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Chapter Two

Finding Giles heading for bed, Buffy filled him in quickly on the evening’s activities, looking at Spike for permission before sharing what they’d learned about his ability to kill other vampires. Giles frowned, then nodded. “That makes sense, I suppose, given that all they needed was for you to be safe for them to be around. So, you can kill vampires, but not hurt humans...” He stared at Spike for a long moment. “Not quite a soul, but it could make you an asset to Buffy as she goes about her duties.”

“Don’t need a bloody soul for that,” he snarled. “I’m not Angelus. I control my demon, it doesn’t control me. ‘s why I’m still walking around. The younger vamps they tried the chip on fried their brains trying to bite. Didn’t have enough sense or enough control not to keep trying.”

He looked at Buffy and back at Giles. “It didn’t take me long to figure out what was going on once I tried to bite Red and couldn’t do it. Didn’t know it at first, but when I thought back to what I’d seen and heard in that place, I knew what they’d done to me. Just didn’t know it only applied to humans.” He glanced over at Buffy, who was staring at him with a bemused look on her face. “Reckon if I want my spot of violence every night, it’s going to have to be at the expense of other demons.”

“Does that mean you’re going to help her?” Giles came back to his original suggestion.

“Need to think about it, don’t I? It’s not like I can just jump from killin’ slayers to helping one, just like that. Got my reputation to think about...” His voiced trailed off as he caught Buffy’s raised eyebrow and the amusement on her face. “I’ll think it over,” he mumbled as he turned away.

Giles frowned as he looked back and forth between them, sure he was missing something. But Buffy’s casual air as she watched Spike get some blood from the fridge didn’t indicate a problem, so he went to bed with instructions to “make sure the vampire is safely contained.”

xxxxxxxxxxx

Buffy waited until Spike came out with a mug of warm blood in his hand, then gestured to the bathroom.

“Do you mind drinking that in there? I really need to get some sleep tonight....”

His eyes flashed amber for a second, then he gave a resigned sigh and nodded. “Whatever you want, pet. Not got a lot of choice, do I? Watcher isn’t going to take my word I’ll stay here, and don’t want you to sit up all night vamp-sitting me.”

He followed Buffy back to the bathroom, sighing again as he stared at the tub and the chains waiting there.

“Do you want.... should I get you a pillow or ... something?” She flushed and avoided meeting his surprised gaze. “I mean, it can’t be very comfortable in there....”

“It isn’t,” he said. Without elaborating, he stepped into the tub, sat down, and held up his hands for the manacles. Buffy bit her lip, but knelt beside the tub and locked the hand restraints around his wrists.

“I’m... I’m sorry, Spike. I think I... I’d probably trust you if you promised not to try to leave, but Giles....” She finally looked up at him. “It’s his house, and I can’t make a decision like that for him.”

“Don’t worry about it, pet.” He smiled at her, his expression softer than she’d ever seen it, even when they were engaged. “I’ll suck up to Rupert tomorrow and see if I can convince him I can be trusted.” When Buffy snorted her disbelief, he laughed and held up his feet for their restraints. “You’ll see, Slayer. I can be very charming when I need to be.”

“Could have fooled me,” she muttered as she fastened his wrists and ankles to the pipes.

“You didn’t think I was charming when we were engaged? I’m hurt, pet.”

“That was different,” she said. “And we agreed not to talk about it any more!”

“Did. Sorry. I forgot it wasn’t a fond memory for you.”

Something in his tone of voice brought her eyes to his face. What she saw there made her squeeze her own eyes closed before she spoke.

“Spike... I don’t... I can’t... It was a spell! It wasn’t... us, it was just the spell making us feel like that. We should be over it. We have to be over it!” Her lip came out in a small pout.

His eyes focused on her mouth, he leaned forward whispering, “ ‘Don’t, can’t, should be...’ none of those things mean we are over it. ” He brushed his lips over hers before she could move her face away. “An’ I don’t think I want to be....” When she didn’t pull back, he pulled her lower lip into his mouth and bit down gently before turning it into a real kiss.

A kiss that lasted until, with a small whimper in the back of her throat, Buffy pulled away and sank down on her heels, resting her head against the cool porcelain on the side of the tub. The metal chains rattled as Spike rested one hand on her head, stroking it softly.

“This is sooooo wrong,” she whimpered.

“Didn’t feel wrong to me,” he rumbled in her ear. “Felt bloody good. Felt good to you, too, didn’t it?”

“That’s beside the point! And stop petting me!” In spite of her words, she didn’t move away, only turning her head to glare up at him. He smiled back and continued to run his fingers through her hair.

“Make me.”

With a sigh, Buffy sat up, slowly enough not to be flinging herself away, but leaving no room for confusion as to what she was doing. She slid backwards and leaned against the wall, tipping her head back and shutting her eyes.

