“Welcome to The Magic Box, how may I help you?” He spun around at the sound of the cheerful voice, and saw a young woman standing in front of him, a wide smile on her face as she continued; “I hope you’ll find something nice to buy and spend a lot of your money!”
He couldn’t help but chuckle, was this bird for real? Spike cleared his throat, eying the woman curiously. “Sorry, pet, not here to buy anything. Name’s Spike, I was told to…”
The woman’s smile disappeared as she interrupted him; “Oh, so you’re the guy who wants to take my job.” It was more of a statement than a question, and Spike just stared at her.
“What?” The woman was about to say something, when a young man, looking to be about the same age as himself, hurried over to them.
“Anya!” He let out a nervous laugh, and turned to Spike. “Hey man, sorry about that. Spike, right?” Spike nodded. “Right, you’ve been expected. I’m Xander Harris, and this lovely, yet sometimes annoying woman, is my fiancée, Anya.” He turned to Anya, a firm look on his face. “Be nice, sweetie.”
Anya sighed, then put on another wide smile and reached her hand out in greeting. “Anya Christina Emanuella Jenkins. Nice to meet you.” Spike shook her hand, a little warily.
Xander looked pleased, then even more so when the little bell over the door sounded, indicating that someone had entered the shop. “Anya, why don’t you…?”
Her face lit up. “Yes!” She turned to Spike. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to go and make money.” With that she turned around and hurried over to the newly arrived costumers.
Xander laughed again, and when he spoke he sounded almost relieved. “That’s Anya! She’s just being…” He hesitated. “…Anya. Don’t worry; you’re gonna like her once you’ve gotten to know her.”
“Great.” Spike’s smile was a bit strained. “So, um…”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Come with me, I’ll introduce you to the rest of the scoobies.” Xander gestured for him to follow, and made his way over to a door that seemed to lead to another part of the store.
Spike followed him with a frown. “Scoobies?”
“Tara, look!” Willow Rosenberg squealed as the pencil on the table in front of her lifted and started to flow in the air. But talking made her lose focus for a second, and the pencil dropped back down with a small ‘thump’.
“Wow, you almost made it!” Her girlfriend, Tara Maclay, walked up to Willow and gave her a soft kiss on the cheek. “I told you, Willow, you have the potential to become a very powerful…”
“Hey!” Willow and Tara jumped at the sound of Xander’s voice, and turned around. Realizing that he wasn’t alone, they became quiet. Tara looked down at her feet.
Willow let out a nervous giggle, and walked over to Spike. “Hi, I’m Willow. You must be the… the guy who was supposed to come here to… to work. Giles’ nephew, right? Um… Spike?”
“Right.” Spike returned her smile, then glanced over to Tara who had yet to look up. “And you are…?”
Tara looked up, blushing. “I-I’m Tara.” She quickly looked away again, obviously not comfortable with the attention.
“Hello? Does anyone see me, or am I invisible?” Spike looked over to a table in the corner, and noticed a brown-haired girl with a sulky expression on her face. She looked a couple of years younger than the rest of them.
Xander rolled his eyes. “That’s Dawn. She’s…”
“…not too stupid to introduce herself, thank you very much.” Dawn glared at Xander and walked over to Spike, giving him the look-over. “Are you sure he’s…?”
“Dawn!” Xander gave her a warning look, and she sighed.
“You don’t have to yell at me.” She turned her attention back to Spike. “Hi, I’m Dawn.” She reached out her hand, giggling as he brought it up to his lips and placed a soft kiss on her knuckles.
“Nice to meet you, little bit.” Spike winked at her, causing her to giggle again, and her cheeks turned red.
“I think someone has a crush…” Willow made an ‘aw’ face. Her girlfriend finally looked up with a shy smile.
Dawn let out an ‘eep’. “I so do not! And I can’t believe you said that out loud, oh my God!” She glared at Willow before quickly leaving the room, muttering to herself.
“Okay, so the introductions have been made. Why don’t you tell us a little about yourself?” Willow turned to Spike with a smile, gesturing for him to have a seat.
Spike realized that everyone’s eyes were on him, and started to feel a little uncomfortable. “Um, right. I... uh…” He hesitated. “What do you wanna know?“
Before anyone got the chance to answer, Anya entered the room. “Giles just called, he said he was going to be a little late. He had to deal with that…” She lowered her voice. “…thing. You know.”
The others nodded in understanding, but Spike frowned. “What thing? Thought Rupert was going to be here, is something wrong?”
“No, of course not!” Willow hurried to assure him, and the others shook their heads in agreement. Although, Spike didn’t miss the nervous glances they threw at each other.
“Anyway…” Anya went on, turning to Spike; “He said he’d meet you back at his place in about an hour. You know were that is?” Spike shook his head.
“I’ll take you there,” Xander offered and got up, stretching his arms over his head. “Need a break anyway, all this re…” He interrupted himself with a grimace. “…work’s starting to get to me.”
“Good idea, it’s getting late anyway, might as well call it a night.” Willow got up as well, smiling at Tara before turning to Spike. “It was really nice to meet you, see you tomorrow, right?” Spike nodded. “Great, then you can tell us more about yourself.”
Spike shrugged. “Sure.” Willow and Tara quickly excused themselves and left, leaving Spike and Xander to look at each other as Anya had already gone back out to the shop. Spike sighed. “Okay, do you mind tellin’ me…?”
“We’ve better get going.” Xander then gave him an apologetic look before he went on; “Look, I know you have a lot of questions, but I think you’ve better take that with Giles, okay? He’ll explain everything.”
“Right.” He was starting to find Xander’s behavior more than a little bit strange, but decided to let it go for now. The guy seemed okay after all, and Spike didn’t want to start questioning someone he’d just met. Not that he’d had any problems with that in the past, but this was new to him; he was one of the good guys now, and wasn’t about to mess things up again. And he could do that, right? He could be good. With that hopeful thought in mind, he grabbed his duster and followed Xander out into the shop.
TBC