Looking thoroughly rumpled, the two witches, the Slayer, and the vampire made their way down the stairs and out into the overcast day. The two witches were in their pajamas, and the Slayer and Spike appeared to have rolled around in the bed…a lot. Their clothes were wrinkled and Spike’s hair stood straight up. Buffy seemed windblown and her eyes were bloodshot. Heading through the center of town, they looked like a motley group setting off to see the Wizard.
Neither Spike nor Buffy said anything about the kiss that morning, and Buffy was silently glad of it. This whole ordeal with Spike was just too unnerving for her and she couldn’t seem to find her center of late. She felt off, like she was missing something…or more likely, missing someone. Someone in the guise of the complex enigma walking next to her.
She knew Willow had performed a spell, but it was a truth spell…right? And as Willow spells go, it was very minor at the most. Even if it went kablooey, which most of her spells did lately, what could really happen? Cursed to tell the truth forever? Buffy shook her head at that. That would SO not be of the good. Nothing like blurting out, ‘Hi, I’m the Slayer and I’m too tired to complete my homework because I was slaying late last night’ to one of her professors. Giles wouldn’t give her points for subtlety now, much less if that happened.
Thinking of her professor’s lead her to think about Maggie Walsh. She seemed to want Spike with a fanatic’s obsession and it put her on edge. There were only a few classes left in the quarter and she knew she’d have to skip them all. Or…maybe she could infiltrate their little operation, find out what kind of ‘experiments’ they were doing. She looked askance at the group walking with her and wondered how they’d feel about her little plan.
Buffy opened her mouth to speak, forgetting that her voice was silent. She stamped her foot in frustration and balled her fists. The other three, who had moved ahead of her, just turned back and watched her with raised eyebrows. Buffy swung out her arms, pleading with them for something unknown, until her eyes lit up and she pointed at Spike.
‘Tell them we can talk with our thoughts!’ she thought excitedly, as she tapped the side of her head and then pointed at Spike’s.
Spike raised one eyebrow. ‘Exactly how would you like me to tell them, pet? Don’t have a bleedin note pad handy.’
Buffy’s excitement died and she waved her hand in a signal that meant ‘never mind’ as she shrugged and continued walking with the group. Spike could feel her dejection and he wished he could help, but at this point, he was as helpless against this thing as she was.
They passed all sorts of people on the streets with the same affliction. Some wannabe street prophet warning about the end of the world made her smirk. If the people of Sunnydale only had a clue as to how many times that ALMOST happened, they’d be leaving in droves.
Tara spied something and tugged on Willow’s sleeve, pointing to a man that was selling dry-erase boards for $10. Willow frowned at the high mark-up price, but it looked like they were selling like hotcakes, so she shrugged and followed Tara over to purchase one.
‘Red’s wandered off, pet,’ Spike warned Buffy as she was watching a shady looking character eyeing the jewelry storefront.
‘Hmm? Oh…hey! Look! Let’s get one!’ Buffy squealed in her mind as she ran over to where Willow and Tara were haggling with the sidewalk vendor.
Spike followed and realized he was the only one that had any money on him. The two witches hadn’t brought their purses and Buffy was without her gear. That left him and what was left of the rolled up dosh in his boot. He sighed to himself and watched as the man tried to mark up the price even more when he thought it was just the females. Stupid human.
The man mouthed ‘$20’ at the girls and ignored their looks of indignation and disgust. In the mean time, a male customer came along and plunked a $10 bill in the man’s hand and walked away with a board and marker. Buffy wanted to scream in outrage at the man’s blatant sexism, but was cut short when Spike appeared behind her.
Spike stared at the man with menace and slipped into his game face, baring his fangs. He feinted a lunge and the man ran in the other direction, silently screaming. The three girls turned slowly to look at him and he shrugged his shoulders in a ‘What?’ gesture.
Buffy smiled and shook her head as she and the girls grabbed the now ‘free’ boards. ‘You’re incorrigible!’ she mused.
Spike smiled unrepentantly. ‘As the day is long, pet…as the day is long.’
Willow and Tara began using their boards as soon as they uncapped the markers. “Thanks Spike!” they both wrote, Willow adding a smiley face to hers.
Spike just winked at them, watching them blush. ‘Think we should grab one for the Watcher and Whelp?’ Spike asked Buffy.
‘Oh yeah! And Anya too!’ Buffy thought as she grabbed three more boards.
They started on their way again, Willow writing furiously on her board as they walked. “We’re off to see the Watcher! The wonderful Watcher of …” and then she capped her pen with a sad look.
Tara touched her shoulder in concern and frowned at Willow’s words. “I just miss Oz,” she wrote, but not feeling the deep despair she once felt. Maybe Buffy was right…you just need time to get through the pain.
Tara just patted her shoulder and nodded. “It’ll be ok,” she wrote with an encouraging smile.
‘We should probably agree to not talk this way unless it’s absolutely necessary,’ Buffy sent the thought to Spike. ‘I think it would wig everyone out.’
