CHAPTER THREE

Buffy tripped slightly as her foot hit a loose cobblestone, her hand flying up against Spike’s chest to stop him from stumbling too. She felt the muscles twitch slightly under her fingers, and she pulled her hand away, ignoring the lingering feeling on her digits. One arm still wrapped around his waist, the hand gripping his hip, she reached up with her free hand to take hold of his wrist, which was dangling over her shoulder.

“We’re almost there, Spike. We’re in the courtyard.” She assured him, eyes focused on the ground. She couldn’t look at his face.

Spike only nodded, his eyes sweeping uselessly over the ground in front of him. “Yeah, I know pet. I know the smell.”

She nodded pointlessly, watching the ground carefully as she moved forward. Buffy reached the apartment she was headed for and knocked. She heard voices break off inside, and the sound of Giles’ desk chair scraping back against carpet. She’d called from a payphone on the way over, telling him to round up the gang. Spike had complained half-heartedly about needing their help, but she had insisted that they would make finding the demon faster. She hadn’t mentioned Spike’s... condition to Giles yet, but from the sounds of it, they were all there.

Giles was the one to answer the door. “Buffy, since when do you...” his question dropped off as he noticed the vampire draped over his Slayer’s shoulders. Wordlessly stepping aside to let them in, he took in the hopeless, almost terrified look on Buffy’s face that she was trying to hide. Buffy awkwardly managed to get them through the door, Spike’s head still drooped towards the floor.

“Buffster!” Xander called out from his seat on the couch, turning to face them over the back of it. “Are you... why have you got your arm around White Meat?”

The Slayer rolled her eyes at her friend’s comment, and Spike finally looked up.She knew him well enough to know that if he could have, there would be a derisive smirk on his face. “’White Meat’? Is that really the best you can come up with, whelp?”

His insult was the usual sardonic comment, but the emotion behind it was wrong, Buffy noticed. He didn’t sound teasing, he sounded... pained.

“Oh my... what happened to his face?” Willow asked, shocked, as she took in the sight of his burnt flesh, fresh blood still joining the coagulated and dried blood already on his face and neck. It worried Buffy that he was still bleeding, the acidic spray obviously preventing the usual speed of vampiric healing. “Buffy?”

Buffy ignored the others as she manoeuvred the vampire clutching to her around the couch and coffee table before sitting him carefully in the empty armchair. An idle memory flashed through her mind as she withdrew her arms from him- this was the same chair they’d occupied last year, during Willow’s Will-Be-Done spell. Shaking herself internally, she turned to face the others, wrapping her arms around herself.

Willow was sitting on the couch between Tara and Xander, and Giles had moved to stand behind them near the kitchenette. All four of them were staring at Spike with a mixture of shock, confusion and horror on their faces.

“Where’s Anya?”

“At the Magic Box,” Xander didn’t take his eyes off the vampire. “She, uh didn’t want to leave until she’d finished for the night. She’s in the middle of the stock-take and I told her it was important, but...” he drifted off sheepishly. They all knew how Anya was with money.

Buffy nodded. Then sighed. Anya could have helped ID the demon.

“What happened?” Willow repeated, shifting her eyes to her best friend.

Instead of answering, Buffy turned to Spike. “I’m getting an ice pack, and a cloth to clean you up, alright? Do you need ice or anything?” She asked quietly, cursing herself for being too stupid to check him for any other wounds before.

“I’m ‘right, love. Don’t worry about cleaning me up, I’d rather wait ‘til the bleeding stops.” He answered, equally as soft, waving a hand dismissively. He didn’t want her to worry any more than she was. Besides, he didn’t feel comfortable enough here, he didn’t want her fussing over him in front of her friends.

Buffy nodded again, mostly out of habit, before muttering “Okay”, and heading to the kitchenette. Pressing the ice to her shoulder with a groan, she returned and Tara quickly laid a hand over Willow’s, wordlessly urging her to stay quiet.

“Buffy?” she ventured quietly.

