“He so totally saved me in English today,” Buffy told Willow, who was sitting next to her in the school cafeteria. “I mean, like, I was ready to run out of the classroom screaming, but then he spoke and it was like everything was all better.”
Willow looked at Spike from her spot next to Buffy at the table. He was in line getting food. “He is pretty cute...”
Buffy smirked, also taking in the image of Spike. “I guess some girls might find him attractive...”
Willow gave Buffy a look.
Buffy giggled. “Okay, if they have eyes. But he’s all mature and mysterious. He would never want to... with me...” she trailed and decided on fact and not opinion. “I can’t believe he’s only seventeen.”
Xander choked on his food with a cough. “Maybe dragon boy decays slower than normal people,” he offered.
Buffy glared at Xander, eyes penetrating him. “Spike is a human, not a demon.”
“Only sometimes,” Xander said somewhat truthfully.
Buffy peered even harder at Xander. “You’re still mad at him for trying to eat you, aren’t you?”
Xander looked mock-shocked. “Not at all, Buffy. Something like that can be easily... swallowed.”
Buffy laughed at his pun. “I seem to remember a certain hyena incident last year...”
Xander’s eyes went wide at the reference. “I thought we agreed to never talk about that ever again...”
Spike moseyed over to the table where Buffy and the gang sat. He thought Sunnydale was a pretty nice and normal school, besides the occasion demonic activity. He saw that each table had a different mantra of school clique: populars, preps, greasers, nerds, and misfits. He suspected that Buffy and her gang fell under the latter category. Or maybe it was misunderstood? Bleh, I think they all fall under that category... And it’s not that he minded being stereotyped with them, because he really didn’t, only he felt that he might be a little too old for this type of stuff.
Homecoming and dances and bloody Alicia Silverstone.
He put his tray on the table and sat across from Buffy in an open seat.
“Oh, it’s dragon boy.” Xander didn’t look impressed.
Buffy was about to say something, to defend her new friend or at the very least reprimand her very rude one, but Spike didn’t look the least bit hurt.
I did try to soddin’ eat him, boy has a point he thought to himself.
Spike examined the boy a bit closer while he was eating and found the evitable: Xander surreptitiously stole glances at Buffy. As Spike started to eat his meal, which he didn’t particularly enjoy because it was unhealthy and full of grease, he could see that Xander had a constant awareness of Buffy’s presence, like she was the sun or something. And while it was nice Xander wasn’t gawking at her genitalia or anything, looking at Buffy’s pretty face probably got him off just as much.
He’s bleedin’ obsessed with her, alright.
With all this in mind – the almost eating him and the obsession – Spike had no trouble seeing why Xander might be a little hostile and bitter toward him. I mean, it probably felt to Xander like Spike was swooping in on his beloved and untainted angel.
Gotta straighten that boy out sometime...
He had to admit, though, he kind of liked it here in Sunnydale. Beats the hell out of before. True, wandering aimlessly between bar and pub, drinking to inebriation that eventually lost its effect of numbness, wasn’t exactly Spike’s idea of fun. If only the monks hadn’t...
Spike couldn’t wait until nighttime when the vampires came bump in the night and he could practice a little on them. To him, it would be fun; he could see what Buffy was capable of with all that power he sensed in her and he could show her what he could do with all the technique he learned from the monks.
And then we can...
When Spike looked to his side, he saw that another of the gang had popped up. This one had multicolored hair.
Willow spoke up to introduce them. “Oh, this is Oz, he’s my boyfriend.”
Oz nodded at Spike. “Hey.”
“‘llo, ‘mate,” Spike replied. Seems like a decent guy. Just as decent as the red-headed girl.
“And that’s Spike,” Buffy said.
“She means the dragon that almost ate me,” Xander put in.
Oz looked lost. “Do I need glasses? You don’t look like a dragon to me...”
“Spike can transform into a dragon,” Buffy said matter-of-factly.
Only have once Spike didn’t say.
“Score one for the transformation squad, right, Oz?” Xander said with mock jubilance. “You should both get all ugly one day and see who would win in a fight.”
“I breathe fire,” Spike said.
“You win,” Oz quickly admitted defeat and went back to his meal.
Buffy and Willow giggled. Xander went back to stealing glances at Buffy and eating his sandwich
Looks like all’s quiet on the western front Spike thought as he finished his meal.
So school had finally ended, and rather uneventfully with a physical education class. Buffy and Spike entered the library to see if the council had arrived yet.
The place looked quite different from earlier in the day. First of all, a sign was placed outside of the library doors stating that the library was closed. Now, Spike had only known Giles for a day, but in that time he knew the fellow Englishman probably took his side job of librarian very seriously, like every other bleedin’ thing.
Inside the library, mountains of voluminous varieties of books, which mostly looked to be on dragons, were scattered throughout the room in big piles. Giles was alone at his desk skimming through one of those books, his hair disheveled and glasses slowly falling off of his nose. It looked like he had been at this the whole day.
