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Chapter Two
 
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Chapter Two
~How you gonna keep on turning from day to day
How you gonna keep from turning your life away~

The drive to LA was taxing for Buffy, braving the freeway was bad enough, and it took her several hours to follow Dawn's sketchy directions to the right block. In dubious consolation she'd obviously come to the right place; her Slayer senses were going crazy in a way that wasn't explained by the human looking demon guarding the door of the shabby warehouse.

Deciding on the direct approach, Buffy sauntered straight up to the door with her prettiest smile firmly plastered on.

"Heard this is a place to come if you're looking for an unusual pet," she remarked casually to the guard.

"If you've got a couple hundred grand," he answered, obviously surprised but friendly enough. "You might be best off trying the zoo, gorgeous."

Buffy pouted. "But I did want something special, and I can get the money," she lied. "Can't I have a look at... um... what you have in stock?"

"Sorry doll, no-one gets in without a ticket. You need to see Ricky, the Pawn shop on 78th and West. He likes the cash up front, two hundred thou like I said, checks out your credentials, then you come back here and... select your merchandise."

********

It wasn't a long wait for Buffy till she saw someone approaching the warehouse, a human woman accompanied by a squat green demon. She took out the demon easily enough, it offered no resistance to her surprise attack, and with barely a twinge of guilt she knocked the woman unconscious, pulling her behind a dumpster to rifle through her pockets. Then a longer wait until the guard on the door changed, and she could walk straight in through the front door unchallenged.

There was something nerve wracking about how easily she got in, something that made the door swinging closed behind her sound ominous. Once inside there was no opportunity to poke around. The guard at the door summoned an escort, an oily little demon who put her ticket through a portable scanner and handed Buffy a pile of paperwork.

"I see you've bought items from us before, Miss Mainwaring," he purred, "So I don't need to explain our selection process and control procedures. Were you satisfied with your last purchase?"

"Umm.... I guess."

"A Selark demon, I see. Not too much of a handful for a young woman such as yourself?"

Buffy just shook her head guardedly.

"And what can we do for you tonight?"

"A vampire," said the Slayer hastily, then remembered herself and tried to get more into her role. "I'd like to see your selection of vampires, if you please."

"Certainly. The second pamphlet details vampire care and restraint, if this is your first. As they have more native intelligence than the Selarks we take extra precautions, it might be as well to familiarize yourself with these."

The humanoid demon carried on with its patter in a practised manner more reminiscent of an airline steward than a card carrying member of evil, Buffy started to tune him out as he started on the rules and regulations.

Just being in the vicinity of so many demons was taking up most of the Slayer's attention. Though there was no-one else in the reception area, she could sense them through the walls, a constant background static so loud that Buffy had no hope of picking out an individual vampire vibe from the mass. She tuned back in as the demon tried to guide her out of the room.

It took real effort not to slay him as he steered her by the elbow down a long corridor and out into a balcony space. "This is the vampire holding area," Oily Demon continued. "Of course if you find nothing suitable you're more than welcome to peruse our other pens, there are many species more or less human in appearance."

Still playing the part of a rich, and presumably amoral slave buying lady, Buffy tried to make no reaction to the conditions in the pit below. Forty or more vampires, all standing and shackled hand and foot, none of them looking at her. She had never been more keen to leave a building, and quickly Buffy scanned the bowed heads until she spotted a familiar streak of platinum in the crowd.

"I'd like to take a closer look at the blond one," she announced haughtily to her escort and he hurried off.

Seeing Spike shuffling into the private viewing room had more effect on Buffy than she'd anticipated. The anger and hurt she'd firmly repressed over the summer came rushing to the surface, but couldn't stand in the face of his pitiable condition. Dressed, as all the vampires had been, in a sheet draped round his person and fastened at the shoulder, every inch of his exposed limbs were covered in marks. Burns and scars and half healed cuts; only his downcast face was unscathed.

