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Lessons in Love by Spikez_tart
 
In Case You've Forgotten
 
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Chapter 5 – In Case You’ve Forgotten

The following evening …

Buffy’s feet radiated pain in her gold, strappy shoes with the five-inch heels. Her micro-mini, corpuscle-red satin dress didn’t allow her to bend over in any direction without exposing her black-lace panties. Dawn coerced her into teasing up her hair into a huge nest and putting on way too much makeup. Buffy was certain she looked like a slut bag. She was certain Spike would not be able to take his eyes off her, Spike being the slut-bag admiring type.

It had been torture, but she’d waited until ten o’clock to make sure Spike arrived at the Bronze first so he could witness her entrance. She cut in front of the long line of girls at the door and stared down a couple of girls who protested. She plunked down Xander’s thirty bucks for tickets in front of Cordelia, who was collecting money.

“Buffy, I’m so glad you could make it. There are a lot of great guys here tonight. Maybe you’ll meet somebody.” Cordelia fluttered her eyelashes and flipped her hair back over her shoulder.

“Anything for a good cause,” Buffy said and curled up her lip. She restrained herself from rearranging Cordelia’s orthodontic work with her fist.

She strolled into the bar where the dance floor was filled with tables decorated with pink crepe ribbons and hearts and red-foil Cupids. The Bronze looked festive, but they hadn’t bothered to do any real cleaning, like mopping the floor, which had reached a critical mass of stickiage.

Spike lounged at one of the tables, smiling and enjoying himself. He was flirting with a pasty-faced, red-headed girl with a stick-thin body when Buffy came in. The girl handed him a second ticket and pressed the starter on the clock so she could continue talking to Spike.

Buffy plopped down in a chair in front of the first available guy. She handed her ‘date’ a ticket and started the clock, but was she so busy watching Spike, she forgot to introduce herself.

“Hi,” the young man said as he held out his hand. “I’m Brandon. Wow, I can’t believe a hot-looking girl like you is sitting at my table. Are you one of those Super Model girls like in People magazine who could never get a date in high school ‘cause guys are afraid to ask you out? Of course, you’re shorter. Than a Super Model, I mean. Would you go out with me so I can inflict some serious envy on my friend, Warren?”

Buffy looked at her date, who she hadn’t bothered to check out before she sat down.

Brandon was forty pounds overweight, had greasy hair, and a serious case of acne. He wore a pair of glasses with black plastic frames and thick, greasy lenses. The glasses sat on his nose at a tilt. Brandon was unlikely to excite any Spike jealousy. She was going to have to be more careful with the rest of her tickets.

Buffy shook his sweaty hand to be polite. “Hi, I’m Buffy. I slay vampires. What do you do?”

She wiped her hand on the tablecloth and craned her neck to look around Brandon’s head.

Spike was laughing. He was laughing at something that skeevy, red-haired girl said. Buffy forgot about her plan to make Spike maximum jealous and jumped up.
“Sorry, uh, uh, Bradley ... er Brandon. I just remembered, I have to talk to someone.”

Brandon sighed. “It’s okay if you leave. I knew there was something wrong with you as soon as you sat down. Super Models, even short ones, are never interested in solid, serious guys like me. Are you sure you wouldn’t go out with me so I can make Warren like totally jealous? I wouldn’t tell him you’re crazy.”

Buffy marched over to Spike’s table. She held her face in a rigid mask so Spike wouldn’t see her wince from the pain being delivered with each step she took in her fashionable shoes.

Buffy tapped the red-haired girl on her shoulder. “Excuse me. I need to talk to Spike.”

“Spike?” the girl looked at him, confused. “You said your name was William.”

The girl turned back to Buffy. “I paid for extra time, so you’ll have to wait …”

Buffy ended the conversation by slamming her fist onto the clock and shattering the crystal. The clock whirred and stopped.

“Nice meeting you, Red,” Spike said as the girl stumbled away, her eyes wide with shock.

Buffy jerked the chair away from the table and sat down.

“Got a ticket, Slayer?” He gave her a nasty grin. This was going better than he’d expected. A few hours ago, he’d been ready to crawl back to her. Now, the Slayer was madder than hell with jealousy and he planned to make the most of it.

He’d nearly caved yesterday when he saw her at the Magic Box. She’d looked so sad, he wanted to beg her forgiveness and haul her off to his crypt to show her how sorry he was. He would have, too, if Cordelia hadn’t dragged him out of the shop. He hadn’t believed Buffy would show up tonight either, though Cordelia promised him nothing would keep Buffy away.

Buffy slapped her remaining five tickets down on the table in front of him with sufficient force to crack the top of the table. This was insufferable. She was paying to talk to Spike! She was paying to talk to Spike who never shut up for a single minute.

Forgetting she’d broken the clock, she banged the top to start her time. The crystal, the hands and some other parts fell to the floor with a tinkle.

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

“I’m chatting up the birds. Cordy said it was for some charity.”

“You’re a vampire, in case you’ve forgotten, and you’re not supposed to be ‘chatting up’ human girls.”

