A/N: Once again, much love to my reviewers and nominators at the FFL and VKA Awards.... You guys keep me writing...

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Three hours and one Lenscrafters trip later, Spike and Giles were sitting in Spike’s kitchen drinking whiskey. Spike could smell Buffy from the previous night, all vanilla and lust, and an erection rose unbidden. He shifted on the chair he was sitting and stifled a groan.

Giles fiddled with his new glasses obliviously, taking them off to make a quick rub on his shirt.

“I’m must admit I’m curious. How is it you and Buffy came to be together?”

An unstated challenge lingered in the air; what Giles was really asking was how he got tamed. Spike gave a small smile laced with evil thoughts and topped off the man’s drink, hoping to buy his silence with inebriation.

“We all have decisions to make, Watcher,” he said finally. “To break, be broken. All of us are weak, brittle like somewhere. Love’s the place where I choose to crack.”



“I believe in love more than I believe in being evil,” he said softly as he made eye contact with the Watcher.

“Ah,” was all Giles said for a moment. Then, “Does she know?”

“No. Not gonna be a bugger and toss that on her plate right now. She’s got ‘nough to deal with Hank.” Spike tossed back his drink and poured the rest of the bottle into his glass.

“It won’t be easy, a vampire and a Slayer. In fact it grates on every sense of decency I have.” Spike took a harsh gulp of his liquor, dropping his eyes.

“But I understand what its like… Forbidden love. I recognize it in you, actually.”

“We’re meant to be, Buffy an’ I,” Spike said vehemently. “Solid in prophecy, and the world be damned.”

Spike’s words slipped through the alcohol curtain that was dulling his brain, and Giles frowned.

“What prophecy?” he asked, Watcher instincts taking over.

Spike was quiet for a moment, head bent and eyes on his nearly empty glass. Finally, he began to speak the secret he had kept for nearly a year.

“Met a man last year, ‘bout this time. Told me I was gonna meet a girl, and that instead of killing her, ripping her to bloody bits and feasting and the like, I was gonna help her. So I laughed at ‘im and tried to eat ‘im.” He laughed out loud at the memory.

“Bugger smacked his hand to my forehead and had blood gushing out my ears. Then I got right quiet and listened to what he had to say.”

“Told me I needed to go find a man named Summers. I was in Sacramento at the time, living real nice off the posh crowd. I tried to explain to him I’d no need for a woman, not since Dru went all cold on me and we parted ways. He just said, “Trust me. She’s different.” So, off I was to follow his advice and go to LA to look for her.”

“The next day was the first time I saw her, staked out in my Desoto that I was driving at the time. She was walking out of her high school in a bit of fabric tryin’ be a skirt and boots up to the knee. It was the sorta outfit girls try to wear to be like women, but on her… It was the prettiest packaging I ever saw.” His eyes grew vague with the memory.

“She was such a fair thing. Not my usual sort of girl. An’ then I saw her eyes.”

He gulped the last of his whiskey down and closed his own eyes in reflection.

“They were so big, all green laced with amber. She was talking to this girl beside her, listenin’ but watching at the same time. And suddenly she looked away from the conversation, straight to my car, an’ I swear it was like she was looking right at me, trying to get a feel. Such an edge she was wearing, but such loneliness too.”

Spike got up and went to the fridge, bringing back a fresh bottle of Jack Daniels. He sat down with a creaking of leather and cracked the bottle, pouring both himself and the Watcher a generous dash.

“The next day I went to Summers and presented myself as the Big Bad. Roughed up a few of the boys, let ‘im know I’d be working for him or against him. So he gave me a job in… security.” Spike flashed Giles a grin.

“Right! Security! Heh!” Giles knocked back his whiskey and gave a small cough.

“Been doing it ever since.”

“But you don’t know who he was? The man?” Giles waved his empty glass in the air as he spoke, and despite the funny picture it made, Spike felt a slight unease at the question.

“He called himself Gabriel, and-“

Spike was cut off by the sound of his front door opening. He knew instinctively that it was Buffy, and felt both relief and panic upon realizing she was about to meet her Watcher.

“Spike! Where are you, baby?”

Giles choked on a mouthful of liquor at the leering tone in her voice, and Spike glared at him before getting up and going to meet her.

She was standing in the living room in her hunting outfit, black on black on black. He had a brief fantasy about what was underneath being black as well, but pushed it down as she sauntered towards him.

“Spike! There you are! God, the bullshit I had to put up with tonight! Dad finally let me leave. I told him I was going clubbing and I’d be in late. And I am so freaked out about this Wolfram and Hart guy, but I’ll tell you about that later.” Her hands snaked out and grabbed him by the waist, pulling him close before dropping her hands to cup his ass.

“Right now I just want to get you naked and do bad things.”

“Buffy, there’s someone here, love,” he said, catching her by the arms and reluctantly putting some space between them.

“Oh,” she said disappointedly, dropping her hands and jutting her lip out in a pout.

“So much for playing.” He caught her hand and gave it a squeeze.

“I know, pet. But he’s somebody you’ll really want to meet.”

“Fine,” she said with a sigh, looking around the apartment absently.

“So who’s he then?” She wrinkled her nose. “And why do you smell like JD?”

“Just somebody looking out for you, pet. And he’ll answer some of the questions I can’t.”

“Ok, now I’m seriously curious. Who’s here? I mean it’s not like…”

Buffy trailed off as Giles came into view, walking slightly sideways from too much liquor. It took a moment for it to register in her mind, the sight of him in khakis, loafers and a vest, glasses teetering at the end of his nose. When it finally clicked, she felt her insides collapse.

“Oh my god!”

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