He kept his eyes on the floor as he entered but Buffy saw his nose twitch and his head jerk up, for a second his startled eyes met hers then flickered away. His hair was longer and straggly, brown roots pushing out the bottle blond. His cheeks were hollow, finely sculpted bones even more pronounced with lack of feeding.

The look of him made Buffy want to hit things, but she couldn't take out a warehouse full of demons with only the help of a shackled and starved vampire. She'd done a lot of damage herself during her long career as defender of human kind, had done a lot of damage to Spike in that dark winter after her resurrection, and Buffy'd thought there was no squeamishness left in her. But what she could see now was beyond a beating, beyond what Glory had done to him, more than the effects of starvation. He looked defeated.
When her escort started to invade her personal space he was unknowingly risking his head, but Buffy managed to keep calm, realised the demon had been talking and she'd forgotten to listen again. Now he was giving her some necklace, which hopefully wasn't too important because she'd missed the explanation. Only a few more minutes, she told herself, and only imagined tearing his head off as he fastened the leather loop around her neck.
Buffy barely listened any better as the attendant logged her choice and went through the paperwork, her attention divided between Spike and her own inner turmoil. Apparently the real buyer hadn't yet raised the alarm because despite the Slayer's apprehension everything went without a hitch, and soon she was holding the keys to her very own vampire, who had yet to say a word.

Oily Demon insisted on escorting the Slayer and her new 'purchase' to her car, carrying a trunk full of accessories, the details of which Buffy had failed to listen to. She popped the boot of her borrowed automobile to load up, and at a gesture from the demon, Spike started to follow the case in.

"What are you doing?" Buffy snapped. Sharing a building with so many uglies had stretched her last overtired nerve, and she was already annoyed by the vampire's stubborn silence. For only the second time, Spike met her eye, the same startled expression on his face. But it was the demon that answered, in a silky smooth voice that begged to be silence with a punch.

"Our commodities are accustomed to riding in the trunk; I assure you they're all fully trained."

Buffy raised an eyebrow at Spike but the vampire was looking down, again, and didn't seem to share her amusement at such a description, standing awkwardly half in and half out of the car. His passivity made her angrier still at the smug suited demon and she gave him a snarl that a Doberman might envy. "Have you pulled out his tongue or something? Cause I thought I was asking Sp... the vampire."

The demon turned towards her, obviously surprised, and the Slayer tried to reign in her temper before she raised any suspicions. She slipped into general mode, which had always been a form of self defence for her, and hoped it was in keeping with the slave buying rich persona she'd adopted.
"You," she pointed at the toadying demon, "Can go, our transaction's complete. You," the finger moved to Spike, "Get in the car through an actual door."

The vampire hastened to comply, the shackles making the rush awkward. Buffy was hit by a sudden and disturbing thought. "You do still have a tongue, right?"

"Yes Mistress."

Buffy gave him a look that quite clearly said that answer was far from funny, but Spike was still looking at his chained hands. The usually in-your-face vampire seemed to have developed an aversion to eye contact and Buffy hoped that was a sign of remorse. Or maybe he was just embarrassed, being caught wearing a toga.

The oily demon was still standing there, apparently not recognising an order from General Buffy. Ignoring him she opened the passenger door and waited pointedly until Spike shuffled in, then moved around to the driver's side, determined to leave now if she had to drive over him. As it happened, her quick exit was marred by the emergency brake, but the relief Buffy felt at leaving that place was worth any engine damage.

********

Buffy half expected his motormouth to restart once they were safely away, but Spike remained resolutely silent. Even his body language was unusually quiet, his hands folded in his lap, head bent and shoulders slumped. True, it was hard to look Spike-like in what amounted to a dress, but it seemed to Buffy the changes went deeper than costume.

The need to drive helped fill the stony silence, it wasn't a skill that came naturally to Buffy and took up most of her attention as she navigated out of LA. But she couldn't help but notice that he hadn't so much as glanced in her direction since entering the car. Occasionally his head would lift slightly to look out of the window but other than that he just sat there, content to make no effort at communication.

