Chapter Four


With unpleasant or unsettling conversational subjects now out of the way, Buffy and Riley found a table and sat down to enjoy their drinks. She turned down his offer of a beer with a small shudder, opting instead for a Diet Coke.

“You don’t like beer?” he asked with a smile, setting her coke down in front of her.

“Uh, sometimes I do,” she said slowly. “Sometimes I do, but it’s not really good for me.”

“I just thought you might want something that would relax you, rather than something with caffeine in it. There’s nothing like a nice cold beer to ease the tension.”

“There’s no tension! I’m not feeling any tension. Are you feeling tension? Cause, not me. No sir. No need to ease tension here.”

As Buffy babbled, causing Riley to smile at her and say soothingly, “Well, I’d like to think there was a certain amount of…tension…between us. You know, there’s something that makes my whole body hum when you’re around. I was sort of hoping you were feeling the same thing. That maybe that’s what’s responsible for your…speech habits.”

“You mean my babbling?” she asked ruefully. “I was, wasn’t I? Babbling, I mean.”

“You were; but it’s adorable.”

He leaned back in his chair, clearly pleased to think that Buffy was having the same reaction to his presence as he was to hers. She flashed him a guilty smile and began playing with her drink, drawing circles on the table with the condensation on the side of the glass.

It took a few seconds for Buffy to realize that the tingling she was feeling in the back of her neck was her slayer sense alerting her to the presence of a vampire, and she had a moment of panic as she wondered how she could get away from Riley long enough to stake whatever vamp was using the Bronze for his take-out. To her relief, he excused himself to use the restroom and she was able to move around the room until her senses led her to the area under the stairs.

Glancing around quickly to see if anyone was watching, she slid closer to the dark area, groaning as she recognized the vampire in question.

“Dammit, Spike. What are you doing here? And what were you doing at my mother’s gallery?”

“It’s nice to see you again, too, love,” he snarked, stepping forward far enough for her to notice his eyes raking over her body. “Who’s the oversized boy scout?”

“That’s my boyfriend,” she answered haughtily. “And, I sooo did not just see you flash some fang at me!”

“Wasn’t at you,” he muttered, pushing his demon back. “Was what you said.”

“That I have a boyfriend? And that’s your business, because…?”

He moved closer and ran his tongue over the now-invisible marks he’d left on her throat weeks ago. Buffy smothered a whimper and fought the urge to press up against the body only inches away.

“Stop that,” she ordered, pulling her shoulder up to block his access to her throat.

“Stop me,” he responded, pulling her closer and running his lips up to her mouth. “Make me stop, Slayer. If you can.”

“Oh, I can, Spike,” she began. “You just watch-“ She was cut off by the vampire’s mouth, which, in spite of her protests, was now fastened on hers. His tongue was insistently tickling her lips, which parted just to tell him to let go allowing it to invade her mouth and begin caressing her own tongue. Bad! Bad Buffy! This is very bad. I’m kissing Spike and there is no beer involved. And my nice, normal soon-to-be-boyfriend is in the same room.

When it became obvious that Buffy’s increased heart rate was panic, rather than the excitement he’d been hoping for, Spike reluctantly released her mouth with a final nip on her lower lip. His arms had slipped around her waist, and he held her lightly, enjoying the way her body was still pressed against his. Her head briefly rested against his chest while the slayer took a deep breath, which she released with a shudder.

She pushed away from him, refusing to acknowledge the pang of disappointment when he quickly dropped his arms and stepped back into the shadows. A muffled growl from the vampire was her only warning as Riley came up behind her to ask, “Is there a problem, Buffy? Was this guy bothering you?”

Buffy couldn’t control the small “eep!” that left her mouth as she realized he was standing right behind her and glaring into the shadows at Spike’s impassive face. Pushing her aside, the big man stepped into Spike’s personal space and, looming over the much smaller blond, growled, “You’ll want to be leaving now, asshole.”

The vampire’s eyes were flashing amber and Buffy could just hear the snarl in the back of his throat. Instead of shrinking away from the larger man, as Riley had clearly expected him to, he moved forward, his platinum hair glinting in the light. Before he could say or do anything, Buffy stepped between the two men, giving Spike a warning glare and pushing gently on Riley’s chest.

“There’s no problem, Riley. I just came over to talk to Spike about the gallery thing. Please don’t start anything.”

