~*~
He liked pissin’ her off. Was that normal?
Spike rather thought not.
Still, watchin’ her flounce away like that was quality entertainment. She was so high-and-mighty, so damn sure of herself—but just one little name that was really an endearment, when you thought about it properly, and bam—just like that, Little Miss Bitch Queen had a snit fit.
Damn funny stuff.
Still, he wasn’t exactly singin’ Brit Boy’s praises for giving them this idiot project. He didn’t want to get close to Blondie or what was bound to be her supremely demented family. Not to mention what’d happen to his rep ‘f she started blabbin’ about what his house was like—and, knowing her, it was bound to happen.
Ah, fuck it.
She’d been damn right when she’d said they were screwed. How the hell was he supposed to keep up the tough-guy stuff with the bimbo peekin’ into his private life?
“Spikey!”
He winced. Speakin’ of bimbos…
Harmony was one of the few popular chits who really wanted to jump his bones. Problem was, ‘f he’d thought it would prevent her from tryin’, he’d’ve paid a sodding Satanic cult to do voodoo on her.
She wasn’t just blonde and bouncy and annoyin’ like Summers was. No, Harmony was also damn stupid, and she didn’t get all cute and mad when he insulted her. She was too stupid to realize she was bein’ put down.
And now she was here. Somebody up there was really hatin’ him right now.
He exhaled. Loudly. “Hey, Harmony.”
“So, like, what are you doing out here all alone and stuff?” Harmony asked.
“’Bout to have a smoke,” he said shortly. Funny how they sounded almost exactly the same, but he couldn’t stand Harmony, and Buffy was actually okay…well, not really, but he didn’t want to kill her like he did with Harmony.
“You wanna do something more interesting?” Harmony asked slyly.
He glanced at her. Curves, lush yet somehow overabundant. Vapid eyes, slack mouth with beaverish front teeth…”No. Thanks.”
“Oh, okay. Maybe, like, later, then.” Harmony propped herself against the wall next to him, apparently with no intention of leaving. He restrained a frustrated groan. The bloody chit simply didn’t know when to quit.
“That was a dismissal, Harm.”
“But, Spikey…” Harmony whined, “I’m cutting. I’m being all bad and stuff. Can’t we…you know…hang?”
“Bloody hell. No.” Spike couldn’t believe he was havin’ this conversation. ‘F Dru could see him now, she’d cackle her bloody head off.
“I can’t believe this!” Harmony screeched in a tone he’d have sworn was damn near as piercing as a dog whistle. “I’m totally nice to you, even though everybody else thinks you’re like this demented Goth guy, and then you go and blow me off. Me! You are like the worst boyfriend ever!”
He refrained from pointing out that he was under no circumstances her sodding boyfriend. “Look, Harm,” he sighed, “’m really not in the mood. Later, a’right?” Of course, there would never be a later, but she didn’t need to know that.
Harmony rolled her eyes. “Like, whatever,” she said finally, and stalked off.
Spike rolled his eyes and lit a fag. Bloody American women with their dense skulls and short skirts...was enough to drive a man utterly insane.
“Damn, stud, you sure have a way with the girls.”
Spike rolled his eyes. “Lemme guess—you saw the whole thing?”
Faith emerged from the girl’s bathroom. “Damn right. I’m surprised you didn’t gut her, or something.” She grinned. “But I guess you can’t gut your girlfriend...”
He grunted and took a deep pull on the cigarette between his lips. “Faith, ‘f you wanna get in a spot o’ violence, ‘m all for it. Otherwise, bugger off.”
Faith wasn’t in the least bit impressed, which to tell the truth didn’t surprise him. He an’ Faith’d been friends for longer than he could remember. Cut from the same cloth they were, which was nice, ‘cept he couldn’t intimidate her to save his life.
“Fuck that,” Faith said predictably. “So, what’re you doin’ out here, anyway?”
“You din’ hear?” Maybe his rep’d be worth somethin’ after all...
“Nah. For once, I actually had to piss.” Faith’s way of saying that usually the bathrooms were host to rather different extracurriculars. “So what’s up?”
“Sodding teacher wants me to work with...” Spike hesitated. Bleeding hell. Faith wasn’t a blabbermouth, not the way the blonde bimbos were, but ‘f he told her, it was like admitting it was actually true.
Ah, screw it. “Teach wants me to work with Buffy Summers.” He spat the name out.
Faith stared at him for a moment, face completely incredulous. Actually, she looked like what he’d felt when Giles’d dropped his big, evil bomb. “You’re tripppin’.”
“Wish I was,” Spike shot back. “’S for Giles’s semester project. Bloke thinks we oughta be best friends, or somethin’.”
Faith continued to stare at him; he glared back. ‘F he wasn’t mistaken, he could see something in her eyes that looked a bit like—
“Oh my God!” Faith leaned against the wall and burst out laughing.
Spike’s scowl deepened as he finished his thought: amusement.
“This is fuckin’ hilarious! Faith gasped, clutching her belly, wheezing from laughter. “You—and—and B—working toge—e—e—ther!” Her voice caught on the last word and she convulsed in loud, obnoxious laughter, clutching at the wall for support.
