I want to be in bed, not at my Watcher’s door, banging on it to let me in. Why did he have to ask me to come over so flipping early anyway?
Buffy knocked on his apartment door and rubbed her gritty eyes. Before she had gone to bed last night, she phoned Giles, informing him about the ‘hankie’ that Spike and she had found. He then said he would be available first thing in the ungodly morning and she was to bring the item by so that he may examine it. Initially, she had agreed. But that was before the dreams began the previous night. They’d been downright disturbing to say the least, and kept her in a constant state of confusion. The emotions they provoked ranged from the most sensual release to the most paralyzing fear, and everything in between, and she awoke feeling more tired than when she went to bed. Leaning her forehead on the door, she yawned and waited until Giles answered her knock.
He opened the door while Buffy was leaning against it and she lost her balance, falling right into his arms. “Buffy, good Lord…are you all right?” Giles’ concerned tone filtered through her bleary mind.
“Oh Giles, sorry about the fainty-thingy,” she yawned again, as she disengaged herself from her Watcher’s grasp. She straightened her weary body and walked into the apartment, perching on one of Giles’ dinning room chairs. She rubbed her eyes again, making grumbling noises and sighing heavily. “Sorry, didn’t get much sleep last night after I talked to you,” she grumbled.
Giles frowned slightly and took in the increasingly dark circles under her eyes. Granted, the poor girl had literally been dead only two weeks ago, but she had rallied in that time, looking somewhat healthy. Today, however, she looked pale and exhausted, the effect of more than one sleepless night showing on her face.
He stood in front of her, avoiding the slight swinging of her legs and laid a hand on her forehead to feel for a fever. She felt cool enough to the touch, so he turned his gaze to her dark eyes. They looked haunted, and he wondered not for the first time where Buffy had been before Willow brought her back. He also asked himself if her Slayer duties should be postponed until she felt capable of taking on such a heavy responsibility again.
“Buffy,” Giles started hesitantly. “Do you know why you’re not sleeping as well as you should?”
Her eyes darted up to her Watcher’s face. “Sometimes I…” she paused, gathering her thoughts. “Sometimes I’m afraid to close my eyes. I’m afraid that I’ll wake up here, or wake up there…or not wake up at all,” she confessed quietly. “And last night…there were just too many dreams.”
“Were they Slayer dreams?” he questioned. It was important to know if they were prophetic or just ordinary dreams. Slayer dreams had a nasty habit of coming true, especially if Buffy was the one having them.
She shook her head. “No, these were…they were ah…” she stuttered. Heat immediately flared up her neck and into her cheeks at the thought of all the dreams she’d had last night…about Spike. The ones where he was caressing her, touching her, tasting her, cherishing her…loving her.
Buffy pulled her legs up and wrapped her arms around her knees, leaning her chin on top of them. She couldn’t tell Giles about those dreams…they were private, very private, and would probably only serve to agitate him. No, those dreams, and oh how wonderful they were, she would keep to herself. She did, however, remember one dream that was odd, and didn’t involve Spike at all. Maybe that dream was a portent, so she told Giles about it.
“There was a shadow,” she said finally. “It followed me around, but never revealed itself. I think it was a male, it gave off a certain vibe, you know?”
Giles pinched the bridge of his nose and her heart lurched, remembering the way Spike had done the same thing last night when his nose was a mess. Must be a British thing.
“Did this shadow feel menacing at all? Did you feel threatened?” he waited patiently while she tried to remember.
“No, but I did get a feeling of…well…curiosity and disappointment. It was odd,” she shrugged and went on. “It followed me around, like on patrol, or to Scooby meetings, and into the house. But it never went near my bedroom. It had an older quality to it, a certain feeling of wisdom,” she chuckled lightly. “Felt like my grandpa, or an uncle type person.”
Even though it cheered his heart to hear her laugh a little, Giles felt she wasn’t taking this dream seriously enough. “You mean a degenerate old man is following you around in your dreams?”
Buffy’s jaw hung open in shock. “Ewww, no! Gross Giles, it definitely didn’t feel like THAT! It wasn’t like he was some perv out to look at my dangly bits!” She scrunched up her face at the thought of a sexual predator sneaking about in her unconscious mind.
“Dangly bits? Excuse me, but did you just say dangly bits?” Rupert’s eyebrows lifted high on his forehead.
Confused, she cautiously answered. “Yeah, why? Is there something wrong with saying dangly bits?”
His only logical conclusion didn’t leave him with a feeling of reassurance. “Buffy, you do realize what dangly bits are, don’t you?”
