[Reviews - 828]
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Microsoft Word Chapter or Story | ePub eBook Chapter or Story | Printer Chapter or Story

Has been viewed 4243 times

- Text Size +




Author's Chapter Notes:
here's hoping this doesn't suck!
Everything had been quiet for about a week. Not that Spike suspected a huge fallout. Murderers, or well, criminals in general didn’t work like that. They took their time, planned and plotted just right. Some did anyway. The seasoned ones that watched other criminals blunder and get caught time and again studied what not to do and then carefully made it a point to do everything. Just. Right.

Stalkers were sort of the same way. Though they had an impatience and impetuousness about them that prevented their carefully laid plans from coming through. Their desire to get to the ‘prize’ took over all else, especially when they thought the object of their desire might fall into someone else’s graces.

Spike was actually surprised he and Buffy had not been disrupted by Finn. Well, they’d been disrupted all right, on a daily basis –oftentimes more than twice—but it was not to the caliber that Spike figured it would be. He made no threats to him, made no comments, he came to talk to Buffy about trivial things like watering the lawn, and that was it. Spike was begging for it: the reaction of a jealous stalker about to go to bat for what he considered to be his property. If not for the fact that he could get Finn kicked off the case, out of the precinct and out of Sunnydale, but then maybe he could then start to cash in on his new theory of Riley Finn the Murderer.

He wasn’t sure when it started to creep into his twisted mind that it was a possibility. Perhaps it had always kind of been there, kind of in the back of his mind, more as a musing of “I could so see that guy offing someone”, rather than based on actual fact.

But then small little facts started to build in his mind. He liked to think of his mind as a filing system that connected the dots at random. He filed away that a) Finn had such an obvious crush on Buffy b) she got hurt while he was with her c) Faith had disclosed he was up to no good with the thugs in the area, d) because of possible dealings with said thugs, it was entirely possible that was how Finn was able to pay for the incredibly expensive and highly inappropriate necklace e) Finn was nothing if not incredibly bothered by just the idea that Buffy might be involved with him and f) Finn knew what kind of sub Buffy liked. He wasn’t about to toss that factoid off with a shrug and mark it as him just ‘noticing the little things’. Then there was his overt kindness to Buffy – over fucking watering the lawn-- and his complete indifference to Spike to the point of just completely ignoring him.

Buffy thought he was a nutter. One day he’d offhandedly mentioned to Buffy his theory, just to give it wings and see how it’d fly. It hadn’t. It fell to the floor with a dead thud. She’d laughed at him. Waved her hand at him, dismissing the notion.

Spike was not so quick to dismiss it and, he found, that once the idea took form and became such a definite possibility, it wouldn’t let go. It took hold of him. The problem was he didn’t know how to prove it without raising suspicion. Finn was such a kiss ass and the ‘favorite’ down at the precinct that if he so much as brought up the idea as offhanded as he had to Buffy, he would be told that he was causing trouble because he was jealous. They would balk at him the way Buffy had. And the thing was, he had no concrete proof. All he had were hunches and little things that didn’t amount to much of anything. You couldn’t go pointing fingers, chanting “murderer, murderer, murderer” on nothing more than a few hunches. That sort of thing just didn’t fly.

So, things were quiet. Easy. Mundane, even. He and Buffy fell into a routine and normally something like that was cause for Spike to feel antsy and jumpy; anxious with the thought that this was so much like a relationship, but this time, he didn’t care. And why should he? It was Buffy he was with. It was Buffy he was helplessly in love with. She was the sun in the center of his universe and she was all he needed. She was the epitome of all that was good that he thought was lost in the world. Being close to her brought humanity back into him and made him believe in the humanity of others.

Yet, she had no clue, no real clue anyway, what she did for him.

Like at that moment for example, she was curled up on the couch, half naked and engrossed in a movie and he, pussy-whipped as he was and for once willingly, he was making her a ham sandwich because she claimed he “made them the best”. Angel was out with his girl, and the two had taken advantage of having the house to themselves to fornicate in every room and on every surface they could find. Buffy was quite the insatiable lover and oh boy, he loved it. Her hunger matched his and he was finding more and more that they matched in most everything.

She really was made for him.

Whistling as he spurted the mustard on her sandwich, something small and red caught his eye. On him. On his bare chest. It took but a second for it to register, it would have been sad if it hadn’t considering his line of work.

Infra red dot right on his bare chest meant one thing—

Hitting the floor just a scant second before the glass shattered in the kitchen window Spike watched the bullet that was meant for him go clear across the room and into the wall behind him. He rolled onto his back, heedless of the glass cutting his back.

The Murderer.

Buffy came bounding into the room, having to have felt the impact of the bullet go through the glass and the wall, and of him hitting the floor.

She screamed his name and was on her knees in an instant, kneeling beside him, trembling, her eyes wide with horror and fear. “Are you all right? Are you hurt?”

He looked up at her and rolled up to his knees. He was all right despite the glass on his back, and now she was hurt, the glass on her knees, cutting into them and causing her to bleed. That bastard is going down. She was unaware of the glass shards digging in her skin though, and the idea that she loved him that much filled him with a sense of pride that he’d never known. It also made him want to take down the bastard and save the day. For her, and for them.

“Look at me, luv. Listen carefully okay?”

She nodded, and he could see that shock was setting in. Her pupils were dilating.

“Go down to the garage, okay? Crawl there. Do not get up.Get in one of the cars and lie down on the floor. Do. Not. Move. You got me?”

She nodded slowly.

He shook her, her body putty in his hands, and not in the good way. “Buffy, you have to pay attention! Don’t leave me here, luv.”

She gulped and nodded, and he pushed her in the direction of the door. She stopped and turned. “Spike, I don’t want to--”

“Go!”

“—leave you.”

“Buffy, I’m going to be fine, luv. Just go, baby please?”

“Okay,” her bottom lip trembled and her eyes welled up in tears. “I love you.”

Meeting her eyes, he said it. The words. “I love you too.”

“Spike,” she sobbed.

“Go!”

She went, crying the whole way, leaving a trail of blood from her cut up knees.

Crawling to the hallway, Spike shot up and ran up to his room, the room he’d abandoned for hers, and threw on the bullet proof vest he took with him after her incident at the club (one never knew when something like this would occur in the midst of a case such as this), and grabbed his gun, cocking it.

Running down the stairs at top speed, Spike turned the corner and came face to face with a man in a ski mask, dressed all in black.





You must login (register) to review.