Spike jogged slightly to catch up with Buffy, surprised that, for the briefest moment, he actually felt sorry for showing her up in front of the class.
“Summers,” he said, catching her arm, “Pet, I’m sor-”
She span around, and he blanched at the sight of tears on her face.
“Get offa me.” she yelled; landing a stinging slap across his cheek.
Spike let go of her immediately, taking a step back as he reminded himself that he wasn’t really supposed to like her. Just convince her that he did.
He had to force the apology out now.
“Love, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”
His words made her stop, and she stared at him for a long time; trying to read something, anything in his eyes.
“Do you mean it?” she asked, and suddenly she was just as unreadable as he was.
“What?”
“I asked if you meant it.” she replied. Then she couldn’t meet his eyes at all, and she looked down at her feet. “Maybe you’re just trying to trick me into thinking you care, so you can humiliate me in front of your new friends.”
Spike had to admit, he was fairly surprised by the intelligent intuition she’d just shown. But letting her know that she was right wouldn’t help him at all, so he had to persist with his pretending.
“Buffy, love, I do mean it. The last thing I wanted to do was humiliate you.”
She continued to stare at him for a moment. But then, the strangest thing happened.
A small half smile lit her face, and she said,
“Thank you.”
And then she was gone.
______________________________________________
Buffy spent the next few days avoiding Spike, and this didn’t go unnoticed by her two closest friends.
“Any particular reason you turn on your heal every time you see the bleached wonder heading our way?” asked Xander bluntly, and Buffy looked at him with surprise.
“What?” she asked. “I do not!”
“Oh, Buff- you so do.” said Willow helpfully, “Did something happen?”
“No- nothing happened!” she said. But their sceptical looks broke her. “Okay- he was nice to me.”
“Nice to you?” Xander repeated, “Well, call the newspapers Betty, because there’s a storm brewing and I can tell this story is going to knock a few people from their blocks.”
Buffy punched him.
“People who are friends with them, rarely ever waste their time being nice to me.” she said in a knowing voice. “So, yeah; big news.”
“Buff, don’t put yourself down.” Willow said, touching her friend’s shoulder.
“I’m not.” Buffy said, looking back into her eyes. “I’m being realistic.” she shrugged slightly, “It just kinda freaked me out.”
“Maybe he’s not a jerk.” suggested Willow brightly, “It does happen. I mean, just look at Xan.”
“Hey!” cried Xander. Then he scratched his head for a moment, “Or... Thank you?”
Willow giggled.
“Yeah, but Xand took time to become the nice non-jerky guy that he is today.” Buffy argued, offering her now-friend a sheepish grin. “I seem to remember he wasn’t so keen on me this time last year.”
“He didn’t know you then.”
“Point and case.” Buffy said, “He doesn’t know me. So why is he being nice?”
Willow and Xander shared a look.
“Exactly.” Buffy concluded, though she had no idea what they were thinking. “Hence the avoidance.”
_________________________________________________
God, it had been a long day.
Avoiding Spike had completely consumed all of her energy, and having to work the late shift at the Double Meat Palace was really not helping.
She was truly exhausted.
“Hi, welcome to the Double Meat Palace, can I take your order ple...”
Her voice trailed off when she looked up and realised that it was him standing in front of her.
A whole three days of avoiding the jerk and now, here he was, right before her. And he hadn’t even looked up.
“Uh, can I get a quarter pounder chicken burger and large fries, with a medium coke. Cheers.”
His eyes were still focused on the menu in his hands as he checked over the prices, but he glanced up when she didn’t reply.
He blinked three times, before eventually saying, “What are you doing here?”
Buffy wasn’t sure what to say. “What are you doing here?” she countered weakly.
They stared at each other a little longer, and Buffy was suddenly very conscious of the cow on the top of her orange cap.
“You... Work here?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
They stared at each other a little longer, and Spike opened his mouth to speak, before being cut off by a yell from behind the counter.