Spike nodded sagely. ‘Not a problem, luv. Got me a board, know how to write.’
‘Who knew William the Bloody could write?’ she teased.
Spike grimaced. If she only knew why he was called William the Bloody…she’d hit it closer to the mark than she thought.
The Watcher’s flat soon came into view and they entered without knocking, as usual. Giles looked up from his textbook in relief and Xander got up from the couch to hug Willow and Buffy. Spike and Tara stood off to the side in uncomfortable silence until Xander approached Spike with his hand outstretched. Spike looked at it in confusion, but tentatively grabbed the Whelp’s hand and shook it heartily.
Xander smiled and slapped Spike on the arm and moved to Tara, looking to Spike for an introduction. “Red’s friend, another witch…Tara,” he wrote on his dry-erase board. He then handed two of the boards to Xander and mouthed, ‘For you and Anya.’
Xander nodded a welcome to Tara and thanks to Spike, moving back to Anya on the couch. Spike was so thrown by the whole thing; he looked at Tara for guidance. She raised her eyebrows and shrugged her shoulders. Things like this didn’t happen to her either, apparently.
Giles had hugged both Willow and Buffy by now and moved to Spike and Tara in the corner. He gently hugged a blushing Tara and nodded at Spike. Spike nodded back and handed him his own board. “What’s going on?” Spike wrote and showed it to Giles.
Giles started writing, but was soon interrupted by Xander snapping his fingers, motioning towards the T.V. A newscaster from a neighboring city was reporting on the situation in Sunnydale, and everyone crowded around the small set to listen.
“Big news item from Sunnydale, California. Apparently, the entire town has been quarantined due to an epidemic of, as strange at this may sound, Laryngitis! It seems the town has been rendered unable to speak and there's no word yet on what might have caused this or what other effects might be seen from this epidemic. Local authorities have issued a statement, a written statement, I should say, blaming recent flu vaccinations. A few skeptics call it a citywide hoax. In the meanwhile, Sunnydale has effectively shut down all schools and businesses will be closed for the time being. Residents are advised to stay home and rest up. Centers for disease control have ordered the entire town quarantined. No one can go in or out until the syndrome is identified or the symptoms disappear. We'll bring you more on that as it develops.”
“Laryngitis my arse!” Spike wrote on his board and tapped it for everyone to look.
Everyone’s eyebrows rose and hoped he’d continue. Getting nothing from his audience, Spike furiously started writing on his board. “This is evil, whatever it is!”
‘How do you know?’ Xander mouthed.
Spike scrubbed away his previous statement and started writing again. “Cause you bloody whelp, evil knows evil!” he huffed as he wrote.
“Oh yeah, like you’re soooo evil now,” Buffy wrote and rolled her eyes sarcastically.
Spike tried to growl, he really did. “You bossy chit, you don’t know everything!” he wrote and shoved it in her face.
“I know enough that you’re becoming crazier than a shit-house rat!” Buffy scribbled quickly and took no notices of the gasps of astonishment from the group at her language.
“Well if your soddin Teutonic boy toy hadn’t shoved this piece of hardware in my noggin, we wouldn’t be worrying about this, would we?” Spike wrote, panting with pent up anger and almost running out of room on the board.
“ASSHOLE!”
“FRIGID BITCH!”
Buffy’s eyes widened at his last written statement. “Limey Bastard!” she countered.
That was it, the final breaking point for both of them. They both threw their message boards to the side of the room and ran into each other’s arms, locking their lips as if the others in the room didn’t exist. Buffy wrapped her arms around Spike’s head and hefted herself up, curling her legs around his waist. Spike grabbed her tight bum and pressed himself into her.
Everyone else just stood there with his or her mouth gaping open. Xander finally closed his and pointed an accusing finger at Willow. ‘You did this to them!’ he mouthed in an attempt to explain why his best friend was now lip locked with Dead Boy Jr.
‘Me?’ Willow pointed at herself and shook her head in the negative. She then started writing on her board. “I haven’t done any spells!”
Just because Xander was starting to really like Spike’s company did NOT mean he wanted Buffy playing tonsil hockey with him! “Fix them!” he wrote, pleading with his eyes.
“There’s nothing to fix!” Tara wrote in support of her friend.
Giles became fed up with the childish bickering and physically separated Buffy and Spike himself. Both of them came apart, flushed with eyes glazed over. They moved to join again and Giles decked Spike without thinking. Spike grabbed his head and screamed silently as he fell to the floor, Buffy trying desperately to comfort him, but being held back by Giles.
Reality of the situation finally hit Buffy and she stopped struggling against Giles. She had just totally made out with Spike in front of everyone! A blush of mortification spread across her face and she looked at Giles apologetically. ‘Sorry,’ she mouthed. Giles nodded and released her to help Spike up from the floor.
