Giles shoved a highly flustered Buffy towards the door with a reminder to have her tell Willow that the ingredients for the truth spell would not be necessary. He suspected that if he asked the right questions, Spike would be more than forthcoming.
“But, Giles, this is - is… Spike!” She threw her hands up in frustration, standing in the entryway as she watched the bleached menace peruse Giles’ bookshelves looking for something. She couldn’t think of anything witty to say about the possibility that her Watcher was going to be alone with a master vampire, albeit a ‘neutered’ master vampire, for an extended amount of time, sans restraints. No matter what kind of muzzle the Army goons wrangled Spike with, she still didn’t trust him.
Glasses dangling in the hand that was pinching the bridge of his nose, Giles muttered softly, “Buffy, I don’t trust Spike either at this point. However, certain circumstances have come to light and it would be foolish not to explore those possibilities.”
She stared at her Watcher. “English please?”
He rolled his eyes at the state of America’s youth. “Spike’s… malfunction may be to our benefit. It seems he may have an abundance of information off the top of his head, literally. I have no clue as to the boundaries of this ability so until then, I think it wise to let him be, as long as he remains innocuous to the group and the public in general.”
She still stared.
Pushing her out the door, he whispered harshly, “I want to know what’s going on in that bloody mind of his and I don’t think he’ll give me even so much as a crumb if you’re in the flat!”
Taken aback by the abruptness of his tone and the fact he wanted her… gone, she nodded mutely, mumbling something about having to check on Willow anyway. After walking a few feet, she turned to say something else, only to find the door closing hard with a solid thud. She frowned and headed on her way towards campus.
~*~
Giles hated being insensitive towards her, but this Spike thing really had him puzzled. He leaned against the door and watched the vampire peruse his non-demon library, pulling out a book here and there, flipping through the pages before placing it back on the shelf.
“Would you like some coffee?” he offered.
Holding a volume open, Spike barely looked up. “That’d be right civil of you, Rupes.”
“How do you take it?”
“Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and as sweet as love… so says a Turkish proverb,” he replied, grinning like a fool.
“Turkish, you say?” Giles raised an eyebrow.
“Did you know that Istanbul is the only city in the world that is on two continents? Half of the city sits in Europe, the other half in Asia,” he stated, ignoring Giles’ comment.
He remained silent hoping Spike would divulge more information, leaning against his kitchen counter while the vamp remained quiet. He’d finally selected one book from the case and sat down on the sofa to start reading.
“What have you there?”
Spike flipped the book over and read the spine. “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.”
“Ah, Edgar Allen Poe… a dark and mysterious man,” he nodded in contemplation.
“He was credited with breathing life into the detective story, Rupes. That Conan Doyle bloke even acknowledged it. Said, ‘Each of Poe’s stories is a root from which a whole style of literature has developed’. He was good chap, that Doyle. Met him once, at Edinburgh uni. He’d become agnostic. Said he modeled Sherlock Holmes after his professor Joseph Bell,” Spike said idly, flipping through the pages and looking at some of the etchings that were included with the book.
“You knew Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?” the Watcher exclaimed in amazement, sitting down on the edge of the coffee table.
He looked up at Giles’ eager face. “Thought you were gonna make a cup o’joe?”
Giles had the grace to look abashed. “Yes, yes… quite right.” He moved into the kitchen, keeping an ear out for anything Spike might utter.
“Tosser,” he grumbled under his breath when Giles was out of hearing range.
Spike was not pleased at the situation in which he found himself, his mind a jumble of thoughts from the inane to spectacularly brilliant ones. He could still feel twinges running amuck in his noggin and it made him feel wholly vulnerable to just about everyone and everything. His nosebleeds had stopped, but he felt it was just temporary. This thing inside him was going to cook his goose… and good.
He glanced up at the clock then over at the telly. In an American home, the telly is on for seven hours and forty minutes every day. Soddin hell! He was even thinking useless random thoughts aloud in his head! What the fuck had these wankers done to him? Time to drown out the noise. Besides, Passions was coming on.
“It’s telly time, Watcher!” he yelled towards the kitchen.
“In a moment, Spike.”
He heard cups and saucers rattling around, as well as smelling the aroma of strong coffee wafting into the living room. He glanced up at the clock again… a few minuets had gone by and he was getting antsy.
“Watcher? Passions is on! Timmy's down the bloody well, and if you make me miss it, I'll-”
“You’ll what, Spike? Lick me to death?” he huffed out as he sat down the tray laden with coffee, sugar, and cookies. Reaching behind the vamp, he dug down in between the sofa cushions and handed him the remote to the TV.
