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CHAPTER 4: Red hot steel, and other gadgets, part 1
The doorbell to the magic box rang cheerfully as a flaming blanket covered vampire ran through the door, followed closely by a hysterical Slayer. Spike stomped on the blanket furiously while Buffy held her painful ribs and tried to catch her breath.
“Glad I gave you a good laugh Slayer. Wouldn’t be smelling like roast pig though if you had the decency to buy better quality blankets.” Spike tried to give Buffy a murderous look, but couldn’t help the slight smile that was tugging at his lips.
Buffy snorted. “Baby! ‘sides, if I’d buy better quality blankets, I’d miss the show of seeing you run with your ass on fire.” She started giggling again.
They were both completely oblivious to the five pair of eyes staring at them in silence as they kept bickering like good old times.
“Luv, I wonder if you’d find the big pile of dust nearly as bloody funny…”
Still arguing happily, they walked towards the stunned, silent, Scoobies.
“Spike, for a vampire, you really are a drama queen. I think you’re watching Passions way too much.”
That’s when Xander finally found his voice back. Not taking his eyes off Buffy and Spike, he asked Dawn with a fearful voice: “Dawny? When you said Buffy needed time off so she could be alone with the new… man of her life, you didn’t mean….”
Instead of answering, Dawn burst out laughing. Ignoring them, Giles addressed Spike.
“Spike. Glad to see that for once, you were able to put your stubbornness aside long enough to listen to my advice and do the right thing.”
“Yeah, I have my moments. Not as thick as everyone thinks I am.” Spike smirked at Giles, and leant against the counter while Buffy took a seat at the table. “What is it, missed your roommate Watcher?”
“Wait just a minute! You knew about this? Bleach Boy was back and…”
Giles completely ignored Xander and put his glasses back on his nose. “I was actually hoping that you moved out for good…” The Watcher gave Spike a hopeful look. “ Did you move out for good?”
Suddenly uncomfortable, Spike gave Buffy a quick glance, not knowing what to answer. But she answered for him.
“You can relax Giles, Spike’s done stealing your scotch, he’s moving out..” she turned to Spike, a little insecure “You’re moving out, right?”
The vampire gave her his brightest, most sincere, smile in answer to her question. She smiled back, but remembering something, she turned her head sharply to look at her Watcher.
“You! You are in so much trouble! I trusted you.. How could you keep a straight face when I was confessing my feelings to you the other day? I never knew you were such a good liar.”
“Buffy, Spike told me…”
“Since when do you listen to anything Spike says?”
“Buffy, please…”
“Oh no, don’t you Buffy me. I’m sorry to inform you that you are on my shit list for the next… oh five minutes at least!” She crossed her arms on her chest and glared at Giles with a mocked scold on her face.
Dawn, Willow and Spike burst out laughing at Giles’ expression, while Xander just put his head down on the table, arms crossed on top of it.
“If it can make it any better, I did try to convince him to talk to you, and not only because I wanted to get rid of him.” Giles said, taking a seat next to Xander.
Spike looked at him with exaggerated shock on his face. “What? Rup! I can’t believe you’d say that… I though you liked having me as your roommate. Both of us getting pissed on Scotch every night, you telling me stories of your past glory, me telling you how bloody pathetic you are… You hurt my feelings, really.”
Giles looked shamefully at the Scoobies. “I do not get pissed every night telling stories of when I was young. It only happened once.” They laughed again at that. “And Buffy, I am really sorry…”
“Giles. You can stop apologizing now, I was kidding. I understand and it’s ok. We can move on. We actually came here be…”
Xander interrupted her, not looking up from the table. “Can somebody wake me up when this is over so I can wake up in a world where Fangface is still missing and Buffy doesn’t bonk the evil undead?”
Getting pissed off, Buffy slammed her hand on the table. “Did that wake you up Xander? Oh, damn! You have the wrong reality: Spike is not missing anymore, and Buffy is still bonking the not so evil undead. Sorry you don’t like my world. If you want, I could ask Anya to send you to her ex boyfriend the Troll’s world, the one with evil bunnies in it..”