“Giles?” Buffy said.
Giles flinched like he was just awakened from a deep sleep. Or deep read.
“Oh, Buffy,” Giles said. “There you are. School over yet?”
Buffy grinned. “Giles... did you forget to have your afternoon tea again?”
Giles readjusted his glasses, which were just about to fall off. “It’s just that the council will be here any minute and I would like to supply them with the proper information...”
“Speaking of which,” Spike said, “you find anything new, pops?”
“Well, it’s just that I need to translate the Aegean from the Mesopotamian and even then sometimes I’m left with a hieroglyphic or two, and sometimes it doesn’t quite come out at all...”
Buffy blinked. She didn’t understand all that language stuff. “As interesting as this sounds, and with those party hard watchers on the horizon, I think I’ll go see what Willow’s up to... maybe she can help me with my homework or something.”
“Yes,” Giles agreed, “this will be quite boring, especially when the council arrives. They’ll mostly just examine different texts, maybe even put Spike through a few tests...”
“Tests?” Spike asked. Buffy looked just as perplexed.
“Oh, nothing bad,” Giles replied. “They wouldn’t want to push you over the edge to your dragon form ever...”
Spike scratched his head. “You just lost me, mate.”
“Yeah,” Buffy agreed. “Since when did we know what triggered the jump to baby dragon form?”
It looked like Giles recounted the entire day in his mind, going over each minute with careful intensity, before he realized he hadn’t told them. “Oh, you don’t know yet. Spike’s ability to transform is directly correlated with his emotions. I’m not exactly sure what type of emotions; it’s possibly just very passionate emotions, like for instance survival on the brink of death. We’ll look into it when the council arrives.”
Spike nodded. More information we can get on the inner dragon, the better.
“One thing I can say, though,” Giles started again, “is that Spike must have remarkable self-control and patience if this is the first time he turned into a dragon...”
“I think it is,” Spike said. “Seems like something you wouldn’t soddin’ forget, even though I did...”
“I suspect being raised by monks was a big factor in this self-control,” Giles replied, “maybe even the dragon itself.”
Buffy’s head was doing backflips. “Willow. Homework.” She nodded.
She took a few steps to the door when she stopped and turned to Spike.
“We’re going to the Bronze later tonight, it’s the local hangout,” Buffy said shyly, her voice crackling. “You’re welcome to come, if you want.”
Shy, coy invite, eh? She knows just how to push my buttons without trying...
Spike nodded at the invitation, sending her comfort. “Sure, pet. Wouldn’t miss it.”
Buffy smiled coyly. Spike could see pure, unadulterated hope and happiness in her eyes, and he knew it was a rare occurrence. And also a beautiful one.
Then she left.
“Well don’t she doth teach the torches to burn bright,” Spike said after Buffy was out of earshot.
Giles smiled wryly. “That’s Shakespeare,” he said, reminiscing on distant memories of teenage romance. Reminiscing always made him feel so deliciously aged and sad. He had, believe it or not, gone through that whole phase at one point in his life, too. Only he didn’t have as bad of luck as Bu—
“You can’t date Buffy,” Giles said flatly. “I won’t allow you.”
Bloody hell! I need the watcher’s permission now?
Even with Spike’s inner thoughts yelling, he had the self-control to ask a simple, pivotal question. “And why is that, ‘mate?”
Giles analyzed his bluntness and decided that it probably wasn’t the best strategy. “I take that back.”
Spike smiled. I knew the watcher liked me.
“I’m respectfully asking you, from one man to another, to not start a relationship with Buffy. I’m not telling you, I’m asking you kindly.”
Bloody hell! Pullin’ the respect card on me...
“And this is not for my sake, but for Buffy’s sake,” Giles continued. “She is always at her worst when she’s in a relationship...”
Oh, like that’s a bleedin’ excuse...
Spike snorted. “Don’t want your little innocent princess to become tainted by me, do you?”
“N-no—”
“Am I not bleedin’ good enough for her or somethin’?”
“It’s not like that, Spike,” Giles said, “and you know it.”
Spike shrugged with a half-laugh. “Yeah, ‘guess I do. Just wanted to get all that Dawson’s Creek teen angst cliché out of me. And lighten the mood a little with a laugh.”
Spike scratched his head, the feeling of having to stay platonic with Buffy eating him from the inside. Not a laughing matter at all. “So, why again, pops?”
Giles took off his glasses and polished them. He must do this polishing routine whenever things get rough.
“Because something terrible always happen when Buffy dates. It’s probably a Slayer curse.”
“Yeah, but it’s her decision, watcher,” Spike said. “She can date whomever she wants.”
Giles couldn’t help but smile at the proper usage of “whom.”
“You’re not her father.” Spike thought about what he just said. “Maybe her father figure, but not her father.”
