As much as she would like to tell herself that her distraction came from thinking over what happened the last two times she and Spike met, she couldn’t. Not fully, anyways.
In the gap that Angelus’ odd disappearance made, another badie sprang up in his wake. As much as she relished the reprieve from her more than gloomy thoughts and her morbid disappointment that Evil Angel was dead, she wanted time to think about Spike. Him, and the strange desire and unnamed emotion that ran unchecked across his eyes when he wasn’t thinking, and her responsive reciprocation.
She would have liked being able to think about him, a lot more than taking out that badie. The lack of surprise at that desire was more shocking. But with everything that had gone on, she’d only been able to relive snatches of their embraces.
Walking up the front porch of her house, she unlocked the door and went in. There were the pleasant sounds of home coming from the kitchen and she was able to breath.
“Mom, I’m home,” she called as she put her keys back in her coat.
“Hi honey.” Joyce came out of the kitchen. “How was your day?”
“Long. We had a test I didn’t know about and our gym teacher wants to make us sweat to death.” She smiled as her mother chuckled. “How about you?”
“I had an interesting day. A young man came by this evening looking for you.” Joyce raised her eyebrows. “He seemed very disappointed when I told him you weren’t home.”
Buffy frowned. “Did you invite him in?”
“Yes, but he didn’t want to. He just shook his head and left.”
“Did he have white blonde hair and wear a long leather coat?”
“Yes.” Joyce said. “Do you know him?”
Buffy nodded. “You could say that.” She pointed up the stairs. “I’m going to bed.”
“I hope it wasn’t life or death,” Joyce murmured.
Her sentiment exactly.
“Good night, sweetie.”
“Night, mom.”
Spike could be very unpredictable; and that was on his good days. But if she went by his past behavior, her death might just be what he was after, which clashed with the way things were shaping up between them. As much as her being attracted to him oddly didn’t bother her, she didn’t want to end up dead because she forgot who she was getting involved with.
She was halfway to her bed when she saw a note tapped to the outside of her window. Throwing her bag and jacket on her bed as she passed, she strode over. In a slanting, sharp cursive, Slayer was scrolled across the front of an envelope. An envelope that went with a stationary set her mother had given her.
Frowning at the mocking scrap of paper, she wrenched the window open just enough to get her arm out and reach the letter. Snatching it off the glass, she pulled it inside.
The note was concise and not a little presumptuous: Slayer, meet me tomorrow night at that mausoleum.
He hadn’t even signed it, the cocky bastard.
She wasn’t coming.
Or that’s what Spike kept telling the anticipation flaring in his chest every time he heard even the smallest of sounds. It was well past midnight, and she hadn’t come yet.
Why did he keep torturing himself? Because he was a glutton for punishment, that’s why. He should just leave Sunnydale and wait for the next slayer so he could go back to his old routine. He was crazy. That’s it…
His vampire instincts had him turning around, alerting him to her presence before he even saw her. It had been the same with the other slayers, but it gave his instincts a thrill, maybe it was her and that odd sensation… He cut that thought off.
“What took you so long?”
“I didn’t realize I could be late when you didn’t specify a time.” The slayer came around the corner of the tomb. “Besides, I had to wait for my mom to go to sleep and then I had to patrol.”
When she spoke of her mum, the knowledge and annoyance of what he’d done shone in her eyes. But as silence settled between them and she studied him, the light in her eyes became uncertain. Curious.
“You do remember that I’m the slayer, right?” A cute, little frown gathered between her delicate eyebrows.
“Not likely to forget that anytime soon. Love.”
She growled at him. Again. His stomach clenched and he couldn’t help but smile a satisfied grin.
“Do you realize the shit storm I’m going to receive?”
“You? But you’re a vampire.” She frowned harder.
He tired not to roll his eyes and almost failed. “We are talking about the same thing here, aren’t we?” He didn’t want to say it straight out but for the sake of clarity and getting this over with sooner than later appealed greatly to him.
She pursed her lips and looked over at the spot where they’d first kiss. He didn’t follow her gaze. The place was perfectly, torturously etched into his brain. She glanced fleetingly at his face but too quickly for him to read anything meaningful in her eyes. Then without looking directly at him, she gestured between them.
“You. Me.” She swallowed. “Possibilities.”
“Yes.” The gruff word had her glancing at him.
Looking away, he cleared his throat.
What had his point been? Turning away from her, he rubbed the back of his neck to buy some time. She was looking at him; he could feel her gaze as if the sun were blazing down on him. It was damnedly distracting.
Right. Consequences. For her as the slayer and him as the vampire—and them together, against the demon world and her pals, no less.
Swirling around, he dropped his arms to his sides. “If we do…”
She gave him an impatient hand gesture.
“Right.” He gave the term neither of them seemed to say a gesture as well. “And that gets out, in the demon world, I’ll be considered a betrayer. You think you got it bad now? We’ll both be marked.”
The idea hadn’t come to her but she was thinking about it now. Good.
“Are you willing to risk it?”