Anya nodded and smiled happily at the thought.
“Now. Not that I don’t like discussing my private life with you guys, but there is an actual reason why we’re here. If there weren’t, believe me, we’d still be cuddling happily at home. Unfortunately, we have to get down to business because we have a big problem.” Buffy took a deep breath, and Spike came to stand behind her, putting a supportive hand on her shoulder. “We have good reasons to think that Angel lost his soul again and is here in Sunnydale.”
There was a collective gasp around the table. Giles removed his glasses, not even bothering to clean them this time, he just put them down on the table and pinched the bridge of his nose, frowning. “And what brought you to that conclusion Buffy?”
“Well… when we woke up this morning, there was a drawing on the pillow… a drawing of us, sleeping.”
“What does it have to do with Angel losing his soul?” Anya asked, having never met Angelus.
“An, Angelus is a really creepy vampire. And lets just say that drawing is one of his thing. He creeps into your room while you’re sleeping, and instead of killing you like any good vamp would do, he makes drawings of you sleeping and leaves them on your pillow. This way, when you wake up, it scares the shit out of you to know that someone was in your room watching you sleep.”
Anya’s face brightened. “That’s an original idea! What a great way to bring terro…. “ She stopped when she saw that everybody was giving her horrified looks. “Oh. Of course I mean by that that it is terrible to do such an evil thing to people and… You were going out with that guy?”
“Yeah. Could we get back to the important stuff?” Buffy rolled her eyes at the vengeance demon. “We know nothing more unfortunately, but it’s enough to be worried.” Buffy turned to Willow. “Do you have you’re magic enough under control to be able to perform a deinviting spell Will?”
“Of course. That’s pretty basic and doesn’t request much power. I’m on it.”
“Ok. So Willow will do a deinviting spell at my place. Anybody else was dumb enough to invite Angel back into their home?”
They all shook their heads in silence.
“Buffy, don’t be too hard on yourself, you couldn’t possibly know it would happen again… “ Giles started.
“No Giles, I should have been more careful. He could have slaughtered us in our sleep! Even if Angel knows that sleeping with someone he loves will make him lose his soul; it doesn’t make him safe to have around. We know what the trigger is, but perfect happiness is pretty vague. Inviting him back into my house was a mistake. I put my family in danger. He could lose his soul receiving a giant screen TV for Christmas for all we know!”
“Or a life time supply of hair gel.” Spike added with a smirk. Xander actually giggled discretely at that, disliking Angel way more than Spike.
“Buffy, I’m sorry this is happening. You’re probably really upset. You want me to curse him?” Willow asked quietly, not looking at Spike, unsure of what the situation was.
Buffy smiled and put a hand on Willow’s. “I’m absolutely fine Will. No worries. Angel had his chance. Twice. Ok, this is not his fault. But we can’t keep on cursing him like that. Maybe it’s just better this way.”
“You sure? Cause I could try to alter the curse to make it permanent…”
“I don’t know. You can look at it if you want, but if it’s too much for you, don’t. I’d rather have to stake Angelus than having to lose you. If you slip, if you lose control… maybe we won’t be able to get you back this time.”
Spike frowned, and lowering his voice, asked Buffy “I did miss on a lot last summer, didn’t I.”
Buffy smiled at him while Willow blushed bright red. But the young witch answered nonetheless. “I kinda turned evil last spring… the day after you left. I’ll tell you everything later on if you want.”
Spike smiled genuinely at Willow. “Sure thing Red. I know a bit about evil. We’ll sit and talk if you want.”
“Oookay. Not that I have anything against the bounding, but what do we do about Angelus?” Xander seemed eager to put an end to the conversation.
“I think our priority would be to find out if he’s working with Faith.”
“I’m pretty much assuming he is” Buffy pointed out, in full slayer mode now “but we can’t just assume, we have to make sure. Though, what a coincidence that would be if they just happen to be here at the same time.” She gave Spike a quick look before continuing. “Spike and I will do a long intensive patrol tonight. Try to find out whatever we can. But I don’t think we’ll have a problem finding him. Angelus wouldn’t go through the trouble of making that little portrait of us if he didn’t plan on attacking eventually. It’s not his style to start something and let it slide.”
