Chapter 9 - Tuesday Evening at the Hellmouth

Buffy didn’t look far.

Spike was skulking across the street from the café, squatting on top of a newspaper box, staring a hole through her and smoking a cigarette. The tip flared red.

Buffy ran across the street, causing the drivers of a maroon SUV and a 1989 Plymouth ragtop to slam on their brakes and swerve to avoid hitting her and each other. They crashed into a mailbox and a traffic light. The drivers jumped out of their cars and yelled at Buffy, until they saw her talking to a scary guy in a black leather coat. They decided to yell at each other instead.

She’d been worried sick about Spike for the past five minutes, since Riley informed her that his chip was disabled. Here Spike was, perched all vulturey vampirey on a newspaper machine, checking up on her, instead of cowering in the sewers under his crypt or behind the nearest dumpster until she calmed down. He had his nerve scaring her like that, not to mention stalking her while she was nailing down a normal husband.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Buffy said.

“Spying on you and your new honey bear,” Spike said. He flicked away the ash and took another puff. He wasn’t about to let the Slayer give him a hard time under the circumstances. “Must say, Goldilocks, you don’t waste any time.”

He stood up and jumped off the news box in that creepy straight-leg way vampires plunged off everything.

Buffy boxed Spike’s ear and followed up with a half-assed kick to the ribs. “He’s not my honey and how dare you spy on me?”

Spike danced away, dodging her punches and kicks. “You’re as bad as your mother, you know that? I’m the injured party here.”

Buffy dropped her fists. “You’re the injured party? You’re spying on me and you’re the injured party? I’m pregnant and you’re the injured party?”

“You’re the one who gave me the toss last night. You should be ashamed of yourself. After I told your mother about the baby and got a black eye and a lump on my head for my trouble, too.”

She felt ashamed. He had been pretty nice about the baby and telling her mother. That was no excuse for Spike spying on her date with Riley. And, she had other grievances.

“You’re the one who fainted when you heard the “M” word and the “J” word as in Marriage And Job.”

Spike sucked on his cigarette. The Slayer was a hard woman, holding that fainting spell against him. Her mother’s house was overheated. The heat made him pass out. Vampires can’t stand heat. Buffy ought to know that. Vampires can’t stand working, either. She ought to know that, too.

He made a sour face. “Vampires don’t work.”

Buffy noted with interest he hadn’t said anything about vampires not getting married. Not that Spike’s thoughts on getting married mattered to her in the slightest, now she had a Normal Guy Husband Possibility in her radar.

“What about the chip? Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. Why didn’t you come and tell me?”

“Come and tell you so you could dust me? Please pretty Slayer, I’m sorry I got you up the spout and my sodding chip doesn’t work, so won’t you please terminate my unlife?”

Up the spout? What was he talking about? Spike code. Spike possessed an endless supply of words and phrases that made no sense. She wished he’d speak plain English.

He did have a point about one thing. She was duty bound to dust him now that he was unleashed.

She couldn’t believe she’d gotten herself in this situation again – in love - no, in Serious Like, with an Out Of Control Vampire. She was in worse trouble this time than when Angel reverted to killing people and biting things. Her current Out Of Control Vampire Lover also happened to be her baby’s father. She sank down on the curb and put her head on her knees. Her life sucked.

Another Tuesday evening at the Hellmouth.

“I won’t dust you. You know that.” Buffy sighed. The thought of dusting Spike made her sag like a dead puff devil.

“Sent Angelus packing off to the Twilight Zone quick enough, didn’t you?”

He would bring that up.

“Angel was different. He opened a hell dimension. I ran him through with the sword to close Acathla and save the world.”

Spike crooked an eyebrow and said nothing.

“Like I had any choice. Let’s see - save my psycho former vampire lover so he can kill me and let loose a couple thousand demons and hell beasties and generally destroy the world or the universe or whatever it was he was destroying or shove Angel down the hellhole and save the world.”

And, she hadn’t really killed Angel. Mr. Broody popped right back on her doorstep before two months were out, whining about being in hell for two hundred years. Like whose fault was that?

“Yeah. Killing Angel was different. You keep telling yourself that.” Seeing Buffy was no longer in the mood to be violent, he sat down next to her on the curb.

“Is it true? Your chip doesn’t work anymore?”

