CHAPTER SIX

When Buffy got downstairs, she was surprised to find Spike glaring at the young slayers and berating them.  She looked a question at Vi, who shrugged and whispered, “Some of them said we can’t go after this guy until the drugs wear off, and Spike went nuts. It’s kinda fun to watch, actually.”

“Do you silly bints know what the Master was? How about Kakistos? Or what a Turok-han is? Or, better yet, how about Kralik. Have you heard of Kralik? Or even Angelus?” 

Rita raised her hand slowly. “Uh, aren’t those all like famous really bad vamps?”

“Give the lady a prize.  Yeah, that’s what they were. Till they met that little girl there.” He pointed at Buffy who frowned at being referred to as a “little girl”, but blushed anyway at the admiration in his gaze.  “Now they’re just piles of dust. And let’s be clear about this – when Buffy took out Kralik, she didn’t have her powers. None of ‘em. All she had was her training and her brain.  So I don’t want to hear a bloody word about how you lot can’t take out a few lazy vampires and one evil human man. Not. One. Bloody. Word.” 

As he ranted at them, he’d gone into game face and even the ones who’d been whispering to each other about how hot he was suddenly shrank back in the face of his anger. As quickly as it had come on, it was gone, and his now relatively unscarred and handsome face was looking back at them with genuine warmth.

“Okay. So that’s settled. Let’s talk about what you can do, not what you can’t. Can you out arm-wrestle a vamp? No. Can you kick him in the dangly bits and make him stop long enough to be staked? Hell yeah. Can you fill one of these overgrown water pistols with holy water and make him wish he’d never been born?”  He waved a Super Soaker around for emphasis. “Well? Can you do that?”

“Hell yes! Janie shouted, shrinking back when everyone turned to look at her. “Well, we can,” she muttered, turning red.  Her blush increased when Spike blew her a kiss.

“Too bloody right, you can,” he said. “Well said, luv.” He gave Buffy a look, asking for approval before continuing. At her nod, he sent his gaze around the room until he’d made eye contact with every girl there.

“Now, here’s something else you can do. You can spend the daylight hours tomorrow getting ready for this, and be there, in position, when the sun goes down. You can whittle the odds down as soon as they start coming out.”  He smiled at them. “I can’t tell you that I know exactly how many of them there are, but I can tell you that a goodly number of them have no interest in fighting for this wanker. Especially the girls. They were promised easy kills and slayers they can keep around to drink from. Slayers with holy water, stakes, crossbows, and all the same fighting skills they learned when Buffy was training them aren’t part of that package.  Most of ‘em are going to run as soon as they catch on.”

“What about the demon bodyguards?”

“You let the Slayer and me worry about them.  But if something goes wrong, just remember, they hurt and bleed too. Go ahead and shoot them with crossbow bolts. And they won’t be too crazy about holy water in their eyes either.”

He left them to think and talk over what he’d said, walking back to Vi and Buffy. “Was I right that you don’t want to wait any longer than we need to, to rid the world of this wanker?”

Buffy and Vi exchanged glances. Buffy could hear the rumble building in Spike’s throat when she didn’t agree immediately. Before he could explode, she nodded her head.

“You’re right. But if we can take him alive, I think Willow and the rest of the Council might want to have a talk with him...”

“Unless the new Council of Wankers—” “And slayers,” Buffy put in. “—is just as flexible about ethics as the old one was...”

“You might be surprised at how flexible we’ve learned to be in the past few years,” Buffy said with a wry smile. “I’m not saying don’t kill him, I’m saying if we don’t have to do it, we might learn important stuff from him. Like how many other disgruntled former watchers are out there, for starters.”

“Good point, pet,” he surprised her by agreeing. “Wasn’t thinkin’.”

“Never was your strong point,” she said with a small smile, hoping that his willingness to talk to her meant he was willing to forgive her words the night before.

“Blood can only be so many places at once,” he agreed cheerfully. “You know mine doesn’t always rush to my head.”

“So I’ve heard,” she said, adding in a whisper, “not to that head, anyway.”

His rich laugh had all eyes on him for a few seconds, and the way he and Buffy were smiling at each other crushed any vague hopes the older girls may have been holding about the sexy vampire. Vi also saw the way their eyes locked and she quickly walked over to talk with her squad, leaving Spike and Buffy still gazing as each other with more warmth than they’d yet shown.

“I’m sorry,” Buffy blurted out. “Last night – what you heard me say. I didn’t mean I didn’t want you here, I meant—”

“Knew what you meant, love,” he said, brushing her hand with his. “It hurt. Won’t deny it, but when I’d had time to think about it, I knew you didn’t mean... what my insecurity always makes me think you mean.”

“Come with me,” she ordered, turning and heading for the office. He frowned, but followed her into the small room, watching as she closed and locked the door.

“What’s up?”

“I’m never, ever going into a fight again thinking ‘We can talk this out when everything is over’. Never!” she repeated fiercely.

He understood her immediately and nodded. “Had to learn that lesson the hard way myself,” he said with a sad smile. “But I thought we had our talk already?”

“No. No we didn’t. We had you deciding you knew what I wanted – or wouldn’t want – and getting all martyry and walking away.  I tried to tell myself you were right. That I couldn’t have somebody like you in my life, but—” Buffy took a deep breath.

His raised eyebrow gave a tacit “but?”