Willow grinned excitedly at Buffy. “Talking about the portrait… can we see it?”
Buffy and Spike answered as one. “NO!”
Willow sank in her chair, disappointed. “Why? Maybe there are some clues in the drawing… something you could have missed. Can’t be that bad.”
“Yes, huh..” Spike stammered, not looking at anybody.
“It is...” Buffy’s face was flushed with shame as she remembered just how detailed the drawing really was.
“No clues there, right Slayer?”
“Nope. No clues…”
“And it’s kinda private..”
“So no one will see it..”
“I think what they are trying to say” Anya chimed in “Is that it’s a pornographic drawing. Like a porn picture, but a drawing.”
Buffy dropped her forehead to the table, wishing the Hellmouth would swallow her.
Spike looked at Anya, horrified. “Does she have to talk?”
Willow was just as red as Buffy. “If I wasn’t on a magical diet, I would make her stop talking for you, but unfortunately…”
“S’ok Red, don’t worry bout it. I’ll just… I’ll.. go smoke in the training room.”
Buffy gasped and lifted her head to watch him as he left the room. “Hey! You’re leaving me here alone you coward?!” She stood up quickly and started following him. “I’ll go smoke with you.”
“But you don’t smoke pet…”
“Would you shush already? Today is as good a day as any to start!”
Giles rolled his eyes as they both disappeared into the training room.
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Faith jumped down on the roof through the open window and walked towards Angelus. He was standing in the shadow, well away from the afternoon sun, smoking a cigarette.
“You didn’t apologize yet for ruining our date yesterday.”
Angelus kept smoking without answering, or even looking at her.
“It was supposed to be fun. Standing outside B’s house in the middle of the night for almost two hours doesn’t qualify. What was that anyway? You didn’t even bother telling me what the hell you did in there.”
“Witnessing the bad tastes of Slutty the Vampire layer.”
Faith sat on the rampart at the edge of the roof, in the sun, and laughed. “Whoa! What the heck did you see in there big boy? Sounds interesting.”
Angelus smirked and threw his cigarette over the edge of the roof. “The proof that the little tramp deserves to suffer before dying, and that my childe is pussy whipped and needs a lesson.
Faith tilted her head, frowning in confusion.
“Your childe? Who’s your childe and what does it have to do with Buffy?”
“That guy you flirted with the other night and said wasn’t a threat cause he hates Buffy… Spike. That’s my childe. And the part where he hates Buffy? I don’t usually get naked with people I hate.” He stopped to think about what he just said, then corrected. “Well, I do, but they don’t survive long enough to talk about it.”
The rogue Slayer’s mouth formed a perfect “O”.
“You mean… He was in bed with her?! The fucking little bitch! How does she manage to always be a step ahead of me?”
He gave her a slightly amused smile, and lifted an eyebrow at her. “Faith. Please. Do you really want Slutty’s left overs? Not only is he pathetic, but he’s damaged goods.”
“Yeah, look who’s talking.”
The vampire growled at the brunette. “Watch what you’re saying if you want to live to see the rest of the day.”
“And you be careful with the threats if you don’t want to go sunbathing.”
They glared at each other for a moment.
“You know” Angelus started saying, looking away from the girl, “the work on the Hellmouth is almost over.”
“Yes I know” she answered quietly.
“They’ve started to throw the bodies in it. Four nights, and it will be time for the ritual. Twenty-four hours in a day, twenty-four bodies a day. The little twit will figure it out soon enough with all the disappearances and she’ll try to stop us. We might as well get rid of her now. Besides, if we wait until the night of the ritual to get rid of her, we will be too busy to enjoy it. So why wait?”
Faith crossed her arms tightly on her chest, feeling cold all of a sudden. “What’s on your mind?”
“Hunting… violence.. and games. What do you say sweets? Are you up to it?”
She gave him a forced smile. “Always.”
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