but when I realized that he was going to kill me, I buggered off,” Spike returned pleasantly. “You, of all demons, can’t blame me for that one.”
“You still didn’t have to ally yourself with the Slayer,” Kraggy shot back. “My brother died by her hand. I’m thinking taking your head off right now will go a long way to…”
He stopped.
He sniffed.
His eyes fell on them.
“Humans,” he growled. “You’re harbouring humans!”
Daniel deliberately placed himself between Cassandra and the tall, hairy demon. “Back off,” he enunciated slowly. “We were just paying a visit. None of this is anybody’s fault.”
The demon ignored him. “You’re harbouring humans? Even allying with the Slayer against us and betraying Adam, but this? Not even special…”
Kraggy obviously decided at that moment that he’d talked more than enough, and with a roar, rushed at them. Before they had time to react, he was upon them.
And it was one big world of “What the hell…!” to them when he went for Daniel and Cassandra.
She hadn’t know that she could react so quickly, but Daniel was still standing like an obstinate mule in front of the big demon barrelling towards them. And if he stayed that way, he probably wouldn’t live to learn the rules of life on the Hellmouth. Surprisingly, amazing clarity flowed through her. I’m not a superhero like Buffy, or a vampiric good guy like Spike. Therefore… best option is to duck and run.
Kraggy slammed into the same wall he’d thrown Spike against, and because of the speed of his run, it was over within seconds. Spike leapt, with his vampiric speed and grace. A few muffled punches, and Spike returned the favour and threw the demon across the room, to land in a puddle of sunlight. Somehow, Cassandra knew that it was deliberate.
“Get out of here, Kraggy,” Spike’s voice was completely cold and emotionless now, and she shuddered. “I’m letting you go now because of what happened to your family. But come anywhere near here again, and I’ll rip out your guts and strangle you with them. And you know full well that that’s a promise.”
Slowly, the great demon nodded, and then vanished outside.
Spike righted a piece of furniture that had been knocked over.
“Spike, thank…”
“Just go.”
“But…”
“Go.”
And then, his eyes hooded, he climbed down the ladder and vanished, leaving them standing together, chilled by the bitterness in his tone.
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How could I explain it to you?
Children.
Yeah, yeah, I know better now. Don’t soddin’ push it! But for Christ’s sake, I’d had almost enough! Whistler poppin’ round in the morning had been a big enough shock, an’ then those traitorous little words that seeped under my skin and prodded my heart to see if it still wasn’t beating. Thought I’d be able to relax in my crypt, I did. Figure it all out. Just who’d the bloody lot think they were? And, more importantly, who’d they think I was? After all, I wasn’t a bleedin’ white hat! Why were they foisting everything on me?
For that matter, I still don’t understand why everything happened the way it did.
That’s why I said those words.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
Yeah. Really shouldn’t have. In a graveyard of a traitor vampire, on the Hellmouth… all of them. Just two normal kids.
Ach! I know, I know.
But for some reason, it made me slightly happier, see? Only ones to treat me like a human that day. Only Joyce and Nibblet… or at least the false memories of Nibblet, had ever done that before.
I’ll… just shut up now.
Don’t feel much like talking.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
(Hey! Chapter 14, finally. Now, for all those who love a Spike/Dawn friendship, I promise you, it’s definitely coming. And I know that some of you will cry out in outrage at the pet name that Spike gives Cassandra, but trust me, Nibblet and Little Bit will be saved for Dawn without reservations. Oh, and thanks so much to the people who have reviewed! I know I have been awfully inconsistent with updating this fic, so I figure I owe you a couple of installments now. :)