Spike gave her his best snarky smile. Buffy never paid any attention to him talking to girls once the chip was implanted in his head.

“Jealous, pet?”

“I am not jealous. You can sleep with whoever you like, Mr. Liar.”

“Liar! Who’s a liar? I never lied to you ….”

Buffy leaped up and stamped her foot. Shooting pain bolted through her foot and up her calf. Once the pain subsided and she resumed normal breathing, she remembered Spike was a liar and she was going to tell him what she thought about his crappy lies.

I love you, Buffy. I love you forever and forever and ever. For exactly 32 days and three hours.”

She made up the part about the three hours. Saying an extra three hours sounded precise.

“I loved you for a lot longer than 32 days.” Spike felt pleased. Not only was Buffy counting the days and making up the number of hours they’d been together, but the Slayer was brassed off that he was talking to another girl that he’d met ten minutes ago.

Cordelia’s plan was working.

“Hah!” Buffy said. Hah wasn’t very clever, but she couldn’t think of anything witty at the moment because Spike made her so damn mad and her feet hurt.

“You were the one who wasn’t interested,” he said. “You didn’t want to tell your git friends about us.”

Boy, did Spike ever have a one-track mind. He was complaining about her keeping their affair a secret from her friends again. And, he blamed his bad behavior with Cordelia on her stupid friends, like it wasn’t all his fault that she was angry.

“What was I supposed to tell them? Hey, Gang! I’m having sex with the Evil Undead!” she shouted. Buffy waved her hands over her head, hiking up the hem of her short dress and giving Spike a glimpse of her black-lace panties. She could see him sticking the tip of his tongue between his teeth, which made her even madder.

Talking in the bar stopped and the entire crowd looked at Buffy. She looked around the room giving everyone she could see an ugly glare she reserved for frightening vampires. Quiet talking resumed.

Her panties would make a nice addition to his collection. He was certain he could get them off her before midnight.

Spike leaned forward. “When are you going to admit you love me, kitten?”

Buffy raised her fist and brought it down hard on the clock.

I"

Bang

Am"

Bang

NOT"

Bang

In"

Bang

Love"

Bang

With"

Bang

A"

Bang

Vampire!

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Her fist crushed the clock through the table top and collapsed the table onto the floor.

Should he continue poking up Buffy’s anger? He didn’t think she could be hiding a stake in that dress, but the Slayer was clever at concealing them. He couldn’t stop himself.

“You should learn to control your jealousy. Look at all the damage you’ve caused.”

Buffy couldn’t hold her temper for one single moment more. She launched herself across the broken table, ripping her dress and knocking Spike backwards out of his chair and flying into three more tables. She landed on top of him and raised her fist to punch him in the nose.

The crowd cleared the room quickly. Regular patrons of the Bronze knew to leave when weirdness started. Weirdness and the blonde girl, Buffy, went together.

“Not the nose!” Spike raised his hands to protect his face.

Buffy’s fist hung in the air. Since her favorite target wasn’t available, she rolled off Spike and struggled to stand up, which proved impossible in her stiletto heels. She teetered on her high heels for a moment then fell back onto her butt into a puddle of beer. The back of her dress stuck to the floor.

She burst into tears.

Spike, sensing his nose was safe for the time being, sat up and pulled her into her arms. “Don’t cry, Buffy. I’m sorry. I wanted to make you jealous. You know I’m crazy in love with you.”

She wiped the snot from her nose with the back of her hand and wiped her hand on her dress. She pushed on his chest without shoving him away. “You had sex with Cordelia to make me jealous and that’s supposed to make me feel better?”

He hugged her tighter. “I didn’t have sex with Cordelia or anyone else since the last time you got mad and ran out of my crypt.”

Buffy thought he was telling the truth. He was a pretty bad liar.

“Yourself?”

“Okay, myself, but I thought about you.”

“You did?”

“Yeah.”

Buffy snuffled and allowed Spike to hug her and kiss her hair and her ear and her cheek and her mouth. And, then he kissed her in a very Spike-like manner that reminded her how much she’d been missing Lips of Spike the past few days.

She pulled away so she could breathe. Not needing to breathe himself, Spike forgot sometimes she did and kissed her until her brain whirled.

“I want to get back together, Spike,” she said in her best pouty I-Should-Get-What-I-Want voice.

“There’s a condition.”

“What?”

He was going to make her say she loved him, which she did. If she wasn’t in love with Spike, she wouldn’t be acting like a complete moron sitting in the middle of the floor of the Bronze in a pool of beer, with her mascara running down her face and her butt stuck to the floor. Still, she didn’t feel like rewarding his bad behavior with Cordelia.

“You have to tell your friends. No more sneaking around.”

Buffy glanced up. Xander, Willow and Anya stood at the edge of the empty dance floor, and, from the looks on their faces, they’d been watching Buffy and Spike for quite some time. Xander slapped a stake in his hand.

“I don’t think that’s going to be an issue,” she said as she renewed her struggle to get to her feet.

 
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