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Author's Chapter Notes:
Keep reviewing? Thanks to all. Previously—Hah, first time I’ve ever tried a “previously." Be my reader guinea pig? Love ya, baby. *knocks you a kiss*
Spike gave Buffy a birthday present that helped her re-evaluate her priorities a little. Buffy and Dawn had a moment of bonding. The Evil Trio (well, two of them, anyway) raised two demon spirits who turn out to be… *gasp* Debbie and Pete. Spike has meanwhile convinced himself that the gentle birthday moment he shared with Buffy was just another ploy for her to get into his pants. While getting self-pityingly drunk, he stumbled onto the demon-raising plot and then wisely retreated when the dysfunctional pair ganged up on him in the sunlight.
+~+~+~+~+

Are you sure you want to live like common people?
You want to see whatever common people see?
You want to sleep with common people?
You want to sleep with common people like me?
But she didn't understand...
...she just smiled and held my hand.

+~+~+~+~+

Spike’s smoking blanket dropped to the floor in perfect synchronicity with the jangling of the bell above the Magic Box door. He stamped out the remaining cinders as Anya swept toward him from the counter. “Put that out! What do you think you’re doing? It’s a fire hazard. And it’s very near my pretty and highly flammable things. You can’t have that in here,” she said shrilly.

Spike toed the blanket and glanced down at the dull wool before looking back unabashedly to stare at the former demon. “Yeah, and if you’d had the decency to keep the dark alley shop door unlatched, a vamp could get around without having to resort to such toasty measures.”

“Yes,” Anya replied. “A vampire could. Much like the vampire that tore the throat out of the former proprietor. I like my throat intact, thank you very much.”

“How the hell did you…” At Anya’s curiously open, non-accusatory expression, Spike broke off. “Uh, right. Never mind then.”

“What are you doing here, anyway?” Anya asked as Spike slipped past her into the store. She followed him as he strolled toward the back. “Vampires sleep during the day,” she continued, as if telling him something new. Spike rolled his eyes. Not worth it. Too easy. Anya suddenly brightened. “Do you have insomnia? We have some very desirable sleep aids. Extra strength for our customers of the demon variety. Actually, almost all of them are for those of the demon variety. Did you know you have to be licensed to sell prescription drugs to humans?”

Spike attempted to tune her out, only catching the tail end of something that sounded like, “which seems to be an unnecessary infringement on capitalism, if you ask me.” He grimaced, picking up the object he’d been looking for.

“What are you doing? You can’t use that,” Anya stated.

She snatched the phone receiver that had been dangling from his fingertips. “Not long distance,” he protested. “Just gotta make a call. Slayer’s got trouble. Thought she ought to know.”

“She’s at work. Why don’t you just go loiter over there?” Her tone was laced with resentful implication.

“Because,” Spike said as he jerked the phone back, “as you so brilliantly noted, it’s daylight out. And I doubt Buffy would enjoy spending the rest of her work break trying to interrogate my little floating puffs of dust.”

“How do you know when Buffy’s break is? And,” Anya paused as her brows drew together. “Did you just call her Buffy?”

Spike turned to the wall, effectively cutting her off, as he dialed the number to the Doublemeat Palace.

“Slayer,” he said emphatically, sneaking a glance back at Anya, when one of the other workers finally put Buffy on the line.

“Spike?” Her startled voice crossed the distance between them. “Why are you calling me at work? You’re not supposed to call me here.”

Spike felt the chilled recollection of past rejections slip down his spine at her words. Right. Can’t be in her work. Can’t be in her life. Not wanted, mate. Just needed.

“Look, it’s not a social call,” he bit out. “Just thought you’d want a heads up on a new nasty in town. Two of them, actually. Demons raised up off the Hellmouth.”

“So last night…” Buffy paused. “You really did just come over to talk about work?”

Bugger if she didn’t sound a bit disappointed. No faith in him at all. Bitch. “Not last night, pet,” he found himself saying gently. “Just found out about them today.”

“Oh,” was her only response.

“They’re fresh, but they’re bloody strong. Imagine they could do a number on old Sunnyhell before the day’s up. I’ll just wait for you here.”

“No.”

“No? What do you mean?”

“I can’t,” Buffy said firmly. “I have to finish out my shift. I’ll be there at 6.”

“Evil. Demons. Indiscriminate killing. Sacred duty. Any of this ringing a bell, Slayer?”

“You’re the last person I need to remind me of my sacred duty, Spike.” The ice in her tone froze his veins.

“Right. Got it. I’ll just be off then.” He made no effort to hide the rancor in his mouth.

Spike was halfway to the door before he felt a small hand on his arm as Anya stopped him. “Does this mean I have to call Xander and Willow?”

“Probably be best, pet,” he said. “Give them a heads up. Tell ‘em the Slayer’ll be here when she’s done with the daily grind.

“Spike,” Anya said as he turned. “You’re coming back, right?”

“Course I’m coming back,” he murmured as he reached for the door. “You need the muscle. And it seems muscle’s the only thing I’m good for anymore.”