And it was pissing her off.

Buffy was damned if she'd speak first, she had just rescued him, after all, from wearing a toga and likely worse. Much worse, if what she could see of his skin was anything to go by, but Buffy tried not to notice the marks on his body, not wanting to feel sorry for him. And she'd seen him more seriously injured, still talking with broken ribs and punctured lungs, the least he could manage was a thank you. Or if he dared, an apology. After all that had happened between them it seemed wrong for Buffy to encourage him to talk, but the silence was driving her crazy.

Of course the longer the silence stretched the more tense the Slayer became; eventually necessity broke the stalemate. As they passed the last services before the freeway sign, Buffy noticed the empty gas gauge and pulled over, stopping on the hard shoulder. Filling a tank was a new experience for the Slayer, bad enough to pull into a floodlit gas station with a vampire dressed in a sheet, the bondage gear had to go.

"I'm going to take these chains off, okay?" she said, searching through her brand new set of gaolers keys until she found one that matched the manacles. "We need gas and I don't want to get arrested for kidnapping."

Mutely Spike held out his wrists, eyes still on his lap, and Buffy squashed the urge to grab his chin and force him to look at her. She had to bend to unlock his ankles, so close against him in the cramped footwell that she was certain he wouldn't be able to keep back an innuendo, but he did.

"Would you say something," she burst out.

The vampire twitched visibly but still didn't look at her. "I'm sorry Mistress. What would you have me say?"

"Well not that for a start," Buffy snapped, half certain she was being made fun of. "We're not going to be indulging your dominatrix fantasies."

"Sorry," Spike mumbled.

"What for?" asked Buffy tartly. There was an opening if she was ever going to give him one, and she didn't know quite what she expected in answer but it wasn't the hesitant shrug she got.

"Calling you Mistress?"

His apparent determination not to mention their last meeting incensed the Slayer. She restarted the car with angry, jerky movements and when she'd finally manoeuvred into awkward stretching distance of a pump, jumped out and slammed the door.

Buffy watched Spike through the garage window as she stood in line to pay - there was something niggling at her and for once it was nothing to do with Slayer senses. The entire time she waited in line, Spike did not move once. Didn't look like there was anywhere in that toga to keep cigarettes, his preferred form of displacement activity, but neither did he reach for the radio, or even check out his surroundings. He just sat in the passenger seat, head down.

She was way beyond tired, two days ceaseless searching for her sister had taken their toll on Buffy and she'd barely caught up enough to deal with a long drive and a very tense evening. And she'd been dreading seeing Spike again, though she never would have admitted that feeling or allowed it to stop her doing what she saw as right. Her most fervent hope since he'd left town was that he would have the good sense never to come back again, but as he'd rescued her sister she rescued him. Might have done it anyway, despite what had happened between them at the end. He'd had her back so many times in the past, and if she'd left him to an unknown fate the Slayer suspected it would never have completely left her mind.

It was the right thing to do, nevertheless this drive home was an extra emotional strain on the tired girl, and she wanted some resolution. It was obvious he was no physical threat to her, was so emaciated in fact she doubted he could be a threat to anyone chip or no, but he'd given her no indication of... well anything.

And that made Buffy cross. Okay, crosser. Not a thank you, or apology, not even a greeting.

But then he looked so terrible, it was hard to cling to the real and justifiable reasons for her anger, and she ended up merely irritable that she couldn't be really pissed. And when she picked herself up a chocolate bar at the counter she found herself adding a pack of Luckys to the order, that annoyed her too.

She virtually threw them at him when she got back to the car and sped out of the forecourt in a way the gear box wasn't likely to forgive.

"Are these for me?" Spike asked of the pack now in his lap. It was a stupid question, but also the first words he'd spoken that she hadn't dragged from him, so there was a measure of relief in Buffy's sarcastic answer.

"No. Lung cancer is my new hobby."