“Yeah, yeah, barrel full ‘f laughs ‘f you’re not me,” Spike snapped. “You done yet?”
“Gimme a sec.” She leaned up against the wall, gasping, chuckling every few minutes. When she was reasonably calm she said, “So Giles is makin’ you work with a bouncy cheerleader, huh?” At Spike curt nod, she grinned. “Damn. Sucks ass to be you.”
“Yeah.”
“What d’you have to do?”
“Get to know her family an’ friends an’ interview her, an’ then write a paper on the whole sodding thing,” Spike grumbled.
“And lemme guess—she’s gotta do the same for you?”
“Yeah,” Spike affirmed again.
“Huh.” She stared into space for a moment, a grin on her face. He watched her suspiciously; Faith never grinned unless someone else was gonna catch it.
“One of the school’s biggest airheads is gonna be hanging out with us? That blows.”
“Tell me ’bout it,” Spike groaned. “’m gonna have to get to know the bint.”
“Might not be that bad...” Faith mused, staring into space.
He shot her a sarcastic look. “Right. Tell me another one.”
“Hey, anything’s possible.”
He didn’t even favor that with an answer. Anything might be possible, but spendin’ time with Buffy Summers and not hating it was ‘bout as likely as Britain gettin’ annexed by France. Meaning, not very.
He was gonna answer, but the bell rang. He exhaled loudly—his next class was Computer, one that was required for graduating but about as interesting as the sodding Discovery Channel.
Or listenin’ to Buffy Summers blabber ‘bout her life...
“Listen, gotta go,” he told Faith. Faith nodded but made no move to leave, which made sense. She had Chemistry next block, Spike knew. The chances of her attending were next to zero.
“Oh, yeah,” he added as he went to walk away, “Where’d you put m’ coat?”
Okay, the grin on Faith’s face was definitely mischievous. “Well, Jonathan doesn’t really know any of your friends, so he just gave it to someone he knew you knew...” she trailed off, leaving him to stew.
“Faith.” A growl. He could growl pretty well, when he wanted to.
“Relax, stud. He gave it to Xander, who’s keepin’ it real safe...walking around in it and all.”
He was cursing all the way to Computer.
~*~
The afternoon came way too bloody soon. He almost never dreaded after school. The only thing worse than Sunnydale High was that military camp his Da had sent him to for elementary school...which jus’ barely topped the science school Mum made him go to for middle school. It’d been in England; that was where he’d picked up the accent that he kept just to annoy his parents.
Yeah, school was pretty damn bad. But although he hated school, it didn’t have anything on how much he hated Buffy Summers. So when the last bell rang, he gathered his stuff with a groan.
“Sodding hell. Can’t school last a little longer?” Never thought he’d be saying that...
“Spike! Hey, Spike, over here!”
He whipped his head around. Anya was bouncing up and down, waving her arms. Beside her, the whelp was cringing, looking everywhere but at his friend.
Cringing and, Spike noticed, holding his leather duster against a wall. Wonderful. Idiot boy was gonna scratch it!
He stalked over and snatched the duster out of Xander’s hands. The boy just stared at him. “Yeah, you’re welcome for carrying your potato-covered coat around all day long!”
“You were ruinin’ it,” Spike informed him, before turning to Anya.
“Spike!” she beamed. “I’m so glad you’re here! I heard about the project, and I can’t believe it. I mean, out of all the people Giles could choose—“
“Yeah, I know, people’ve been sayin’ that,” he said impatiently. “Now listen, ‘ve gotta get to her house. We set up a meeting."
Anya blinked at him. “Are you going to have many orgasms with her?”
“What?! No!” Spike practically yelled. Bloody hell, just the thought made him cringe. Not that she wasn’t attractive, mind, but there wasn’t exactly a lot upstairs. “’ve just gotta go to her house for the interview crap, is all.”
”Uh-huh.” Xander grinned at him. “’Cuz we all know Spike’s an innocent widdle boy who’d never try to seduce the Teen Queen.”
Augh. There it was again, that picture.... and it wasn’t exactly pleasant. “Hardly,” he scoffed. "‘ve got standards, y’know.” Sure, he had fun gettin’ her goat, but aside from that, spending time ‘round her was kinda like gettin’ a cavity filled. Not fun.
“Right, because Drusilla really raised the bar.”
“’ey!” That was all he could get out, because at the mention of Dru’s name, his throat closed up. Even now, two years later, she could still do that to him.
“I gotta go,” he said tersely, choosing to ignore the whelp’s comment altogether.
Anya rolled her eyes, but even she knew not to push him on that particular subject. “Fine. Try to make it quick. We’re all meeting at the Bronze later, right?”
“’F I survive,” Spike said grimly. Ignoring his friends’ laughter, he stalked off to his car.
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A/N: OK, I dunno if I’m the only one, but when my life sucks, I write. So here’s an update! Thanks to everyone who reviewed, I wouldn’t say no to more... =)