+++

“Tell me again, exactly, what either of you two idiots is good for?” Warren Meers paced across the small lair in front of his troops. Andrew and Jonathon stood at a stiff and awkward attention. Warren’s great aunt had cut their visit short. He had returned just in time to catch the two boys fortifying their lair against a potential demon invasion. Questions naturally followed.

“I knew I should never have listened to Jonathon,” Andrew said with a put-upon sigh.

“You were the one who made me go in the first place, you yoH’Ha’qu’!”

“You dare challenge me to a Blood Duel?” Andrew spat before uttering a high pitch squeal, locking Jonathon in a headlock, and raining noogies down on him.

Warren allowed the pair to continue for a moment in a spattering of feeble physical violence and Klingon taunts before he shoved both of them apart. “Enough of this. Explain everything. And this time, try to be a little more coherent than a pack of drunken tribbles.”

“Fine,” Andrew said, releasing Jonathon and brushing his clothes down. He raised his chin. “Jonathon decided—“

“You decided—,“ Jonathon cut in.

“We decided,” Andrew stated with a sniff, “it would be really cool to raise our own demons. That way we wouldn’t have to worry about calling on all these unpredictable ones like when Katr… when… other bad things happened,” he slid on smoothly at Warren’s dark look. “See… normal demons? They have their own personalities already intact, so their sense of self is too strong. And zombies… well, they’re cool, I guess, except for that whole flesh-eating thing.”

“Get to the point, lackbrain,” Warren muttered.

“Sooo,” Andrew plunged on, “I found a book about how to raise manifest spirits of those involved in volatile, angry deaths. Then you just spell a talisman, and presto, instant demon slaves!”

“So what went wrong?”

“Well,” Andrew said, “after the demons were raised, they kinda started to sense us before we were done.”

Jonathon narrowed his eyes at Andrew. “I told you we should have enchanted the talisman before we raised them.”

“Then,” Andrew continued as if he hadn’t heard, “the talisman sort of… got broken.” His voice raised almost questioningly at the end of the sentence.

Jonathon clenched his fists in disgust. “You stepped on it when you ran from the cave like a Luxan on crack!”

“Oh yeah?” Andrew sneered. “You ran too, you little nematode!”

“Both of you, stop it,” Warren interrupted. “What I want to know is, is there any way to fix it?”

The two looked at each other skeptically. Jonathon was the first to speak. “There may be. But… we’d have to go back and get it.”

“You left it there?” Warren slapped a weary hand over his eyes. “I don’t believe this.”

Andrew jumped to their defense. “Hey! It was very dark in that tunnel. And scary. And the power flash from the spell we performed was seriously intense. I think I may have an incidental case of dry scalp,” he added.

Warren shook his head. “And what about the demons?”

Jonathon responded. “They seemed pretty mad. I think they wanted to be turned back. I’ll bet that’s why they were looking for us.”

“It would probably be pretty easy,” Andrew added thoughtfully. “Just the opposite of a demon summoning with some type of specialized signature thrown in. I could look in Agamemnon’s Complete Guide to…”

“No way,” Warren broke in. “You boys have already gone to all the trouble of raising these guys. It’d be a shame to let all that hard work go to waste. If these two are as powerful as you say they are, and we can have total control over them? It’s back to the batcave, kiddies. We’re going to find that talisman.”

+++

“You’re the last person I need to remind me of my sacred duty, Spike.” Buffy bit her lip as she clenched the phone in the dingy work office more tightly. The sternly lecturing voice in her head that always seemed to remind, he’s a vampire, at the most inopportune moments had chosen to make itself known, prompting that last comment. But lately, a more gentle voice had been fast on the heels of the first. It wasn’t hers. It was his. You make me feel like a man. And it was growing more insistent day by day.

“Right. Got it. I’ll just be off then.” Spike’s last frustrated huff of air came just as he hung up, and Buffy failed to hear the telltale click of the receiver.

“Spike, wait. It’s not…” she sighed heavily. “It’s not about you. I just have other responsibilities. Grown up responsibilities.” She continued in a soft whisper, “You showed me that last night.” She waited a full ten seconds for his answer before impatience got the best of her. “Spike? Spike?” Buffy frowned and placed the phone back on the cradle.

He hung up on me. Spike hung up on me. When I was actually telling him something nice. Like that’s ever gonna happen again. Buffy felt a pinch of something akin to guilt at that telltale flippant thought. This morning coming in for work, she’d watched Mrs. Weathers’ husband drop her off. They drove a dingy little car, and Buffy had heard the woman mention before that her husband was a disabled veteran. The lawyer they’d trusted their savings to had made off with their nest egg and vanished for parts unknown.

Mrs. Weathers worked at the Doublemeat to supplement their income and cared for her injured husband and dying mother each night. Typical low-wage employment sob story, really. But what had really bothered Buffy about the whole scenario was that as tired as the old woman was, as many times as she zoned out by the fry cooker, or watched the counter with glazed eyes…each day when she got out of old man Weathers’ car, he kissed her goodbye, and she smiled. Buffy would see them talking, whispering little things to each other, and they always both smiled. “That’s what kindness is like,” she’d thought this morning as she watched the scene. “It gives you the strength to do things like this and still smile.” The thought that followed was far more serious, and far more terrifying in its implications.

That’s what Spike does for me.





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