He picked up the box of matches and looked at her uncertainly. When it became clear he was neither going to light one nor say anything else, Buffy turned her attention back to the road with a huff. "Vow of silence, Spike?" she asked eventually.

Again that unaccountably startled eye contact, as if she'd asked something bizarre and shouldn't have been able to speak in the first place. "Not allowed to speak without permission."

Even the voice was wrong. Soft and cultured, more like Giles than the vampire she remembered with his exaggerated cockney coarseness and endless depth of expression. The whole damn thing was so wrong Buffy nearly laughed. "Because you were always so good with rules," she said aloud.

There was no mistaking the fear on his face. "Learnt," he said hastily. "Good now."

Buffy lifted a sceptical eyebrow, but inside that puzzling little niggle was crystallizing into real worry. She couldn't think, off the top of her head, of any occasion she'd seen Spike afraid. At least nothing he couldn't mask with aggression or bluster; it was catching. Sure, she'd been planning to chew him out and violence hadn't been completely removed from the table, but since when had Spike been afraid of confrontation? Up until three months ago his second favourite occupation had been goading her into a fight, and while circumstances were different it was hard to believe that Spike had changed so radically.

She wanted to ask what had happened to him in that place, but the cuts and welts told part of the story and she wasn't ready for the gruesome details. Wasn't going to be his shoulder to lean on when he obviously wasn't going to apologise for trying to rape her. Yesterday she would have scoffed at the idea that an apology was within his power, but she reserved the right to be annoyed that he had not even tried.

"Is there something wrong with you?" she asked instead. Even as the words left her mouth it occurred to the Slayer how boisterous dogs are sometimes brought to heel and winced at the thought, but the vampire merely looked puzzled.

"Apart from being sold into slavery?"

"Apart from that. Because the vampire I knew wouldn't have rolled over so easily." He didn't answer.

"Are you afraid of me?"

Spike looked sideways at her, a nervous glance that answered her question. "Yes," he said flatly, and because she seemed to expect more he added defensively: "Can't think of anyone in the world with more reason to want to hurt me than you. Well no-one who's still alive."

"It's pretty obvious I'm not going to stake you."

He dropped his eyes again, seemed far from reassured. Buffy bristled at the implication that she might have worse in mind for him.

"I'm too tired to have a go at you," she sighed eventually. "Stop being weird."

"Yes M... Yes. Okay." His eyes darted uncertainly round the car and he seemed to be searching for a way of being normal. "Thank you for the cigarettes."

Buffy humphed. "You're such a... Jerk! I don't know why I'm driving you back to Sunnydale."

And she really didn't. Despite Dawn's grand schemes of championing demon rights, the Slayer hadn't really been expecting to take this vampire back to the Hellmouth. Hadn't really expected to find him at all, it was unnerving how well their sketchy plan had worked and part of Buffy was still waiting for something to go wrong. Certainly the same conscience that would not have let her leave him there had nothing to say on the subject of nursing him back to health and L.A. was as good a place to leave him to fend for himself as any. If she'd had any firm expectation it was that whatever the circumstances, he would piss her off so much and so quickly the two of them would never have made the city limits in the same car.

And annoy her he had, though he'd chosen an unusually passive method. In her haste to get far away from the demon trading house, she'd headed straight for home and the only excuse she could offer herself was a pervasive feeling of something wrong.

"Then why did you buy me?"

The question was so soft and hesitant that Buffy had to restrain herself from looking around the car to see who had spoken, because those tones just couldn't be coming from the same Spike who regularly murdered the Queen's English with cheerful abandon.

"I didn't buy you," she prevaricated. "Technically I mugged you from some woman named Ms Mainwaring."

The traffic was thin this far from LA and Buffy risked taking her eyes off the road to give him a more serious answer. "She's my sister, so I figured I had to. If you think I wouldn't wish you dead or in pain, you've got another think coming. Besides," she tried to joke, "Dawn's been making little lists of how she's going to torture you, I wouldn't want to disappoint her."

"Of course not," murmured the vampire. "Um... who's Dawn?"

 
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