He grabbed it without so much as a thank you and turned it to the proper channel… or it would have been, had Jeopardy not been playing. “Fucking hell!” Spike roared.
Giles smothered a chuckle. “Not what you were expecting?”
His glare was frosty. “Sod off,” he muttered.
‘This can be heard as far as twenty miles away,’ Alex Trebeck asked the contestants.
“What is thunder,” Spike answered, his head leaning on his propped up hand, figuring he might as well watch something useful.
‘What is canon fire?’ answered one of the contestants, a particularly dull-looking nerd with oversized glasses.
‘No, I’m sorry, Jason, that would be thunder,’ Alex corrected.
‘This speedy dog also has the best eyesight,’ was the next question.
“What is the greyhound,” he answered, studying his chipped black nail polish in an obviously bored manner.
Giles turned and stared at a slouched Spike. He affected an uninterested attitude but he wasn’t fooled as Spike was, once again, correct in his answer.
‘This was the first US college to admit women and African-Americans,’ Alex offered.
Spike sighed. “What is Oberlin College in Ohio.”
Giles watched in amazement as he answered question after question correctly, all while looking too tired to even care.
‘Fifty percent of all of these items printed in the US are never sold,’ was another question.
“What are magazines,” he mumbled as his eyes started to close in exhaustion.
“Spike, there’s a spare bedroom that you may use… with the proviso that you strictly adhere to the rules which I am about to give you,” Giles offered quietly.
“I’m listening.” He yawned as his head was sounding up a killer of a headache.
“Verbal threats are one thing, but you may not, and I repeat may not harm anyone that comes into my house. Is that clear?”
“Is that the only hitch, Watcher?”
“By no means. If there is even so much as a hint of draining a victim, I don’t care how vulnerable you are, I will stake you myself,” he warned harshly.
“Startin’ to sound like I might be beggin’ to be staked compared to what might happen if I slip up.” He didn’t take anything the Watcher said at face value. This man would use the tiniest excuse to stake him and probably wouldn’t take long to find one, even if manufactured.
“Just make sure you don’t,” was all Giles would say.
“What are you getting outta this, Rupes?” he sneered. “I know it ain’t my pleasurable company. Is it by chance my handy dandy intellect?”
The older man cursed himself for being so transparent. “No… no, Spike… I… oh damn it,” he spluttered.
Spike congratulated himself on catching Rupert in a lie. “Trittbrettfahrer, that’s what you are,” he said with a raised eyebrow.
“Excuse me?”
“I said Trittbrettfahrer, are you deaf? Its translation is ‘running-board rider.’ It’s a term used for someone who benefits from someone else’s hard work,” he snorted, giving him a hard glare full of meaning.
“I-I never said-” he stuttered, trying to explain his actions.
“Come off it, Rupes! I might have all this garbage in my mind, but I was bloody perceptive before I got this… this… piece of shit shoved in my brain. That hasn’t changed.”
The sudden tension in the room mounted as Spike got up from the sofa and moved away. “I don’t bloody know what’s going on here, Watcher!” He was beginning to wear a path in the floorboards with his constant pacing. “I detest all of you, but I have to admit that I’m scared out of my bleedin’ mind and have nowhere else to go.”
There was a panicky quality that laced his voice and for the first time, Giles felt empathy for the unique vampire. Here he was, trying to adapt to a lifestyle not of his own making, and as with any sort of evolution of the species, pain was part of the growing process. Spike’s despair, however, was not lost on Giles as he got up from his seat and laid a firm hand on his arm.
“I am reminded of a saying,” he said in a softened his tone, bringing Spike’s attention back to his.
“Gloriousness and wretchedness need each other. One inspires us, the other softens us. Your plight has not gone unnoticed, Spike.”
He looked in the other Brit’s eyes, searching for pity, but finding none. “Was that Socrates?” Spike choked out. “Cause he never wrote down a single word of his teachings.” Bollocks! He couldn’t even get emotional without some off the wall fact bombarding his battered mind. Dru was starting to look sane compared to him at this moment.
Giles smiled gently. “It doesn’t matter. Why don’t you get some sleep, I know you could use it.”
He nodded solemnly and walked towards the stairs, turning at the foot to suggest a peace offering.
“May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.”
A full-throated laugh shook Giles as he watched the tired vampire walk slowly upstairs.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Once again, there are direct quotes from "Something Blue." Reviews feed the habit that Zoe (Katkin) got me addicted to. Thanks ever so much. :D**Any and all facts come from the series "Uncle John's Bathroom Reader" which is full of trivial knowledge!**
Again with the re-edits :D
Again with the re-edits :D