[Reviews - 163]
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Microsoft Word Chapter or Story | ePub eBook Chapter or Story | Printer Chapter or Story

Has been viewed 1279 times

- Text Size +




Author's Chapter Notes:
I do realise that it is a very, very long time since I updated this. I thought it had finished at the end of Season 4, but then, perhaps not!
Season 5

Never Ever Tell 33

Card Sharp

“So, he’s gone then? Puff of smoke, crash of thunder? Wanker! A real drama
queen.”

Buffy bit her lip and reached up to touch the half healed scar on her neck.
She could almost believe none of it had happened. Count Dracula! But the
scar told her otherwise.

“Yes, he‘s gone and if he values living for another century, he’ll steer clear of Sunnydale from now on.”

Spike lit a cigarette, ignoring her ostentatious cough. “Oh, yes, I’m sure he’s quaking in his long black cloak! He’s always been like that – big entrance, makes with the bat and wolf bit, loads of biting and thralling, then off he goes again. No staying power, that’s his sodding problem. Always has been. Bloody hell, even Peaches can concentrate harder than Drac. Harmony can concentrate harder than Drac!”

Buffy stared at him, curious. “Did you want him to stay in Sunnydale?”

“I wanted my bloody cash back, Slayer. I told you, he owes me eleven quid.”

“Which is what in real money?”

Spike raised an eyebrow. “Still eleven quid! In funny American money, I suppose it’s about seventeen dollars and that would buy me a load of blood. And then there’d be interest. I wonder how much that would add up to? Say five percent per year, divide by 3, take away the number you first thought of - ”

“Why did you lend it to him in the first place?” Buffy snapped interrupting the diatribe. “I mean, does he look like the type of vamp who’d bother repaying a debt? He’s Dracula, Geez, Spike. I sometimes wonder if you’ve learnt anything in all the years you’ve been dead!”

“Poker game. The day World War II was declared. Sitting listening to that poxy bloke Chamberlain bleating on that we were at war with Germany. We had a good laugh that night. The thought of all that death and destruction – ”

He flinched at her horrified expression and hurried on, “Anyway, I wasn’t playing. Been outside with Dru for a quick - well, we’d been outside! Drac was short of a tortoiseshell. All he had were two Persians and a half Siamese which the other blokes said didn’t count. I had no kittens left at all, so I lent him eleven quid and he won the blooming lot. Over forty kittens! Then it was all, “Oh, got to go. Need to be in Berlin tomorrow. Puff of smoke. Crash of thunder. Gone like the bloody gloryhound he is. And never paid me back!”

Buffy turned to go. She’d had enough of Spike and his memories to last her a lifetime. Then something tugged at her mind. “So what did you do in the War?” she asked curiously.

Spike went very still. There was a question. He remembered a submarine, Liam, Nazis, blood. And other things, too. Things he bloody well didn’t want to talk about to the Slayer. After all, he had a reputation as a Big Bad to keep up, didn’t he.

Buffy shrugged at his silence. “I’m going home,” she said. “I’m baby-sitting Dawn tonight.” And she walked away.

The words, “Who the hell’s Dawn?” quivered on Spike’s lips and as he watched the slim blonde girl leaving the graveyard, for a weird, long second he felt as if his brain cells were being rearranged into a different pattern.

That night, Buffy was glad to be out patrolling. There was something soothing about pacing through the streets and graveyards of Sunnydale, killing the odd vamp, glaring at a demon who, OK, wasn’t exactly dangerous, but ewwww, the smell!

She supposed that at some time she would have to deal with the problem that was Harmony, but hopefully not tonight. The stars were too bright and with a warm breeze blowing through the trees and the scent of a hundred flowers in the graveyard hanging in the air, it was to nice a night to stake a former classmate, even Harmony.

Anyway, she had no doubt the ditzy blonde vamp would be shacked up with Spike by now, doing – well – doing whatever it was that vampires did, which had nothing, absolutely nothing in common with what she and Riley did!

She tried to push to the back of her mind the memory of the erotic dream she’d had about Spike when she was caught up in Jonathan’s spell. If only it didn’t still seem so real. Could you imagine bodily feelings like – well, like that! How could she ever in her wildest thoughts have dreamt up her behaviour in his crypt that night?

Could she, would she ever act like that with Riley? She shuddered. He’d be horrified. Riley was a nice boy. He liked their love life to be – well, nice.

“And there’s nothing wrong with that!” she muttered, viciously cutting off the head of a thistle as she passed it.

Walking past Spike’s crypt and trying the door tonight had only been a sensible, Slayer action, she told herself proudly. You had to know where your deadliest enemy was at all times, and OK, so not so deadly anymore, what with the chip and all, but still….

