Author’s Note: Thanks as always to my beta, Kar. And of course to Liliaeth for the challenge! This is a shorter story, mostly a character piece, and a little moody. Hope you’ll enjoy it.

Chapter One:

Spike woke up with a sore head and his lady love's eyes boring into him with seething disappointment. These were all too familiar circumstances. "Christ, what did I do this time?"

Buffy rolled her eyes and waved an arm around. "Well, if you'd wake up already you might notice that we are not at home, and according to the newspapers all over the sidewalk, we're thirty years in the past."

Spike rubbed his face and looked around. Bugger. Right she was. And a mite
put out about it too, not that he could blame her really.

"I cannot believe you found even sketchier friends in Cleveland than you had in Sunnydale," she moaned. "You cheated Chronout the Time Mangler at cards again, didn't you?"

He managed to push himself to his feet, still feeling a bit nauseated from
being flung about in time. "I do not cheat," he protested.

"Right, right, you play creatively," she broke in. "What are we supposed to do now?"

Spike considered their problem. They'd need a mage, and for that they needed
money, since Willow apparently hadn’t been tossed back with them. For that matter, the sun was coming up quickly, so they needed a spot to hide. Not to mention that he had an extremely hacked off woman to placate.

He glanced at one of the fluttering papers spinning around them in the alley and tried not to visibly react to the location and date. Chronout apparently knew a bit more of his past than he'd let on. Which meant a whole other set of problems he wasn't too keen on bringing up right away. Or thinking about for that matter. A fresh wave of nausea threatened.

"Come on, love, know a place we can stay. And get a big of exercise."

She rolled her eyes but followed him. "What's so special about this place?" she asked.

He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. He wasn't particularly looking forward to this particular trip down memory lane. "None of your handy plastic accounts exist yet, love."

"I'm carrying cash," she protested, but her arm was around his waist, fingers lacing through his belt loops, so he knew she was just arguing for the sake of it.

"Right. Giant portraits of Franklin that look like something from a play set. Not going to go over well with your more honest inn-keepers. Need a place where the operators are a bit more underhanded."

She stepped away from him. "You are taking me to a demon hotel?"

"By the time we're done checking in, we'll have the place all to ourselves," he promised with a sly grin.

The prospect of vigorous exercise and demon destruction seemed to perk her up a bit. She pouted at him a bit, for show. They walked on companionably and he tried not to think about when they were.

"We'll really be screwing up history," she blurted.

He smirked at her. "Oh yes, how unfortunate that you'll be giving a pack of vamps an early send off." Something twisted in his stomach at the thought. There was a beast lurking somewhere in the city, and Spike didn't know yet what they were going to do about that.

She wrinkled her nose at him. "What? Oh that. Well, yeah, it's hard to see the bad in that. No, I was thinking... is there a way we can start a college fund for Dawn, like, now? Or would that be, you know, cheating?"

He threw his head back and laughed at her and her sincere struggle with herself over such an idea. "Clever girl," he purred, kissing her pout away. Not a bad idea at all, actually. He had a few 'current' accounts under his usual pseudonyms, if he could remember which banks would survive that ugly S&L mess.

Maybe when they got home he could talk her into handing over a bit of the proceeds to pay off the bloody Time Mangler.


*******

Spike licked his lips and let the girl's body slump to the floor of the alley. His body flushed and bubbled with her blood, and he felt his brain lift and spin. Something unnatural in her veins, but he'd been expecting that. Humans sometimes played with the most interesting poisons. He frowned at the woman's corpse as he felt around in her clothes for some cash, hoping it wasn't that shit that made it temporarily impossible to get hard. Not that it mattered so much with Dru out of town. Still, he'd been hoping for a bit of fun with his dinner now and then until she got back.

Of course they were just appetizers, a bit of nothing to pass the time and fill his belly in preparation for the main course. He'd fought her twice now, and both times let her get away, just to prolong the dance. The next time they met would be the last, and the last go round for one of them, forever and anon. She was something too, tough and creative, with just a bit of desperation in her dance. His cock swelled in anticipation. So not the bad shit then.

He stuffed the girl's cash into his pocket and took the last cigarette from her pack. Exiting the alley, he lit up and watched the crowd drifting out of the club as band gave their finale encore. Could do with a quick snack, but the dawn was coming, making his skin prickle. Time to go home then.

Whatever the girl had taken, it was good, because he was fairly certain he'd just seen himself scurrying down the sidewalk with a sweet-smelling blond tucked under his arm. Intrigued, he followed his less fashionable doppelganger back to the hotel across the street from the livelier one where he'd set Dru and himself up for a few weeks.

Spike kept his distance and watched through the windows, fascinated, as the blond duo went room to room, destroying the inhabitants and riffling through
the scattered clothes for dosh. A few rattled demons rushed out into
the street, but when the place quieted he carefully made his way inside.

"I am not staying here! This place is a mess."

There was loud laughter and then the wet sound of kissing. They were sufficiently distracted so that they didn't notice him watching them from the room across the hall. The aroma of her blood wafted through the place and he felt his eyes widen; she was a slayer. And the bloke putting it to her so vigorously on the dusty sheets was clearly himself.

Apparently, the hapless girl he'd invited out for some air had gotten her little mitts on some very quality hallucinogens as well. Not that the origin
of this vision was going to stop him from unfastening his pants and enjoying the show a bit. It was quite something to see himself in action, really. He'd have to see a warlock about getting a special mirror made when he finished up his current mission. Super 8 just wasn't the same as live action.

Did she know what he was? He couldn't imagine that she didn't, given their obvious familiarity. And yet instead of thrusting a sizeable piece of wood into his heart, she was bouncing on his double with feverish glee, cooing his name and tossing that golden mane around. He sagged against the wall, feeling a bit fuzzy from the confusion and the orgasm. They were still there, and seemingly real. Where had they come from?

The sky was turning pink behind the heavy curtains of the room. The couple across the way were still rather caught up in themselves. Spike took a moment to admire his own stamina and then regretfully made his quiet way out
and across the street. The chemicals were wearing off and he was exhausted from the long night behind him. He kicked the door closed, registered that Dru still hadn't found her way back from her semi-annual walkabout, and let his slack, satisfied body collapse on the mattress.

*****