Buffy sighed, glancing back at Spike before launching into her recap. “We were patrolling. Nothing huge in the staking department until we got to Fairview. We were jumped by five vamps. We took them down easily, but we... there was a demon. We startled it I guess, and it attacked us. Hit like a sledgehammer. And it spat some kind of yellow-y acid goo or something. And when I kicked it, it got mad. It came after me and...”

She inhaled shakily, closing her eyes for a long moment before opening them again. “And Spike pushed me out of the way. He got the goo straight to the face... He’s... he’s blind.”

Buffy started slightly as she felt fingertips brush lightly against the small of her back. Turning her head, she smiled slightly. Spike was sitting in the chair, his eyes directed towards the empty space left of Willow’s head. He had reached out and touched her back reassuringly, despite not knowing exactly where she was. Spike slowly dropped his hand back into his lap, his eyes still staring over near Willow.

He could hear the pain in the Slayer’s voice. She was blaming herself for what had happened to him. Reaching out with a quivering hand, Spike felt it travel through empty air before he touched something warm. Recognising the curves of her back, he let his fingertips rest there for a few moments before dropping his hand back into his lap, the smallest of smiles on his lips.

“What kind of demon?” Giles asked quietly, a look of bemusement on his face at the silent exchange between vampire and Slayer.

“I don’t know... it kind of looked human... but kind of like a cat at the same time?” Buffy described slowly, her brow furrowed. “It was green. Yellow eyes. Any of this sound familiar to you, Giles?”

“I can’t say it does.” Giles replied, frowning, before taking off his glasses and wiping them on his shirt. “I haven’t heard of anything like it.”

“That sounds promising, then.” Spike muttered as Giles sat down at his desk. His eyes travelled from one side of the room to the other, trying to use their voices to pinpoint each person. “Time to hit the books then, Oxford?”

“Yes. Yes, of-of course. Right away, I think would be... be best.”

“No bloody kidding,” Spike murmured, fidgeting in his seat. He clasped a hand over the end of each arm of the chair, his arms lying rigidly along them.

Touching a hand to the vampire’s bicep briefly Buffy assured, “Not just Giles, I’ll help. Find out what the hell that son of a bitch was.”

“’Son’?” Xander perked up. “How do you know it was a guy?”

Buffy grimaced, “When I say I kicked it... I knee-d it. In the groin. That’s when it got mad.”

Xander flinched dramatically. “Ouch, Buff.”

“Yeah... but I think it’s safe to say that Spike got the more ouch-y end of the stick.”

All five sets of eyes fell on Spike again before Tara spoke up. “We can help too, Buffy.”

“Yeah... research party.” Willow joked half-heartedly. She offered Buffy a small smile before turning to Spike, “We’ll find out what did this, Spike. How to fix it.”

Spike only nodded a few times.

The silence started to creep in again before Xander sighed. “Well, I’m donut getting guy, so I’m here.”

Buffy nodded gratefully at her friends before lightly moving Spike’s hand from the arm of the chair, startling him. “I’m just sitting down, alright? There aren’t any seats.” She whispered reassuringly. She didn’t really know why she was being so... kind to Spike. She felt guilty, sure, but still... it was Spike. Maybe she was just suffering from extreme bouts of loneliness and misplaced affection since Riley left. It’d happened before, with Scott Hope.

Spike nodded, staring at the opposite wall, and carefully draped his arm back over the side of the chair, his bare skin brushing against Buffy’s back. Feeling her there, it was comforting. And having the Scoobies all agreeing to help him, someone who had tried to kill them all on more than one occasion? He felt like hugging someone.

“Thanks,” Spike said, his blank eyes lowering to the floor. “All of you.”

“Hey, you saved me, remember?” Buffy shrugged, joking lightly as the other Scoobies looked slightly shocked at the vampire’s gratitude. “This is just payback.”

And with that, Buffy reached forward and grabbed one of the tomes Giles was sitting on the coffee table.

Research mode.