“Refusing to look at me isn’t going to make it go away, pet,” Spike said as he slumped into the tub.

Buffy opened her eyes and met his gaze. “You have no idea how good I am at denial, Spike. No idea at all.” She got to her feet with a sigh and walked to the door. “I’ll be back tomorrow night to check on how charming you’ve been.” Without looking back, she left the bathroom and the apartment.


xxxxxxx

When Buffy arrived at Giles’s the following night, she found him sitting across the table from Spike, both with glasses of something she was pretty sure she wouldn’t like, her watcher with an open Watcher’s Diary and a pad of legal paper.

“So, you’re saying that in...” he consulted his notes, then looked at a page in the journal, “...1923, you fought a slayer in Poland and may have killed her?”

Spike nodded. “Sounds about right. I know the worst of the flu epidemic and the war was over, but it was still a time of scarcity over there.” He peered at where Giles was holding his finger on an entry in the journal in front of him, trying to read it upside down. “Did she die?”

“Yes,” Giles ground out, “she did. Congratulations, Spike, you’ve got one more to your credit than you knew about.” He took a long drink from his glass and glared at the vampire, now trying to appear innocent and harmless but failing miserable as he added a nameless Polish slayer to his tally of slayers fought and defeated. The tension in the room ratcheted up as Buffy approached the table and stared back and forth between the two men.

“Um, Spike? Giles doesn’t look all that charmed to me.”

“Jus’ a temporary glitch, luv.”

“I fail to see how you expect Buffy’s finding out you’ve killed another slayer will be a ‘glitch’. More likely, she will see it as good reason to put you out of our misery.”

“So, I take it this isn’t going well? And what does he mean you killed another slayer? Did you run into Faith somewhere?” She glanced at Giles. “And I’m not sure I’d see that as a staking offense, Giles. Just so you know....”

“He means, that a slayer I fought eighty years ago died later that night. And what’s a ‘Faith’?”

“Oh.” Buffy’s shoulders slumped. “Then you’ve killed three slayers, not two?”

To her astonishment, Spike looked almost apologetic as he answered her. “It’s what I did, luv. Wanted to fight the best, so I sought them out. Didn’t always win... barely made it away with all my parts intact at least one time, but—” He sighed. “Can’t say I’m not having second thoughts about it now that I know you better, but it’s what we are, luv. You kill my kind, I kill... used to kill... yours.”

“And if it weren’t for that chip in your head, you would still be trying to make Buffy your fourth.” Giles glared across the table at Spike. “And you want me to let her trust you?”

“Trusted you, didn’t she? How’d that go for her when you sent her off with no warning, no strength, and no weapons to tangle with Kralik? D’you think I wouldn’t hear about that?” Spike snarled and met Giles glare for glare. The staring contest continued with neither one backing down until Buffy slammed a stake down on the table, causing them both to flinch.

“Buffy is perfectly able to make her own decisions about who to trust. And neither one of you is a shining example of it, so get over yourselves!”

“Buffy... surely you don’t trust him not to turn on you? Have I taught you nothing?”

Buffy stared at the man who had not known he was sending her to her probably death, but had made it a possibility anyway.

“You taught me that people can say they love you, and still lie to you and set you up to be killed—” She raised a hand when Giles tried to object. “Yeah, yeah, I know you didn’t know you were sending me against something that dangerous. But you didn’t know you weren’t. And you did drug me so I wouldn’t be able to fight back. So, yeah, Spike’s a stone cold killer. But he’s never lied to me. The times he’s given me his word, he’s kept it. So which one of you do you think I’m better off trusting?”

Before the vampire on the other side of her could begin to crow, she whirled on him. “You know and I know that the only reason you’ve had time to get to know me better is because of that chip. Without it, you were even willing to use a cheater magic ring to kill me. So get off your high horse and be nicer to Giles.” She put her hand on her hips and glared at him. “And give me your word that you won’t try to run away or get minions to kill for you so we can stop tying you up and Giles can have his bathroom back.”

“I promise,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry, Slayer.”

While Giles gaped at him, Buffy gave a nod of approval and took her stake off the table.

“Okay then. What were you guys doing when I came in?”

There was an uncomfortable silence before Giles emptied his glass and set it down with a small thud. He tapped the journal in front of him and said, “Spike has been filling in some blanks in the Council’s records from earlier this century.” He shot Spike a quick glance, then cleared his throat. “He has actually been quite helpful.”

“Well, are you through picking his brain for the night? Cause it’s my turn to have him... to help me. My turn to have him to help me.” Her blush didn’t go unnoticed by either one of the men, although only one of them groaned to himself. The other smiled.





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