Giles looked Spike in the eye. “From what I’ve seen, you live by a code, a set of principles, thanks to the monk upbringing. I respect you as a person. I wouldn’t be asking you unless I knew you would acc—”
“Fine.”
“What?”
“Sure. I’ll keep my grubby paws off her. Won’t date Buffy.”
Giles blinked, astonished.
“It obviously means a lot to you, ‘mate,” Spike said. “I figure you know the girl’s best interest better than I do... and whether she knows what’s in her best interest better than you is an entirely different discussion. But yeah, I won’t do anything with Buffy.”
Giles looked shock. “So you—”
“You have my word, pops,” Spike said. “Won’t lay a finger on her pretty little face.”
Giles looked hard at Spike. “Good, because I know you wouldn’t ever—”
“Break a promise?” Spike asked. “Never have, never will. My word is all I have in this life.”
Giles formed a small smile at the philosophy.
Giles wasn’t off the hook yet, though. “But I think I deserve to know why,” Spike said.
“I already told you—”
“Specifics, pops.”
Giles sighed. “Okay. I guess it’s the least I can do. Better that you understand fully, too. I’ll just go right down the list of boyfriends, or potential boyfriends, almost causing apocalyptic damage. First, there was Owen. We almost got him killed, along with Xander, Willow, and myself, in a morgue one night when Buffy refused to patrol because she wanted to go out with him that night.”
Not one for sacred duty and responsibility, eh? Spike’s monk side thought. His other side, though, knew that even Buffy deserved some time off. “Tough luck, there.”
“And then there is, of course, Xander,” Giles continued, “whose obsession over Buffy severely clouded her judgment and led to her temporarily death to The Master. Of course, Xander brought her back to life, but he’s the one that is responsible for putting her in that position in the first place...”
She died? Spike thought. But he went with the obvious because it was more safe. “Boy doesn’t like me much.”
“Yes, well, I suspect he’s jealous of the attention you are receiving from Buffy. And the fact that you—”
“Almost ate him, I know.” Spike picked at his scarred eyebrow. “Any other heartbreakers?”
Giles went back to polish mode. “I’ve saved the worst for last: Billy Fordham. She had a relationship with him for a few weeks following him being turned—”
“She dated a vampire?” Spike looked amazed. “Girl’s gotta pretty wicked dark side, does she?”
Giles ignored the question of Buffy possibly having some darkness in her, opting for a much simpler fact explanation. “Billy was her childhood crush, and he wasn’t a vampire when they started the relationship at the beginning of her junior year... only he had to become a vampire because he had cancer.”
“Ouch, tough break, that is,” Spike said. “Date Buffy and have cancer. That’s like warping into Hugh Hefner’s life and dying of a heart attack on the first orgasm.”
“And even with all that in mind,” Giles continued. “I can say now without a doubt that you are not from this dimension. Power like yours, even potential or unawakened power, would be known by the council and the coven, and probably sought after by several demons. Since you know this world well, I can only assume you are from an alternate parallel universe. There has been a great shift in this world because of you, so it’s very likely that you could create a tear in the dimension and be forced back to your world...”
Spike blinked. “So what you are saying, mate, is that I can fade away at any time?”
“Well, yes.”
“That would definitely put a strain on the relationship,” Spike said. And then—
“That’s just great,” Spike said with mock jubilance. “Get sucked back into my bleedin’ world...”
Giles’ curiosity was peaked. “What happened there, anyway? I know that up until the end you must have lived a perfectly comfortably life with monks in some far off retreat. But why did you leave them to become a drunk?”
“That’s something I’ll either be taking to the grave or back to my world, watcher.”
“Fair enough.”
There was a pause before Spike continued. “And you do realize that by not bleedin’ allowing me to date her you are making it that much soddin’ worse. Unattainability breathes attraction. You should soddin’ know that by now, watcher.”
“Yes,” Giles agreed, “but then you probably live by a code you’ve never broken your entire life, and I highly doubt you would over a girl, even Buffy.”
Spike cocked his head to the side. “Yeah, mate. I probably wouldn’t. Seems like you got me all figured out, exploitin’ my self-worth and all.”
I just hope I don’t end up bleedin’ regretting and repenting over this conversation later...
Silence ensued, and then the Watcher’s Council arrived.
I’m sad to say that I’ll be on a two week vacation starting tomorrow, so no updates will be made until at least two weeks from now. I’m very sorry; I never expected this fic to have any sizable response. In fact, when I first wrote it I thought no one at all would read it, and thusly I could safely go on vacation to Hawaii with a clean conscience. So, yeah. Very sorry about that; I hate it when people just drop fics for a little while. This is all, of course, not to say that I don’t positively adore response of any kind. Because I do very muchly. So don’t forget to review and keep my insanity focused on ideas for this fic. I know a lot happened this chapter: we set up the want and the conflict. And you all always make my ideas that much better when you talk about it.