She looked at him like he’d lost his mind. “Uh, they’re these…right?” she said as she pointed to her boobs.
He couldn’t stifle the snort of laughter that erupted from his chest. He really hadn’t meant to laugh at her, composing himself immediately after taking in the scowl that formed on her face. “Ahem, well, uh no actually. Dangly bits refers to the slang British term for umm, to the, er uh…good Lord, how do I say this…the slang term for the male appendage.”
Realization dawned in Buffy’s foggy brain as she dropped her head into her hands, mortified. “Oh my God! I did not just say dangly bits!” she moaned.
Giles ventured a guess as to her use of such slang. “Buffy, exactly how much time have you been spending with Spike?”
“What does Spike have to do with dangly bits? Oh wait! He used that last night, when we…” but she didn’t finish because of the stern look of objection on her Watcher’s face. Again, she felt embarrassment well up inside of her. She must have been around Spike a lot if she felt comfortable using some of his colorful idioms. What was next? ‘Allo mate, fancy a cuppa?’ Funny how she never realized just how much time she spent with Spike lately, him falling into place at her side like an old friend.
Giles ignored her embarrassment and pressed on, “Maybe you should ease up a bit on the patrolling, just for a while.”
“But I…yeah, sure…fine,” she muttered as she looked the resolve on his face. It would be nice to have a night off, but she knew Spike would look for her and thus end up at her house to see if she was still alive. And thoughts of Spike lead down the path of her dreams…and the kissing…and the touching. Gah! Buffy stop! Again with the non-working thing between you and the vamp! Giles already wants you to take a night off because you’re spending way too much time with Spike. But he makes me feel… she immediately clamped down on her traitorous thoughts.
She sighed heavily and rubbed the back of her neck, figuring she’d better head home to look in on Dawn and clean the house. But then, she remembered why she came to her Watcher’s apartment in the first place as she reached into her back pocket. “This is what we found last night at the last demon kill. Does it look familiar to you?” She handed the ‘demon hankie’ to Giles.
He frowned hard in concentration as he examined the frilly lace around the beautiful handkerchief. Nowhere in any literature, supernatural or otherwise, was there a mention of handkerchiefs that were associated with demons or vampires. “It’s very unusual, to find this on a demon,” he mused aloud.
“Well, we didn’t exactly find it on the demon. More like three rows over from the kill. I think it was dropped during the fight or something,” she clarified.
“Hmm, very strange and interesting indeed. I’ll research it in my texts and see if Willow or Tara can come up with something,” he said absentmindedly, his attention now completely focused on the handkerchief.
Knowing her Watcher was completely lost to any more conversation, Buffy shrugged and slid off the chair, heading for the door. “Let me know when you find something. I really don’t like the idea of slaying demons with uh, hankies as their weapon of choice. My mother would have seriously frowned upon it.”
“Yes, yes…I will,” he muttered as he searched through his library, paying no attention to her.
She shook her head and quietly left the apartment, heading home to Dawn and a dirty house. She really needed more sleep, but her mind wasn’t settled enough to attempt the voyage into dreamland again. She didn’t count on her sister Dawn to help with the housework, being the teenager that she was, so she resolved to get her work done as quickly as possible. Besides, she needed to find an outlet for the tense energy that had been building since last night. And cleaning didn’t involve highly volatile, sexually tense encounters with a finely sculpted, sea of blue-eyed vampire.
As Buffy walked through the door, the phone began ringing, causing her to stumble in her rush to answer it. “Hello?”
“Hey pumpkin!” greeted the man’s voice on the other end.
“Dad!?” she choked, blinking back sudden tears. Her father hadn’t even realized that she was dead over the summer, so the last thing she expected was for him to call her.
“Yup, it’s your old man! Hey listen…is Dawn around by chance?”
She bit her lip to keep from crying bitterly. “She’s still asleep I think. What did you need?”
“Well Diane and I are going to be driving through there on our way out of town, and wondered if Dawn wanted to go with us on a little weekend get-a-way. Where’s your mother, by the way? Out on one of her many shopping trips?” The way Hank Summers said ‘shopping’ made it sound lurid and cheap.
Fucking moron! He doesn’t even know mom’s dead! Didn’t even know I was dead! “Yeah, she’s on a shopping trip. She’ll be gone a long while,” she murmured.
“Figures. Well, tell Dawn we’ll be by this evening to pick her up. And we’ll pick up something for you too, Buffy.”
“Thanks. I’ll see that she gets packed,” she whimpered, saying her goodbyes before she broke down in sobs. Everything from jealousy to anger and hatred rolled through her and she collapsed to the floor, rocking back and forth until she let it all out.