Somewhere a church clock was chiming two: time to head for home. As she turned, she realised she was outside the Harris home. It was an old house; one of the oldest in Sunnydale and it always had an unhappy air about it; no wonder Xander longed to get away.

No lights shone anywhere and against the starlit sky, the roof was a long black line – Not! As Buffy looked, a dark shape crawled up onto the roof ride and inched its way along towards the far end.

Grimly, without hesitating, Buffy leapt over the wall into the Harris yard and ran silently round the side of the house. She hadn’t often visited Xander when he was living upstairs, rather than in the basement, but Willow had told her that when they were children, they had used a big tree as a convenient staircase for getting in and out of the house undetected by Mr and Mrs Harris.

The tree was still there, wide branches reaching upwards. It took Buffy seconds to swing from branch to branch and finally drop down onto where a flat part of the roof jutted out over a bedroom.

Above her head, the demon had stopped being silent. A steady chinking noise cut through the night and as Buffy finally reached the top of the house and tightroped her way along the ridge, she heard a string of swear words ripping out, in an accent that could only mean one person.

“Spike! What the heck are you doing up here?”

“Oh great! Slayer!” Spike’s words were muffled due to the fact that most of his fingers of one hand were in his mouth. “Here I am, bleeding to death, and you turn up!”

Buffy dropped down next to him, sitting astride the roof ridge. “Spike, you’re already dead! Now tell me what you’re doing on top of Xander’s house before I stake you and you won’t have to worry about bleeding because you’ll just be a pile of ash!”

Spike pulled his fingers out of his mouth, one by one, and Buffy felt the colour rise into her face. Thankfully the stars weren’t bright enough for him to see, although she had a niggling feeling from the glitter in his eyes that he knew what she was thinking.

“Look – the rotten spanner cut my knuckles.”

“Spike – “

“OK, Slayer, don’t get your knickers in a twist! I’m just, er, just repairing this satellite dish.”

“You’re doing what?”

“Has shagging soldier boy ruined your hearing, pet? This satellite dish is broken and I’m going to get in mended.”

“You mean you’re stealing it!” Buffy’s voice rose from a whisper to a shriek that Dawn would have been proud of.

“Want to wake the whole neighbourhood, Slayer? The Harrises don’t need it. They’re always too drunk to watch TV. I, on the other hand, do need it. There are programmes I want to watch, because I’m stuck in that bloody crypt, a helpless crippled vamp, unable to fulfil my role in life, pursued by the Slayer at every turn – ”

“I’ve never pursued you,” Buffy hissed angrily. “Well, only to kill you, when you were worth killing.”

Spike’s teeth shone briefly in the starlight and she knew he was grinning at her. “Pursued, hunted down, chased from pillar to post – I mean, why are you up here, pet? I reckon you fancy me.”

“I so do not fancy – Spike! Stop changing the subject. Leave the satellite dish alone and go home. And don’t steal anyone else’s. You’ll just have to manage with the TV channels you’ve already got.”

Spike sighed silently. Going home meant having to sit and listen to Harmony natter endlessly about nothing at all. Even when they were shagging, she talked about redecorating the crypt, what clothes she was going to steal, how she wanted them to move to Los Angeles. Watching TV was his last resort.

Surreptitiously, he felt behind him where the dish was attached to the wall. The nuts and bolts were much looser. He’d leave it for now and come back tomorrow night when the Slayer was busy with soldier boy. As he turned, the spanner slid out of his hand and fell, crashing to the ground, hitting the glass roof of the Harris sunroom, smashing it to pieces.

Within seconds lights went on all over the house and Buffy could hear Mr Harris and Xander shouting and yelling as they raced out to see what was going on.

Spike stood, ran and jumped for the tree branches, flying through the air like a big bat. Buffy hesitated, wondering if she could possibly explain to Mr Harris why she was sitting on his roof. Xander would accept that she’d seen a demon up here, but not his father.

Reluctantly, she followed Spike into the tree but as she caught the branch, it decided that two people were one too many to support this evening, gave an almighty crack and she found herself pitching down towards the ground.

Then Spike’s hand shot out from the darkness, clasped her arm and hauled her back up. They stood, balanced together, swaying in silence as the Harris family shouted and yelled and finally went back inside.

The air was warm and dark under the shelter of the leaves and for ten minutes Buffy stood with a vampire’s arm tightly round her shoulders, her face pressed against a cool black T-shirt, hearing only her heart beating.

And later that night, she lay in bed and wondered exactly why it had been beating so fast.

tbc





You must login (register) to review.