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CHAPTER 11 -- The Usual

“Don’t you think we’re a little old to be here?” Spike called over the music as he and Tara followed Willow’s zigzagging around the round tables and stools of The Bronze.

Willow fluttered her hand at him, “Nonsense. They serve alcohol here, don’t they?”

“They better,” Spike grumbled, pulling his coat tighter around him, surveying the crowd. He hadn’t been here since they graduated. The dance floor was crowded with gyrating bodies, the base thumped through the floor, causing the tile under Spike’s feet to vibrate.

“Look! It’s free!” Spike turned his attention to where Willow was pointing, dragging Tara alongside her. The crowd parted to reveal the table that Spike and the group had spent a good deal of time during their four years in college, listening to local bands and eating those really good onion things.

They pulled up stools around their table. Willow raised off her seat, waving her arm, “Hey guys! Over here!” Holding hands, Xander and Anya came off the dance floor.

Spike looked around at the excitement radiating off his friends, “Having fun reliving your college days, then?” He waved over a waitress, placing their orders.

“Come on, Spike, don’t you want to shake your grove thing for old time’s sake?” Xander made some violent jerking motions.

Spike looked at his friend questioningly, “Harris, I didn’t dance in college. What in God’s name would lead you to believe I would do it now?” He studied Xander’s ‘dancing’ motions, “And if that’s what you call dancing, I don’t think I want to be in the same room as you.”

Anya nodded excitedly, “We’re getting ballroom dancing lessons for the wedding.” She turned to her fiancée, “You will not embarrass me in front of eight hundred of our closest family and friends.”

Xander was perplexed, “Okay, I’m mentally counting up my friends and family and I get a total of five . . . and that’s including myself.”

Anya patted his shoulder, “I’m not inviting your cousin Jack.”

“OK, make that four.”

Xander was relieved when his change of subject walked through the door, “Buffy! How’d the date go!?”

Buffy approached the table, looking emotionally drained, “Yeah, that Warren guy? Never again.”

Spike smirked, “Wasn’t romantic enough for ya?”

Buffy rolled her eyes in his direction, “No, and I’m sure you had no idea.”

“So sorry I didn’t teach him everything I know in the romance department.”

“He was a sleazeball, Spike, I’m fairly certain that you did teach him everything he knows.”

“Are you saying I don’t know how to be romantic?”

“Oh come on, Spike, you couldn’t be romantic if you tried.”

“Oi! I can to!” Spike looked around the table, their faces showed that they didn’t believe him.

Buffy noticed this too, throwing more wood onto her verbal fire, “How? ‘Hey, baby, you wanna be a notch on my bedpost?’”

“At least I have notches. You don’t even have a bedpost.”

As anger boiled between Spike and Buffy, Tara was getting nervous. She had seen Spike mad before -- he’d yell and scream and kick things from time to time when a project didn’t go his way, but she’d never seen him with such unadulterated, passionate . . . disfavor. Hate seemed too strong a word, one Tara didn’t like to use. But it was hard to believe that one single girl could get him so worked up. It seemed sadistic to watch them explode at each other, but at the same time she couldn’t help but find the relationship . . . intriguing. She continued to watch the spar as Spike yelled over the music at Buffy, both completely unaware they had an audience.

“To find what you want, you’re going to have to get out of your precious comfort zone and live a little.”

His eyes challenged her to a comeback, her head shook at him in anger, but she surprised them all with her response, “I need a drink,” Buffy turned on her heels in search of the bar. The whole night was getting to be too much. She needed to forget -- and soon. The Warren guy she had gone out with was a nightmare. His lack in the romance department was the least of his pitfalls. He was arrogant and kept hitting on some brunette named April -- and he actually bragged about the time when he had broken into a museum and beat up a guard.

Spike was thrown by her statement. He sat there blinking for a moment, “Since when does she drink?”

Xander watched her retreating form, “Since you got back, apparently.”

Spike turned back to the group. They sat in silence, Spike drumming his fingers on the table, not looking at the others. When he could no longer stand four sets of eyes boring into him, he glanced up and was faced with silent pleas. He gave a silent protest before giving in. Spike sighed and slid off his chair to find Buffy.

They watch Spike get enveloped into the crowd before turning back to the table, looking somber, the night’s cheery vibes gone. Anya looked more worried about the Spike and Buffy fight than the others. “They’re not going to do this at the wedding are they?” The other three didn’t seemed too surprised at her concern, “I mean, I cannot have the best man and the maid of honor fighting. That would take attention away from me.” She looked quite put out, and Xander ran his hands up and down her arms comfortingly as she pouted.

Tara shifted a little towards Willow, “I’m sorry your fun night was ruined.”

Willow sighed, “That’s okay, I was stupid to think they could go five minutes without yelling at each other.”

Tara looked out over Willow’s shoulder to the dance floor, “Well, we could make the best of it?” Her statement came out as a request and Willow turned behind her to follow Tara’s gaze.

Willow smiled wide, the fighting couple momentarily forgotten. “That’s right! We don’t have to let those two party poopers ruin our night of fun and dancing!” Willow, having had her usual optimism reinstated by Tara, put down her drink and held her hand out to the girl next to her, “Come on, let’s dance!” Tara smiled back and joined Willow on the dance floor, flowed by Xander and Anya.

Spike found her at the bar, a group of drunk university boys looking a little too appreciatively at her form.

He touched her shoulder lightly, “Summers . . .”

“No, I don’t want to hear it,” she was already throwing back shots. Buffy was know for a lot of things, holding her liquor was not one of them.

Her voice wavered and her eyes were watering -- two signs she was already wasted. She stood suddenly, knocking over the stool she was sitting on. Two school boys held out their arms to steady her, Spike shot them a glare and they all found sudden interest in the red headed waitress at the bar. Buffy was on the verge of crying, she pointed a blaming finger at Spike‘s chest, “You think you’re too good for Sunnydale. Think you’re all high and mighty because you picked up and left. You’re gone for five years -- five years, Spike! Then you just swoop in one day and start trying to fix my life. But what makes you so special? You grew up here too! Well I happen to like my life. I like it here. I grew up here, my family’s here. I want to raise kids here. If you don’t like it then just shut the fuck up, Spike! I’m not pushing my lifestyle on you.” She was openly crying now. Spike had seen . . . well, made, a lot of girls cry in his time. It had never really affected him before. It wasn’t his fault they let their emotions be dictated by what he said and did. But Buffy’s tears were different. He said a lot of awful things to her over the years, but he never meant to make her cry. He had the sudden urge to apologize for ever cuss word, every ponytail pulled, and every generalization he had ever made about her life.

But he couldn’t. She had already grabbed her coat and whirled out the door. How long he had been standing there looking like a loon, he had no idea. But he was already getting disapproving stares. He went back into the crowd in search of his friends. He’d tell them what happened then go find Buffy.

TBC





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