The question made his eyes widen in surprise—it was something he was about to bring up.
“I don’t know.” He met her eyes, steadied hers with his direct, willing, open expression. “I don’t know what’s going on here.” But he was willing to find out.
She was nodding. She was still looking him in the eyes, studying him. If he wasn’t off his mark, she was taking him in. Maybe for the first time.
“You know,” he started as he began to move toward her. “You’re mum is a right nice bird when she isn’t toting an axe.”
“You weren’t trying to kill her daughter.” She gave him a rueful smile.
“True.” He’d expected her to take a step back, but even as he stopped inches from her, she stood her ground and tilted her head back to look up at him.
“Don’t that beg the question why didn’t she recognize me?”
“Like most people in town, I think she unconsciously explains it away.” Her eyes were searching his face. She settled for studying his lips.
He swayed toward, even dipped his head. The compulsion to kiss her, pull her close and feel her the way he had in the school after the ghosts had left was almost overwhelming. He could understand Angel’s problem of not touching her—it was near impossible not to.
He straightened. “I’m not Angel.”
Her eyes shot to his in a flash and narrowed. “No. You’re not. If he was still around, I wouldn’t be here.”
Neither would he, he realized. He didn’t like that—for either of them.
“All I meant was I don’t fancy being taken as a replacement,” he said, fully understanding. Too many things would be different if Peaches had kept his bloody hands off the slayer. Did he intentionally put a possessive spin on that?
“You’re both vampires. Not clones.” She broke eye contact in favor of his chest. “Besides, I think if he’d known … he would have left. Before.”
He wondered if she knew how astute that was.
Buffy had to catch her head before it dropped to the table. Again. She was staying out too late. The last two nights, she hadn’t gotten in until almost three.
“Do you realize that in the last week alone, paranormal activity has dropped?” Giles addressed the group around the library table at large—while reading from one of his giant tomes and walking to them from his office.
Buffy shook her head. Maybe if she were that coordinated with her schoolwork, she would get more of it turned in. Or get home earlier. Actually, it was due to Spike. Both her inability to study and the drop in demon activity.
“Buffy!” Giles sharp voice cut across her thoughts.
She brought her head up to fast and pulled something in her neck. Grimacing, she reached up and rubbed at the throbbing muscle.
“What?”
“Have you noticed?”
From his voice alone, she got the impression that wasn’t the first time he’d asked. That and Willow, Xander and Cordelia were looking at her.
“No.”
“You haven’t? Do you not patrol?”
“I patrol. But everything seems normal to me.” Actually, the load had gotten heavier in just last two nights a lone. Spike hadn’t been kidding about them being marked—she was shocked at how quickly news spread in the demon world.
Spike had given her another surprise. She had thought she was going to have a fight on her hands about him and his role in this demon war they were bringing down on their heads. But he had been more than willing to help out. His zeal for fighting, when not directed at her, was kind of cute.
Ooh, she just thought of something to tease him about.
“Have to get my kicks in somehow.” He’d said when she asked him. “Besides, knew you wouldn’t want me going around terrorizing the human population.”
Did that mean he didn’t feed on them either? She hadn’t had the nerve or the energy to ask that night. They seemed to be taking things as they came. If it became a major issue, she’d deal with it then.
“Maybe I have been doing more than we thought?” Lame as it was, she couldn’t think of anything else.
“I had wondered if it had anything to do with Angelus, Drusilla and Spike’s sudden disappearance.”
There was that, and she had nothing to say to that. She still couldn’t tell them that Angel was dead. And why was she taking the word of her former archenemy? She had nothing to say to that either.
“Have you been to the mansion to see if there has been any activity there?”
“What?” She looked up from zoning. “No, I haven’t.”
“Not that I’m complaining, but isn’t it strange that they just stopped coming around?” Xander said, looking up from a rather large tome. “I mean, didn’t you see Evil Dead Boy at least once a week?” He turned his gaze to Buffy, drawing everyone else’s attention to her.
“I guess? I don’t know.” When everyone continued to stare at her, she started packing up her school things. “It didn’t rate up there with things to keep track of, ok?” Swinging her backpack onto her shoulder, she looked up. “I have to go on patrol. I’ll check out the mansion while I’m out.”
Giles watched as the library doors swung shut after Buffy’s hurried departure. She had been distant of late, since just before the Grace/James trouble.
“What’s with the worried?”
He looked down to his left to find Willow looking up at him. “Pardon?”
“You looked all concerned.” She gestured to the doors.
“Have you noticed anything, I don’t know, odd about Buffy’s behavior of late?”
“No. She was a little side tracked with that whole James/Grace ghost thingy.” Willow waved her hand. “Mainly, I think, because some aspect of it reminded her of her relationship with Angel.” Looking over her shoulder, she said, “What do you think, Xan?”
Without looking up from his tome, he said, “Same kind of Buffage as usual.”
“See?” Willow turned to Giles. “No worries.”
He nodded absently. He wasn’t so sure.