Chapter 9: Crowded

"Are you sure this is the right address?" the cab driver asked Buffy.

"Um, yeah." Buffy said as she paid the cab driver.

For a moment she wondered if she should ask him to wait. Finding a cab in L.A. wasn't always easy. And it was always possible she had gotten the wrong address from Spike.

However, the more she looked at the dingy building, the more she decided this must be the right place. It was an old motel. The windows had been blacked out and there was no sign. Which meant it was probably a demon hang out of some kind.

Which also explained why Spike had been so reluctant to have her come to him. He'd kept trying to convince her that he should come to her. She'd had to very patiently, and then not so patiently, explain to him that she didn't have anywhere to keep a slayer chained up, not to mention that the more they moved her the more likely she was to escape.

Finally Spike had given in and given her the address, then he'd told her he was in room #6 and not to let Marvin give her any trouble. So this was almost surely the place.

Despite its closed appearance, the front door wasn't locked so she walked right in. She felt like she'd wasted enough time already. Talking to Spike on the phone had reassured her that he was okay, but she still worried about leaving him alone with the other slayer.

She'd nearly panicked by the time she'd been able to call Spike. It had taken her a lot longer than she thought to get away from Angel and his commandos. Not to mention she'd felt the need to make sure no one was following her. So after catching at least one set of tails and giving them a warning beating, she'd crisscrossed her path, and done everything she could think of to make it hard for Angel to find her.

All of that had left her far away from Spike. It had taken her a while to find a cab, and then there had been traffic. So there had been plenty of time for something to go horribly wrong and something awful to happen to Spike.

As she entered the abandoned looking motel, she decided that if something hadn't happened to Spike, she might just have to kill him for bringing her here. A vampire and two demons were lounging around the lobby in what could only be described as the fall hooker wear collection. In the corner was a raggedy pile of clothes she didn't want to look too carefully at.

Instead she decided she'd find room #6 as quickly as possible.

She hurried towards the hallway when the pile of clothes moved and yelled at her in an echoey voice, "Hey, lady. Where do you think you're going?"

Buffy turned around and had a feeling of vertigo as a round black head on a thin sticklike neck rushed towards her. The head, which looked like a perfect black sphere with two stuffed animal eyes glued to the front, regarded her aggressively. Buffy looked past the head to see that the neck had emerged from what she thought was a pile of clothes, but she now realized was a demon.

"Um, hi. You must be Marvin," Buffy guessed.

The demon shook his head and made a whistling sound. "Room #6," he snapped at her, and his head zoomed back to his body, as Buffy heard him mumble something about "No accounting for taste."

Buffy hurried out of the lobby, momentarily wondering how Marvin had known she was here to see Spike. Then she realized the demon's name probably wasn't Marvin. In Spike's mind the demon's head probably looked a lot like Marvin the Martian, and Spike seemed to be allergic to using people's real names, so it was probably one of his nicknames.

She quickly found room #6. She decided against knocking, figuring that if something had gone wrong, she'd want the element of surprise, and if nothing had gone wrong, barging in would make her yelling at Spike that much more effective.

Buffy threw open the door and stopped dead in her tracks. The room was decorated with lush red velvet curtains that had been drawn aside to reveal torture tools and sex toys hanging from the wall. The room was dominated by the large four-poster bed, where Dana, the other slayer, was chained down.

It took Buffy a moment to locate Spike, who was buried in a large arm chair and seemed to be sleeping. That just made Buffy even angrier. Here she was worried over his safety and he was napping!

She looked around the room for something to throw at him, which she told herself was a perfectly okay way to wake him up since he was such a heavy sleeper.

She finally settled on a rubber ball with two leather straps attached to it. She gingerly removed it from the wall. She took aim and hit Spike squarely on the forehead.

His eyes snapped open as he vamped and tried to leap, snarling out of the chair. Unfortunately the chair was too deep to make that easy to do, and his arms and legs windmilled as he tried to pull himself up.

Buffy couldn't help but laugh at his antics. She tried to remember to be angry, but it wasn't working.

By this time Spike had figured out he wasn't under attack and had calmed down enough to stand up without falling back into the chair. He shook his head to get rid of his game face, and glared at Buffy.

"What the hell was that?" he demanded.

"I think it was a gag. I really, really, hope it was a gag." Buffy said still snickering into her hand.

He rolled his eyes, "You know, I go to all this effort to do a favor for you, and what do I get? Hit in the face with a gag. Suppose I should be glad it didn't hit my nose."

He rubbed his forehead, which only sent Buffy into a fresh set of giggles.

"Are you quite done?" Spike asked impatiently.

"Hey you're the one who fell asleep in a . . . a . . . bordello."

Spike snorted at her. "First off, this is just a hotel, with amenities that rents by the hour. Secondly, where the hell was I supposed to chain up a slayer?!"

"What? You're telling me you don't have chains in your new crypt? Admit it, this is one of your weird come ons."

Spike threw his hands up into the air. Then he pointed at her accusingly. "You are a real piece of work, Summers. You know that? First of all, I don't have a crypt. I have a flat. In a nice part of town where they frown on hauling unconscious girls back and forth. Secondly, only you could be so self centered as to think that this was all some elaborate plan to get in your pants. What even makes you think I want you?"

Buffy froze with terror. In the brief time since she'd found out Spike was still alive, she'd been making excuses for him. Telling herself that he was just defensive, that he was scared of being rejected by her yet again. But in the back of her mind had been another voice telling her that she was just hiding from the truth; Spike was no longer in love with her.

She didn't know what to say to him not that he'd voiced her greatest fear. There were only two things she could do, curl up into a little ball and cry, or tackle him and kiss him.

She chose the latter.

Before he could move out of her way, she pushed him back into the armchair he'd just escaped from, straddled him and kissed him as passionately as she knew how.

Spike was both literally and figuratively thrown off balance. But it only took him a moment to recover. Then he was kissing her back. His hands grabbed the small of her back and pulled her down onto his growing erection. They clutched each other wildly as their tongues battled.

Finally Buffy was forced to break off the kiss as she gasped for air. After pulling several breaths into her lungs, Buffy looked deep into Spike cerulean eyes. She placed her hand onto his cheep, and ran her thumb over his lips.

"Tell me again you don't want me," she gasped.

He didn't say anything. Instead, Buffy had a sudden feeling of lightheadedness, as Spike pushed them both out of the chair and onto the floor. His hand cradled her head, so that it didn't hit the floor, but the rest of her slammed hard onto it, as he began kissing her again.

As Buffy pulled the hem of his shirt free from his jeans, his fingers tugged at the buttons to her shirt. He let go for a moment as she tried to pull the shirt over his head.

She had just pulled the bottom of the t-shirt over his head when she heard a growl and the sound of chains rattling.

At the same time she and Spike rolled away from each other, as he yanked his shirt back down and they both got to their feet.

"We should, um . . . we need to get out of here," Buffy said as she took in the damage Spike had done to her shirt. Two buttons were gone, and a third was just hanging on by a thread. "I mean, because Angel is sure to find her here." She quickly added.

She moved towards the bed to get a closer look at the other slayer.

"It's not going to be easy. I mean I guess we could just knock her out again. I just kind of feel bad about hitting someone who's chained up. But with just the two of us. . ." Buffy's voice trailed off as she tried to figure out just where they were going to move Dana to.

"Oh!" Spike said suddenly. "Um, not just the two of us. At least, Giles called a while back. Said something about having a bunch of slayers waiting for you." He dug her phone out of his pocket and tossed it to her.

"And you just tell me this now?" Buffy mumbled as she flipped open the phone and tried to figure out what she was going to say to Giles.