“Buffy, there is no need for you to be afraid of this guy while I’m around. I saw him trying to grab you. Let me take him outside and I’m sure I can convince him that he’d rather leave town.”

Spike’s eyes lit up in anticipation and he literally bounced on his toes as he responded, “Yeah, Slayer, Let him take me outside.”

“No!” Buffy glared at the vampire again, hoping Riley hadn’t noticed what the vampire had called her. “Not gonna happen, Spike. Just get out. Go. Now.”

Hoping that Riley wouldn’t notice that she was actually holding him in place, Buffy did her best to intimidate the vampire into leaving without a fight. When it looked like he was not going to give up the chance to fight the other man, she hissed and shoved Riley back a few steps before grabbing Spike’s arm in a painful grip and dragging him toward the door.

“I swear, Spike. If you mess this up for me, I WILL stake you. Mystical, drunken, mind-blowing sex or not, I will not let you spoil my chance to have a nice, normal boyfriend.”

“There’s nothing nice, or normal, about that big git,” the vampire snarled, snatching his arm away from her. “You should have let me eat him.” His voice and expression changed abruptly to pleased and hopeful. “You thought it was mind-blowing? Really?”

“Just go, Spike.” Her voice lost its angry edge as she remembered what they’d been doing just before Riley appeared. “I don’t want to stake you – I just want you to leave me alone. Let me have a normal life,” she almost pleaded.

His own mood changing to match hers, he touched her face gently, pushing a stray lock of hair back behind her ear. “You’re the Slayer, love. I don’t think normal comes with that title.”

“I don’t think boinking evil vampires comes with it either,” she replied, unconsciously leaning into his hand. “You need to leave Sunnydale. Before something happens and one of us has to kill the other.”

He studied her serious face for a full minute, gazing into her eyes until he was sure of what he was seeing. Finally he dropped his hand and nodded slowly.

“Alright, love. You’re probl’y right. It’s not like this was goin’ anywhere, is it?”

“Exactly. It was just one of those…magical…spell-magical, not magical-magical,” she hastened to clarify, “things that happen on the Hellmouth. We’ll just put it behind us and move on.”

He cocked his head at her and began to speak; then suddenly glanced over her shoulder. “Here comes the Peaches substitute, pet. I’m guessing that makes a good-bye kiss out of the question?”

When Buffy whirled to watch Riley striding toward them, his face a study in fury, Spike took advantage of her distraction to lean in and whisper in her ear, “I thought it was magical-magical, Slayer.” He brushed his lips over her cheek and then vanished into the night, out of sight long before Riley came running up to Buffy.

“What did you mean by going out here with him by yourself?” he said angrily. “You could have been hurt!”

“He wasn’t going to hurt me, Riley,” she said evenly. “I took him out here to keep him from hurting you.”

“Buffy, that wasn’t going to happen. I understand that this guy has you convinced he’s really dangerous, but it’s obvious that he’s just some punk thug wannabe. I could have handled him.”

Buffy just stared at the man for whom she’d sent away the best kisser she’d ever met and shook her head. “Fine,” she agreed. “You could have handled him; but this way, you didn’t have to. And that makes me much happier than having to watch a bunch of macho posturing from the two of you.”

She turned and started off in the direction of the dorms, rolling her eyes when Riley hastened to catch up to her.

“Where are you going?”

“Home. Or back to the dorm, anyway. It’s late and I have class tomorrow.”

“Let me walk you back. This town isn’t really all that safe at night.”

“Gee, ya think?” She fought hard to keep the sarcasm from her voice. I’m really being unfair to him. He has no idea who or what I am and he’s right. For most girls it wouldn’t be safe to be walking alone this late at night.

“I’m sorry, Riley. I seem to be in total bitch mode tonight.” She looked at him apologetically. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me that I’m such a cranky Buffy all of a sudden.”

But, I’m sure it has nothing to do with having sent Spike away. I’m glad he’s gone.

“That’s all right, Buffy. You’ve had an unsetting evening; what with that guy harassing your mom and then showing up at the Bronze to harass you.”

While Buffy was debating about whether or not to correct Riley’s assessment of the evening’s events, her neck began to tingle and she looked around, wondering if Spike was following them. She wasn’t sure if she was relieved or disappointed when three young vamps in game face stepped out of the shadows and blocked their path. Riley stepped in front of her, blocking the vamps’ view of the girl with him and said in his most authoritative voice, “You’ll want to be moving along if you know what’s good for you.”