Spike was on his hands and knees as he tried to stop the wave of dizziness that threatened to engulf him. He watched as a pair of sneakered feet came into view and then he felt hands on him, patting his back in comfort. He raised his head in anger and glared at the Slayer. ‘Get away,’ he sent the hurtful thought to her.
Stunned by the vehemence in Spike, she slowly removed her hand from his back and stood up. Spike grasped the wall and pushed his body to a standing position, glowering at the Slayer and her Watcher. Trying once more to comfort him, Buffy moved towards him, but stopped when he took several steps back. Tears gathered in her eyes and she nodded in agreement to leave him alone.
Tara felt compelled to help in some way, so she inched slowly over to Spike and gently patted his arm. He looked down at the shy, unassuming girl and grimaced a smile, as she started writing something on her board. “Need to sleep?”
Spike’s eyes widened slightly and he nodded. “You can go back to my dorm room, if you want,” she wrote and smiled hesitantly.
Spike started looking at the new bird in a different light. Here was a total stranger and she treated him better than this lot ever did, even knowing what he was. Bird had class. “You’re good people Glinda, don’t let anyone ever tell you different,” he wrote and handed her his board. The action was not missed on Buffy.
Tara blushed ten shades of red and ducked her head. Willow put her hand on her shoulder and squeezed lightly to bring her back to the group, watching as Spike started to stumble again.
“What’s wrong with him?” Anya wrote on her board, finally piping up.
Buffy scowled at her thoughts of Riley and his ‘Initiative.’ “Chip in Spike’s head is going haywire. Causing mental damage,” she wrote and showed it to the group, trying to explain why Spike was now bleeding once more from his nose while his eyes rolled back into his head.
‘Oh goddess!’ Willow mouthed as Spike completely collapsed to the floor unconscious. She ran to him and propped his head on her lap as she murmured to stop the bleeding again. But nothing happened and Willow cursed, forgetting that she couldn’t chant anything because of the silence. Instead, she laid her cool palms on each side of his head and closed her eyes, trying to see what was going on in his head.
Concentrating, Willow allowed herself to relax to the point of almost becoming one with Spike and she exhaled heavily. Images of times past assaulted her without stop and she felt like she was being pummeled. She frowned and tried to find the cause of the malfunction, grimacing at what she found. Apparently, the device was to be attached to the hypothalamus, but it had come lose and traveled through his poor brain and wrapped itself around Spike’s cerebral cortex, affecting his centers of thought and memory as well as basic instincts such as survival and hunger.
Fearing to tread too far into his memories, Willow backed off and searched in a different area. She suddenly came across a peaceful section and was surprised to find many memories of Buffy hidden there. Filing it away for later discussion, she searched until she was bombarded with words that at first didn’t make sense, listening closely so she could repeat them later. A few moments later, she was abruptly shut out of Spike’s mind as he woke up in a haze.
He groggily opened his eyes and looked at Willow. ‘Hey Red,’ he mouthed.
She smiled at him and gently patted his cheek. ‘Hey you.’ She lifted him gingerly and laid his head on a pillow as she stood and went to Giles’ desk, grabbing a pen and some paper.
Everyone but Buffy crowded around Willow, looking over what she was writing. Buffy edged over to Spike’s prone body and knelt down beside him. He tried to scoot away but she reached out and grasped his hand tightly. He looked at her blankly until she started to caress his palm softly, tears gathering once again in her eyes. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered.
The hurt he had felt at her betrayal instantly melted and he returned her grasp. ‘S’ok pet, I know ole Rupes didn’t appreciate the snogfest,’ he thought to her, smirking.
She smiled wistfully and traced his eyebrows in a feather light touch. ‘You’re so bad.’
‘’Bout time you realized that, pet,’ Spike agreed with her silently.
An incessant tapping brought their attention back to Willow who was pointing at her message board. “I found something!” her board said.
Buffy helped Spike to a standing position and over to the desk as they all looked at what Willow had written.
“Can't even shout
Can't even cry
The Gentlemen are coming by
Looking in windows
Knocking on doors
They need to take seven
And they might take yours
Can't call to mom
Can't say a word
You're gonna die screaming but you won't be heard.”
Buffy frowned in recognition. “Spike said that earlier!” she wrote on Xander’s board as she had forgotten where hers had landed.
“Never heard of the Gentlemen,” Anya wrote on Xander’s board, having taken it from Buffy.
Unfortunately, the board was still hanging around Xander’s neck, and the cord it was attached to was starting to chafe as the girls tugged on it. He pulled it out of their hands and hugged it to his chest, daring anyone to take it from him.
Giles started writing furiously and then tapped on his board, pointing at everyone in the group. They all looked at his message and groaned, rolling their eyes.
“RESEARCH!”
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Thanks for all your reviews, you guys are sooooo awesome! *Direct quotes from the episode Hush.* Just FYI, I'm not dealing with Adam in this fic...this story is complicated enough without him. But don't worry, there will be plenty of action with regards to the Commandos. Just wait till we get to the presentation on the over head!