“Summers get your frickin’ ass back in gear- I am so sick and tired of watching you slack today.”
Buffy flinched, instantly turning away and passing Spike’s order on, before hurrying to fill his drink.
When she turned back to him, her eyes were blank.
“You’re meal will be with you in a moment.” she said. She didn’t say his name. She couldn’t.
“Buffy, I...” he frowned.
He didn’t know why it effected him so much to see her, serving burgers to greasy, middle aged men at eleven o’clock at night.
He didn’t even like her, after all.
“Spike...” she sighed; exasperated, “Please, I asked you not to get invol-”
“I know pet.” he interrupted; suddenly keen to reassure her. “Trust me, not getting involved here.”
She smiled, but her eyes were still empty.
Moments later she was handing him his boxed burger and fries.
“Enjoy your meal Spike.” she murmured.
_______________________________________________
“Hey baby.” Dru said coyly when Spike sat down beside her for his second lesson of English Literature. “How’s your little task going?”
Spike looked over to where Buffy was sitting.
Her hair was glowing slightly from the sunlight shinning through the window. It made him wonder why he hadn’t noticed her in his first English lesson.
Dru’s cold hand on his arm was enough to remind him; when he’d walked into the room on his first day, he’d only had eyes for her.
“Yeah, it’s going okay.” he said. “Definitely making developments.” Then he frowned slightly. “Why didn’t you tell me she works at the Double Meat Palace?”
He looked at Dru when she didn’t answer, and the widening of her eyes made him feel uneasy.
Then the brunette snorted.
“She works in a fast food joint?”
“Oh, no, I mean, I was just...”
“Oh my God,” Drusilla giggled, “This is so huge, just wait till everybody hears about this!”
“Dru, maybe you shouldn’t-”
“Oh I so should!”
Spike felt a wall of guilt hit him as he watched Drusilla scrawl a brief note onto a slip of paper which she promptly passed around the class.
No one knew. Buffy obviously hadn’t wanted anyone to know.
At the end of the hour he waited until the class had emptied, then subtly scooped the scrap of paper up from where it had been dropped by a group of giggling teenagers.
He read it, frowning for perhaps the tenth time that week.
‘Slutty Bitch Whore is working at the DM Palace. So that’s what that pungent odour is. And there I was thinking she had invested in some new Slutty Bitch Whore perfume.’
___________________________________________________
Spike was getting into his car at the end of the next day, when he heard Buffy calling his name.
He grinned to himself; she was seeking him out now? Wouldn’t be long before she was putty in his hands.
He turned around to smile at her, but a fist hit him full in the face; throwing him backwards and making him tumble down onto his backside.
He looked up to glare at the man that had hit him, and found himself staring straight at Buffy.
“Bu-”
“You told them!” she shouted, and there was a wounded kind of rage in her eyes. He already knew exactly what she was talking about. “Why? Why would you do that Spike?”
He tried to feel indifferent as he got back to his feet, but there was a strange guilty sting in his gut.
It made him frown.
“I didn’t realise they didn’t know.” he said truthfully. But he felt she deserved more than that. “I’m sorry Pet.”
“It’s not enough.” she said, shaking her head.
The tears sitting on her cheeks didn’t go unnoticed.
He frowned again. Wasn’t she overreacting just a little bit?
“They were there.” she said, her eyes cast downward, causing the tears to slip down her raw cheeks at a much faster rate. “Dru and her little gang. All of them; last night.”
Spike flinched at this information. Okay, he hadn’t been expecting that.
“Pet...”
She slapped his sympathetic hand away from her shoulder.
“Don’t touch me.” she said. Growled. “Don’t you dare.”
“Buffy,” he tried to reason, “Pet,” he looked around at the faces watching them, “Come on love, you can’t let them see how they’re effecting you. You’re better than all this rot.”
“This rot.” she spat, “Is my life Spike. My life.”
