Author's Notes:
So, just FYI: I think I'm going to go for a once-weekly update with this fic. That should give me enough time to get far enough ahead on subsequent chapters that I won't have to go for extended periods without an update. Fingers crossed that this plan works out.

Secondly: How are you liking it so far? Yay? Nay? WTF were you thinking leave the fanfic writing to the real authors?

“So. Took down the Master, did you? All by your little lonesome?”
 
Buffy’s foot skidded through the grass as she stopped at the sound of his voice. Six seconds later she inhaled the halitosis from his cancer sticks. Wished the two events could’ve happened in reverse, so she’d have had a bit of warning about his presence. Turning to face the spot where he’d have materialized out of apparently nowhere, she crossed her arms and peered at him. “I thought we talked about this whole following-me-around thing, and how much I’d prefer it to not be a thing.”
 
William gave a thoughtful frown as he took a drag from his cigarette. “Way I recall it,” a cloud of bluish smoke slithered from his lips, which arranged themselves into a satisfied grin. “It wasn’t the following that was the problem; it was that we hadn’t yet been properly introduced. A problem we’ve already remedied, yeah?”
 
Oh, so this was him trying to be charming, was it? Witty? Buffy rolled her eyes and kept walking.
 
“I particularly liked the move you pulled on old Quasimodo. Can’t believe he fell for it, but-”
 
“You were there that night?!” Buffy raged as she whirled on him. Almost ran into his chest as she did it though, as he’d fallen into step behind her. Opening a larger gap between them, she scoffed. “Oh wait. Who am I kidding? If you’re creepy enough to follow me around in the dark, you’ve gotta be creepy enough to watch me face down what could’ve been me getting extremely dead.”
 
“Oh, come on now. Weren’t going to snuff it that night and we both know it. Was hardly even a fair fight.”
 
She sputtered. “Hardly- what?! You actually think I had the advantage? Did you not notice how much I was outnumbered?”
 
Even though his expression had turned more serious, it was still infected by that perpetual amusement he seemed to wear when addressing her. “Slayer, your biggest threat that night was the equivalent of a slow-moving gorilla who was too daft to realize that sunrise was nearly half a day away.” Then, as if he’d become bored by this line of conversation already, he bounced on the balls of his feet. “Anyway, just wanted to offer my congrats. Also, thought I should let you know… might wanna watch your six.”
 
“Huh?”
 
“Behind you, love.”
 
Buffy felt the tingles on her neck a millisecond later. Leg already cocked as she spun, she delivered a side-kick into the attacking vampire’s gut. Hurtling through the air, it landed against a tombstone. By the time it had a chance to think about getting up again, she’d already driven her stake into its chest.
 
“Look,” she prompted, continuing their argument as if the interlude had never occurred. “I don’t want your stupid congratulations, so you can just…”
 
Somehow, in the mere seconds it had taken her to dispatch the vampire, William had disappeared. Not just walked away, or sauntered off- rotating a full three hundred and sixty degrees, she couldn’t find even the ripples of his retreating form anywhere. He’d literally vaporized.
 
Well… good. Good! She so didn’t want to talk to him anymore, anyway.
 
Not one little bit.
 

|#|+---+---+|#|

 
Hard as she’d been trying, Buffy just could not shove her thoughts of last night’s encounter with William out of the spotlight in her mind. A task made all the more difficult by the fact that tidbits of their conversations prior to that were also starting to leak in, earning him a rather gigantic residence in her consciousness.
 
She wasn’t sure if she’d ever met anyone more… obnoxious in her entire life. That included the vampire who’d hunted her for two straight weeks last June, the one with the nasally voice who just would not shut up, and the guy who’d sat next to her in math that had the disgusting habit of belching every ten minutes.
 
Yeah. William was right up there with the Fran Drescher of the vampire world and the real-life version of Barney Gumble.
 
What the hell was his deal, anyway? What kind of person followed high school girls around in the dark, gave them cryptic messages about upcoming doom, and then just sat around and watched while she kicked said doom’s bumpy, fangy ass?
 
He was probably unemployed. Spent all his time at home playing video games, and had finally gotten so wrapped up in his weirdo hero fantasies that now he was trying to cut in on her action. Or, not even cut in… just… direct it. Like he was the one holding the controller and she was the character he sent running around on his screen, throwing punches and dodging kicks.
 
A, A, arrow up, arrow left, B, arrow right, and down goes the Vessel.
 
Who knew if he was even on her side? Maybe he was some whacked-out demon worshipper. Just helping her these first few times to gain her trust, so that when he finally fed her a batch of false information she’d go running into some abandoned factory, crossbow at the ready, having no idea that thirty-odd vamps were already waiting there to take her out.
 