Sniffling and wiping her already overly sensitive eyes, Buffy stood up and then sat at the kitchen counter, pulling out a sheet of notepaper to write on. It was the only thing she could think of to keep her thoughts at bay as she wrote down a list of chores that needed to be done. That’s how her sister found her.
“Hey, Buff,” a sleepy Dawn mumbled as she grabbed the cereal from the cupboard.
Buffy didn’t want to look at her with tear streaked red eyes, so she just muttered, “Hey Dawnie.”
“Was Spike here last night?” she asked after noticing the marshmallows that were left out.
Buffy smiled to herself. “Yeah, he was cold so he wanted hot chocolate.”
“Figures.”
“Dad called. He wants to take you out of town…with Diane,” she said hesitantly.
Dawn groaned around a mouthful of Rice Krispies. “I hate Diane. Where does he want to take me? And why me? Why not both of us?”
“I’ve got slaying to do here. Dad…” Buffy faltered. “Dad doesn’t know I died, Dawn. And he doesn’t know about mom either. I’d like to keep it that way.”
“I hate him,” she fumed with loathing.
“I’m sorry…I really am. I know he’s not your…” Buffy stopped before she said father. “But he really seems to want to spend time…with you.”
“He can take a flying leap off a tall cliff for all I care,” Dawn spat, losing any appetite she’d previously had.
Ignoring her sister’s protests, Buffy continued, “He’ll come by this evening to pick you up.”
“I don’t want to go!” she screeched and threw her half empty bowl into the sink.
“Look, Dawn, I’m under enough pressure as it is,” she said in a warning tone. “Please, just do this for me. You’ll have fun. And I’m sure he’ll take you shopping.”
Dawn crossed her arms and stared out the kitchen window. “Fine. I’ll do it for you. But I won’t enjoy myself.”
A grin tugged at Buffy’s lips. “Thank you. Now please…go get packed and clean up.”
She watched as her sister walked out of the kitchen and stomped up the steps, making her displeasure quite clear. Buffy knew that once Dawn was immersed in the shopping trip she would forget about her promise to ‘not enjoy herself.’
After completing her chore list, she delved into the tasks with gusto, finishing her work around the time her father arrived to pick Dawn up. Buffy refused him entry into the house, instead yelling for her sister to get her ‘skinny butt’ down to the foyer. Dawn appeared with a small suitcase in hand and a large backpack.
“I love you, please remember that,” Dawn said as she hugged Buffy tightly.
She hugged her back just as tight. “I know. I love you, too.”
She then watched as her sister and wayward father drove off into the evening, envying them the fun they would have…even if it were with Diane in tow. Sighing heavily, she threw her dust cloth under the kitchen sink and leaned against the counter, rubbing her neck from exhaustion. She then decided she was sorely in need of a hot bath.
Moving from the kitchen into the living room, Buffy eyed the shelf of old books that her mother had owned and pick a rather trashy romance novel, the kind where everything turns out all right in the end. She needed an escape, even if it was only for one night, she thought, flipping through the pages as she climbed the stairs to the bathroom.
As she drew her bath, she kept thinking back to the dreams that featured Spike. He’d taken such good care of her, rubbing her back, caressing her face, keeping her safe from the loud noises and bright lights of the here and now. Watching the foam start to spread out on the surface of the water, she quickly shed her clothes and sank into the hot luxury that was her lavender bubble bath.
Buffy closed her eyes and sighed, noting she seemed to be doing a lot of that lately and it bothered her. She should be happy to be back…shouldn’t she? So why did she feel like she was dead inside? Her friends thought she should be grateful for being brought back, but she wasn’t. The only people that didn’t expect anything from her were Dawn and Spike. Spike… she thought wistfully, touching her fingers to her lips.
Why him? Why now? Oh God, I’m going insane!
Silent tears coursed down her cheeks and she sunk further into the steaming water until muscles began to relax, her book lying forgotten on the floor. Several candles lit the room as the overhead light was too garish and bothered her eyes, their scents mixing with the lavender to soothe her frazzled nerves.
After a few moments of sobbing, she finally opened her eyes and looked towards the ceiling. “I want to go back…so tired. Please? I want to go home.”
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Many thanks to my Demon Butcher's of Spuffy Street, Dusty273 and Im_Bloody_English - I've never seen so much red in all my life! (the crowd was horrified!) LOL! No thanks very much ladies - this wouldn't have been possible without your help! *bows to your almighty-ness*
Chapter End Notes:
Next - the consequences of taking a sip of Spike's blood!