“Come on pet-”
“No!” she slapped his hand away as it reached for her again, “You’re here- and... And you’re screwing things up.” she began to sob, “God, why are you doing this to me? I was fine and I was- I was getting over the bitchy comments and the stares. Why did you have to tell them so they-”
“It doesn’t matter what they say Buffy.” he said, and it sounded so convincingly caring that even he couldn’t tell that he was being insincere. “They can’t hurt you if you don’t let them. You control your life, not them-”
“I got fired.” she said in a cold voice, glaring up at him again with those angry emerald eyes that he had come to know so well. “So I guess they have more control than you think.”
“Well now you have more free time on your hands.” he said, trying to help her see the bright side. “Come on love, it’s not all bad.”
She just stared at him.
“I needed the job.” she said eventually. “That’s why I had it. What am I supposed to do now?”
“I...” he wanted to apologise some more, but an idea stuck him. “My mother.” he said. “She’s just opened an art gallery in town.”
“I don’t need your charity.” she snapped, turning to walk away.
“No- she’s desperately seeking staff.” he said, very convincingly, since it was true. “You’d be doing her a favour if you could help out- really.”
Buffy turned back to face him, and she gazed at him for a very long time.
“And there you go again.” she said.
“What?”
He watched as the tension began to visibly melt from her body.
“Being nice to me.” her head tilted, and her angry tears were already drying on her cheeks. “I just can’t figure why.”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“Seriously? Haven’t we been over this?”
Spike smirked at her half-heartedly.
“Couple’a times.” he agreed. “Doesn’t mean I have to follow your little ‘no cool people talk to Buffy’ rule though, does it.”
His breath caught a little in his throat when she grinned back.
It was the first smile he’d ever seen upon her lips and it managed to immobilize him.
“You think you’re cool?” she teased good-naturedly. “Please. I’ve been there, and last time I checked, leather and Billy Idol were not the order of the day.”
“And I suppose all this-” he waved a hand over her outfit, “-Grunge... Was exactly what the cool kids were looking for?”
“Ha.” she said, a touch of sarcasm in her tone. “And, just so you know, the whole ‘grunge’ thing is kinda new to me. I used to be very... With the pink.”
He smirked, just thinking about it.
“Nah, I don’t see it Summers.”
They shared eye contact for a second longer, then Spike said.
“So I’ll talk to my mum for you,” he said eventually, and their twin smiles seemed like the most natural thing in the world. “Want me to call you?”
Her smile dropped for a moment, but she quickly forced it back onto her face.
“No, it...it’s cool.” she said, a little too brightly. “You can just tell me tomorrow. I sorta liked the idea of a night off, if that’s all...allright.”
Spike furrowed his eyebrows.
“Course it is love.” he said. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow then?”
She smiled at the idea of being friends with this guy. Arranging to talk again.
“Yeah.” she said. And she graced him with that pretty smile once more. “Thank you.” then she looked down, a little timidly. “I’m really sorry about-”
“Hey, you did nothing wrong.” he was quick to assure her. “I’m sorry love.”
She looked back up into his eyes; smiled, then nodded.
“I’ll see you tomorrow then Spike.”
_____________________________________________________
As soon as she was out of sight, Spike felt someone else’s hand on his arm.
“Going well, I see.” Drusilla drawled. “Put a smile back on her dirty little face.”
Spike wanted to shake her hand from his arm, but he remembered quickly that she was supposed to be the one he sided with.
She was the one in the right, after all.
It just seemed like the more time he spent with Buffy, the more the boundaries blurred.
God, he was confused.
“Isn’t it going well?”
“It’s going great.” he said eventually. He frowned as he remembered. “You got her fired last night?”
He turned to look at her, and those dark, fluttering eyelashes didn’t seem to be having their usual effect on him.
“It was immense.” she purred, “You should have seen her face.”
She began to giggle.
Spike just stared at her.
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A/N: Review, oui? Thank you ever so for reading- special big thanks to you guys who have reviewed every chapter; it means so much to me :] The next update will be up very soon, so keep reading.
Love dee x
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