Gah! It was all so stupid. He was stupid, and she was stupid for listening to his stupidness, and… and… and she should tell Giles. Giles would know what to do about this guy. He could probably send the Watchers’ Council after him for… for illegal Slayer interference. Or something.
 
Turning left towards the library when she should’ve been going right towards English class, she appeased the little twang of academic guilt in her consciousness by deciding that she was going to talk to Giles, who was English, so… there must be some sort of compensation going on there, right?
 
“Giles?” she called out, unsurprised by the total lack of pulses in the room. Didn’t anyone ever even come down here to do research for a class project?
 
“Buffy, good morning,” he greeted her as he emerged from the stacks, glancing down at the spine of a book he was holding. “How are you?”
 
“Fine.” Except for the little skirmish with her Mom in the kitchen that morning, but… he probably wouldn’t be able to help her much with that problem. “Giles, what can you tell me about…” Buffy paused, suddenly realizing she didn’t really know how to describe the ‘what’ of William’s presence in her life over the last couple of weeks.
 
Slipping the book into its rightful place, he turned to her after a few long seconds had meandered past them. “Buffy?”
 
“Okay, so, there’s this… guy.”
 
Halfway down the stairs, he paused when the last word dribbled out of her mouth. “Oh dear.”
 
“Relax, Giles. I’m not using you as a Willow stand-in, here. Don’t get me wrong, you’re cool for an old guy and everything, but…” seeing the look on his face, she backtracked. “I mean… not old guy. I mean you’re cool for… for an adult of indeterminate but obviously still youthful-”
 
“It’s all right, Buffy. Carry on,” he assured her, apparently no more comfortable with her attempts to correct herself than her original blunder.
 
“Anyway, there’s this guy. This annoying, way-too-into-leather, not-at-all­-attractive guy who’s been keeping tabs on me since I got here.”
 
“Keeping… tabs?”
 
“Big tabs. With colour coding and labels. My first night here, he followed me on my way to the Bronze. He’s the one who told me about the Harvest.”
 
“Oh?”
 
“Yeah. Then when I went to look for Jesse, he was there again. Told me where I’d find him. And last night? He shows up when I’m on patrol and wants to congratulate me for stopping the Harvest. Barely even blinks when a vamp comes at me from behind, and then voosh! He’s gone.”
 
“Oh dear. The vampire…?”
 
“No, I mean he left.” She sighed, hopping up onto one of the tables. “So I’m thinking, this guy must be some sort of… like… slaying enthusiast or something. Some guy with a Bruce Wayne complex who wants to rid the world of evil but doesn’t have the billions in cash to fund the actual operation.” She peered up at him. “Are there people who actually do that? Use their free time for slayage? Like… as a hobby?”
 
“Well, it’s not common, and certainly nothing that’s endorsed by the Watchers’ Council, but… indeed, it does happen. For whatever reason, otherwise normal people decide to take up the good fight against the forces of darkness. Much like Xander and Willow, I suppose.”
 
“Yeah, but they’ve got a Slayer backing them up. Seems to me like he’s doing the whole Lone Ranger thing.” After a second, she realized he’d said something that could be of help in her quest to banish this guy from her business. “So wait. You said these people aren’t endorsed by the Council. Does that mean we can- or that we should -have him, like… arrested by the Council or something?”
 
A frown flickered across his brow. “Oh, no. No, quite the opposite, in fact. From what you’ve said, this young man seems to be well-informed about the happenings here in Sunnydale. Of course, it would be unwise to simply take anything he has to say as absolute fact- we’ll have to verify any other information he might provide us with, but… I would say that having him as an ally, especially here, on the Hellmouth… it could be an indispensable advantage for us. What did you say his name was?”
 
“I didn’t.” Buffy deflated on the table, feeling like a beach ball that had just been stuck through with a harpoon.  
 
Well… that certainly hadn’t gone as planned.
 

|#|+---+---+|#|

 
“You all right there, pet? Looking a little wobbly walking around on those twigs of yours.”
 
Buffy physically fought the urge to growl at the sound of his voice. Fought even harder not to retrieve a rock from the ground and swing it at his skull as he fell into step beside her. Slaying vampires: good. Slaying obnoxious annoying humans, while quite satisfying: not so good.
 
“Is this you attempting to flatter me? ‘Cause if you ever hope to inflict your charms on any other members of the female population- which, God willing, will be very, very soon –I should probably tell you… your whole approach could use a lot of work.”
 
“Nah,” he waved a dismissive hand at her. “If I were trying to flatter you, I’d tell you how much your hair looks like a pot of warm honey, glowing in the moonlight like that.”
 
Bubba-dah-whaaa? “Uh-”
 
“’Course I know how much you wouldn’t appreciate that, coming from the likes of me, so… just meant, from the way you’re walking, looks like the day might’ve been a little rough on you is all.”
 