“But, you aren’t just ‘somebody like you’; you’re you. You’re Spike. And there’s no other vampire like you anywhere. And I... I can get along without you. I know that. I’ve been doing it for years. But... I don’t think I want to. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy, and I know we have a lot to talk about, and you probably have a life already somewhere else, and I know I have no right to—”

Spike’s lips swallowed the rest of her words. He held his mouth on hers in the softest of kisses until she sighed into it and melted against him. With that encouragement, he quickly deepened the kiss, his subvocal growl of lust bringing an answering whimper from Buffy. When they finally pulled their lips away, he gazed at her with affectionate lust.

“You’ve got every right, love. I know that and so do you. Man tells you he still loves you, you’ve got a right to expect—”

The conversation was interrupted when someone knocked on the door and yelled, “What are you doing in there?”

Laughing with embarrassment, they broke apart and Spike yanked open the door, remaining behind it, hiding the bulge in his jeans from curious adolescent eyes.

“We’re just talkin’ strategy here, pet. Did you want to join us?”

“Oh!” The slayer, one of the ones who had entertained her own ideas about Spike, took in Buffy’s slightly disheveled look and Spike’s twinkling eyes and blushed to her hairline. “I’m sorry. I was just making a joke, I didn’t mean to— I’m sorry!” She turned and fled back to the sitting room.

Buffy giggled and peered down the hall after her. “Well, you’ve ruined her night. Better watch your back tomorrow.”

“Could have been worse. I could have opened the door and stood there with the front of my pants stickin’ out.”

Buffy eyed his crotch. “That’s going to go away, isn’t it? We can’t stay in here forever.”

“No worries, love,” he said as he unzipped his jeans and rearranged himself. “Got right good at hiding these when I first fell in love with you. Not to mention all the other times I was around you but not allowed to touch.”

“I’m pretty sure that was TMI. Now I’m going to spend the rest of the night wondering how often you were hiding something like that from me.”

“I can think of more interesting ways to spend the night....” When she shook her head at him, he sighed and nodded. “Right you are, love. No setting a bad example by taking the vampire to bed.” He stroked the side of her face, then gestured for her to precede him out the door. “All you need to know about way back then is I spent more of my time like that than was comfortable, going all the way back to when you were just a particularly pretty thorn in my side. You’d have staked me for sure if you’d had a clue. Was in my best interest to learn how to hide the effect you tend to have on me.”

She snorted, but she was wearing a smile she hoped he couldn’t see as they left the room. “You know, there was more exaggeration than truth in your little speech about those dusty vamps.”

“You know that, and I know that, Slayer. Those girls don’t. They’ll follow you anywhere now.”

Conversation in the sitting room came to a complete halt when Buffy and Spike entered the room. His chuckle told Buffy he’d probably heard whatever the girls had been talking about before their entry, but she didn’t ask. She just suggested they all get a good night’s sleep so they could spend the next day lining up their weapons, practicing using them without their normal strength, and getting into place.

Without argument, the girls all said goodnight and went to their rooms, giving Spike sideways looks as they walked by. He winked at Rita, causing her to cough and run up the stairs. Vi paused and asked, “If it wasn’t my house to run, this would be none of my business, but it is; so are you staying here tonight?”

Spike shook his head. “I think that’d be too much of a distraction. The girls don’t need to be trying to sleep, wondering if there’s a vampire prowling around the house. Or tiptoeing around in the morning tryin’ to come up with reasons to peek into Buffy’s room, far as that goes.... I’ll meet you at the target building tomorrow as soon as the sun goes down.” He cocked his head at Vi. “You’re a smart slayer, experienced and savvy. You’ve fought the First Evil’s minions. Take your girls, let them find out how little of what they are is because they were given superpowers.”

“Okay. I think we can handle a nest of vamps if we’ve got the right weapons. And we’ve got Buffy.”

“And you’ve got Buffy,” he agreed, putting an arm around her shoulder. “Bad guy is as good as done.”

Vi smiled. “Yes he is.  Good night, Spike, Buffy.”

They watched her go up the stairs, standing where she’d left them. Spike now had both arms around Buffy, holding her against his chest. “You need to get some sleep, love,” he murmured into her ear. “Need to get your strength back to what it should be. And you’ll have things to do tomorrow while I’m snoozing.”

She rested her head against him, closing her eyes and savoring the feeling of being held by arms she’d thought were long gone. “Where do you... where will you stay?”

“Got a room in the basement of a nice demon family’s home. Not all that far from the target building – other side of the park from it actually. I’ll be there as soon as the sun is down. Don’t start without me.”

“Did you or did you not just give a speech about how slayers don’t need their powers to slay?”

“I did. And I meant every word of it. Just the same, humor me, yeah? Don’t go in without your muscle.”

Buffy winced and turned around in his arms to look at him. “You know I didn’t mean....”

He smiled at her worried expression and rested his forehead against hers. “Just stating a fact now, Buffy. Till that drug wears off, backup muscle is what you need. I’ve never had a problem being that for you, and I never will. Just a little touchy about that being all I am.”

“You’re not, you know. You weren’t really, even then....”

“Know that now, love.” He straightened up and held her in a tight hug.  When he relaxed his arms, he kissed her upturned mouth and moved away from her.  “You need to get some sleep. Go on up there to your lonely little bed and I’ll go back to my lonely little bed and we’ll both—”

“And we’ll both get more sleep that way than we would if we stayed together. I know. It’s just... I just found you, you know? Now I’m afraid to let you out of my sight again.”

“Not going far, Buffy. And not for long. I promise you that. Once we’ve sorted out this situation, we’ll....”

“Don’t say it! Don’t say what we’re going to do when this is over. It’s too much like.... Just don’t, ‘k?”

“Alright. See you later tonight. Go to sleep.” With a wave, he let himself out the kitchen door, locking it behind him. Buffy waited a few minutes, then sighed and turned off the lights, checked the front door, and went up to her room.