“Is that what the Cub Scout told you while he was pawing you?”

Her anger flared again. Why wouldn’t he answer her question? She slammed her fist into his arm hard, hard enough to leave a bruise for him to think about tomorrow when he was lolling about in his crypt when he should be looking for a job so he could take care of her and the baby.

“He was not pawing me! The Cub Scout, er, Riley respects me. He knows you and I are friends. He held my hand because he wanted to comfort me.”

“Friends are we?”

“Don’t interrupt. Riley wanted to comfort me when he told me your chip wasn’t working and you were feeding again.” Buffy sniffed. Riley could have tracked Spike down and dusted him, but he knew she would be upset if Spike disappeared. Riley acted very nicely under the circumstances.

Spike laughed. “How would he know if I was feeding? Not hanging about all day and changing my nappies, is he? I haven’t seen the wanker since he burned out my chip.”

“Riley burned out your chip?” Why would Riley do that? Spike was Big and Bad and Evil and Sexy and Dangerous and Sexy. Riley wouldn’t unchain him so he could resume Biteage, would he? No, it couldn’t be true. Riley was reliable and normal and he knew better than to release Spike from his electronic cage. This sounded like one of Spike’s wild stories, although she couldn’t figure out how Spike managed to burn out his chip.

“I guess he forgot to mention that part. I don’t think you should count on the idea he respects you so bleeding much, either. There’s a vamp girl named Carmelita lurks over on Dantesco Street …”

“I so do not want to hear about your girlfriend on Dantesco Street. Riley is a nice guy. He’s normal and he has a career and he’s nice and he knows about killing demons and vampires. And, he’s nice.” Riley was as exciting as watching Fyarl mucus evaporate.

“Boring, isn’t he?”

Spike always knew what she was thinking. He infuriated her.

Spike pulled out his flask and offered her a sip. She never wanted a drink, so he didn’t mind offering to share.

Whiskey was tempting, but Buffy shook her head. “I can’t. The baby. And, don’t change the subject.”

“What subject are we on at the moment?” He swallowed a gulp of whiskey.

“The subject is ‘chip’ and the answer is ‘It’s not working.’ For five hundred dollars and a free trip to the Hellmouth, what’s the question?”

Spike wiped the mouth of his whiskey flask, recapped it and returned it to his coat pocket. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know if you can go all bitey and kill people without having lightening bolts zapping through your brain?”

“I haven’t tried it out,” Spike said in his sexy I Can Get Buffy To Do Anything I Want Voice. He slid his hand around the back of her neck and nibbled her ear. “Come back to my crypt, pet, and I’ll test it on your neck. You haven’t let me have a bite in days.”

It was impossible to be mad at Spike when he was licking the bite mark on her neck. Or when he was licking the bite mark that wasn’t on her neck, either.

Buffy melted into Spike’s arms. She was melting into a pool of Buffy-goo. Giles could put the final entry in his Watcher’s Diary: Slayer, Buffy Anne Summers, met her fate in Sunnydale, California, at the Lips of Spike, also known as William the Bloody, who reduced her to a puddle of Slayer goo.

Her lips were a nano-inch away from his when she turned her head to avoid his kiss.

“Cut it out.”

“Let’s kiss and make up, luv. You know you don’t want to be mad at me.”

She didn’t want to be mad at Spike. She wanted to go to his crypt and have cosmic, star-bursting sex to make up for their fight last night, but she couldn’t.

“I can’t go to your crypt. I can’t be with you any more.” She’d made up her mind. Normal Guy for her. Spike and Spike Smoochies and Spike Touchies and Spike-induced Cumming and, considering her choice of husbands, possibly cumming altogether, would just have to be history. She hoped she wouldn’t have to go through withdrawal.

Spike pressed his advantage. He lifted the stray strands of hair from the back of her neck and kissed the ridge of bones from her shoulder up her neck.

“Going to make a play for Soldier Boy? Slip a cuckoo in his nest? If you weren’t my girl and he wasn’t my kid, I’d enjoy watching you do it.”

“Cuckoo? What are you talking about? I hate when you talk in code.”

Spike stood up and dusted off his coat. “If that’s the way you want it, Slayer. You go play with your Enormous Hall Monitor, but if he touches you, I’ll kill him.”

Spike walked away, leaving Buffy sitting on the curb.