Buffy was still snagged on what he’d just said to her, and trying to decode the little barb or insult that must be hiding in there. “I… uh… yeah. There was… this witch. Put the whammy on me, and I almost, sort of died.” There. That sounded coherent, didn’t it?
 
“You serious?”
 
Though she knew she had to be hallucinating, there was a look of mild concern on his face that prompted her to give a proper answer. “Of the muchly. It’s no big though. There was the routine showdown, I won, and now she’s… I don’t know where, actually. Gone, at least.”
 
“Christ,” he said with a shake of his head, pulling up to lean against a headstone. “So… what’d you do then? To get this witch so brassed off she’d be looking to end you.”
 
Buffy couldn’t help laughing, only realizing now just how absurd the whole situation had been. “I made the cheerleading squad. She didn’t.”
 
“The-” It was his turn to laugh. “Cheerleading? Come on, Slayer. Now you’re just teasing me.” When she continued looking at him, face neutral, he tilted his head. “You mean to tell me you’re gonna be getting up there in some tight little uniform and a short little skirt, shaking your pom-poms all around for the big strong athletes?” He shook his head. “Almost doesn’t seem right, seeing as how I’m sure you could toss any one of them around like a bloody pigskin.”
 
Not really sure how to take this latest comment, knowing there were parts to it that were insulting, and others that were supposed to contribute to her sense of dignity, Buffy shrugged. “Well, that was the plan. Except, after this whole thing, I’ve kind of lost enthusiasm for it. Which, y’know, is sort of the point of cheerleading in the first place.”
 
“Yeah. Guess it is.”
 
Silence stretched its legs out between them. Got real comfortable. William seemed happy to enjoy it, leaning there against the headstone, absorbing another dose of nicotine into his lungs. Man, the guy was a real chain smoker…
 
“So. What is it tonight?”
 
“Hm?”
 
“Well, every time we’ve met so far, it’s because you’ve had something of dire importance to tell me, or because you’ve wanted to congratulate me on making said importance not-so-dire anymore, so… what is it tonight?”
 
“Oh. Nothing, really.” He stood up with a shrug. “Just passing through, saw you happen by, thought I’d say hello.”
 
“That’s it?”
 
“Yep.”
 
“Not… ‘Hello, and oh guess what, now there’s some Dinuvian Slime Demon on its way to destroy your new fall wardrobe’?”
 
That earned a grin. “Not as such.”
 
“Oh.”
 
“Disappointed, love?”
 
“What, that my clothing is safe from otherworldly goop? Yeah, no.”
 
He chuckled, casting his expended cigarette to the ground and extinguishing it with the toe of his boot. “Well, suppose there is one matter we could address.” Straightening up again, he fixed those sapphire crystals of his on her. “There’s the matter of a slight misunderstanding. From that day in the tomb…”
 
Buffy thought back to their conversation. Couldn’t recall anything in particular that might’ve qualified as such.
 
“Seeing as how we’re such good friends now, wanted to tell you, my name… It’s not… well, technically it is William, but I’ve got another handle I go by.”
 
“Oh yeah?” She crossed her arms.
 
“Yeah. My friends- that’d be you, sweetheart-”
 
“Don’t I know it.”
 
“Well, my enemies too… they call me… name’s Spike, actually.”
 
Buffy didn’t realize how hard she’d laughed at that until she noticed how stony his face had gone. Like an Easter Island statue.
 
“What’s so funny?” he ground out so hard there should’ve been a fine layer of sand that collected at his feet.
 
“Nothing… well, I mean… come on. Spike? That sounds like the name of the drummer in some crappy eighties hair band. You know, one of those ones with a name like Venom or Rattlesnake or…” she cleared her throat. “You know.”
 
“Right. Of course. ‘Spike’ is ridiculous, but ‘Buffy’… well, it’s just gleaming with that touch of classic elegance.”
 
Now it was her turn to bring out the look of not amused. “What’s wrong with ‘Buffy’?”
 
“Well, it’s a terrible name, pet.”
 
“My mother gave me that name.”
 
“Your mother? Oh, yeah… she’s a genius, I’m sure. Apple, tree, and all that.”
 
“Wh-! How-!” Words! Words could not be formed around the bright, burning ball of rage that had suddenly erupted in her throat. Finally, she quelled it enough that her vocal cords could at least function. “You know what, Spike? This conversation? Is so, so over. See you around… although I’m hoping it’ll be some time on the other side of never.”
 
“One can only hope,” he agreed with her already departing back. “’Ta for now then, pet.”

 

Post-chapter A/N: Yep, that was dialogue from Season 4, 'Something Blue' in there. This note withheld until now so it wouldn't spoil the surprise ;)