The raucous laughter that greeted his remark was abruptly cut off when Buffy stepped out from behind him, stake in hand.

“You probably should have listened to him, boys,” she said cheerily, waving her stake.

The vampires began to back away, never taking their eyes off the Slayer, now stalking toward them. Riley was just congratulating himself on having backed down three hostiles without having to reach for his taser, when he followed the direction of their frightened gazes and realized they were backing away from the little girl he’d thought he was protecting.

He stood, rooted to the spot, as Buffy stalked the vampires until they were trapped within the alley from which they’d stepped. With their backs to the wall, the three not-quite-fledglings found their courage and leaped to the attack. As the vampires snarled and charged, Riley shook himself out of his surprised immobility and pulled his taser from his pocket. He ran toward the melee in the alley, confused to find there were now only two vampires left and Buffy was dancing around them, scolding them for ruining her evening.

“I wasn’t going to let him know about my night job until we’d been dating longer! You guys are sooo going to pay for this!” As she spoke, she kicked the shortest one in the chest, knocking him against the wall. From the corner of her eye, she saw Riley reach toward the other vamp, sending the creature to the ground. With a shrug, she tucked her stake into her waistband and began to take out the night’s accumulated irritations on the face and body of the remaining vampire.

When she saw that Riley’s vampire was beginning to stir, she pulled her stake out and put her opponent out of the misery she had caused. She turned back in time to see Riley pull out his own stake and drive it through the heart of the vampire at his feet.

They stared at each other for long minutes, stakes in hand and dust at their feet. Finally, Riley broke the silence.

“So, this is why you weren’t afraid of that guy, huh?”

“Um, yeah. Pretty much. I, uh, I don’t scare all that easily.”

“I can see why,” he said with a small laugh. “No wonder those vamps backed away from you. But, how did they know?”

Buffy blew out her breath and sighed. “Did you hear what Spike called me, back at the Bronze? When he wanted me to let him fight you?”

Riley shook his head. “I wasn’t really paying attention to what he was saying. It didn’t seem important at the time.”

Buffy laughed. “Good call. It usually isn’t – important, I mean. But he does talk a lot, and that time he called me ‘Slayer’.”

“Slayer?”

“The Chosen One? She-who-walks-through-cemeteries? The Vampire Slayer? The one in all the world who—Is any of this ringing a bell?”

“Sorry, Buffy. We’re pretty well-versed in the various demons and vampires, but little blond girls who frighten them just hasn’t come up yet.”

“We?”

“Uh, yeah. There’s some…stuff about me that I was waiting until we’d been dating a while longer before I told you too,” he admitted sheepishly.

“I guess we need to talk, huh?” she asked with a small smile.

“Yeah. I would say so,” he agreed.

“Can it wait until tomorrow? I’m really tired and I’d like to just go to bed and get some sleep.”

“Of course, it can wait. Let’s just get you back to the dorm and we’ll talk tomorrow. Over coffee? Around ten?”

“Sounds good.”

The walk back to the campus was made mostly in silence, broken only by Riley’s idle questions.

“So, who else besides this Spike guy knows that you’re the Slayer? Is it common knowledge?”

He hasn’t figured out that Spike’s a vamp. How dumb is that? Probably just as well. I don’t want him to go out looking for him. Not until I know more about what’s going on.

Aloud, she said quietly, “No, I don’t think it’s common knowledge. Most of the kids I went to High School with knew – or they knew there was…something…anyway. But now? Willow, Oz, Xander, my mom, Giles, of course – he’s my watcher – and…”

“So, that’s why Spike called you that. He knew you from high school.”

“Uh, yeah. He’s known I was the Slayer since I was sixteen.”

Riley nodded and was silent for another few minutes. “You’d think, if he knew, he’d been too afraid of you to harass you or your mother…Or, do you treat humans differently from the way you handle vampires?”

“Slayers don’t kill humans,” she said flatly. “Or harm them if at all possible.” okay, not really a lie. It’s totally true. Letting him think Spike is human isn’t lying; it’s just…omitting.

When they reached the dorm and Riley leaned down for a goodnight kiss, Buffy tried not to compare his warm, dry lips with the ones she’d been enjoying earlier in the evening.

He’s gone. He said he’d leave and he’s probably on his way now. And that’s good. I don’t need him here complicating my life.