Note: Thanks to my beta t_geyer for her unending patience, perseverance and support.

SECTION 1 - HOLDING OUT FOR A HERO

I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the morning light
He's gotta be sure
And it's gotta be soon
And he's gotta be larger than life

((Jim Steinman wrote it, I think, even though the site where I found the lyrics says it's Bonnie Tyler) - Bonnie Tyler




Chapter 1.09
Saturday, May 25th, 2002


Spike ignored Buffy's protests all through the whole three minutes it took him to select the items he required.

"I'm not your bloody Ken doll, pet, an' I've had enough practice to know what I look good in an' what I don't. So long as these are the sizes that they say they are on the labels, I'm done. Go hassle Junior if you want to play dress up."

"But-."

Spike rolled his eyes. "Feel free to pick out a spare shirt or two, if you must, an' that's it."

Buffy would have argued further but the attendant manning the door of the men's changing rooms barred her way. For a wicked second it occurred to her that maybe she should point out to him that the guy who was about to try on the expensive suit, that might or might not fit him, would be doing so without the benefit of underwear, but then if he followed Spike into the cubicle, there would be the whole thing where he might realise that Spike had no reflection, so she decided it was safer not to.

Wes raised an eyebrow as he walked past her with his own neatly folded pile of clothing and she realised that she had missed her second chance. Making the best of the situation, she decided to help Fred and Dawn in picking Connor's first suit.

 

---

 

"Spoilsport," Buffy complained about the fact that Spike hadn't even let her see what his clothes looked like on, as she passed over the plastic to pay for the three men's suits and everything to go with them, not to mention half a dozen extra shirts. Wes had wanted to pay for his own, but Spike had insisted that the meal was their way of saying thank you to the people who had helped rescue Dawn and so were the clothes. Finally, when Buffy pointed out that they were bickering over the bill like two old women in a coffee shop, the watcher had conceded the argument.

"Apart from anything else, pet, if I'd tried on all the stuff you were lookin' at we'd have been here till about five o'clock. You wouldn't have enough time left to get your frocks an' find shoes and make up to match and get back to the hotel in time to get ready."

Spike picked up the bags, shuffling closer as he spoke until they were as near as could be without actually touching. "I'll take these back to the car and then we'll sort out the rest of the stuff we need for tonight. You girls just find what you need to make yourselves even more beautiful and give me a call when you're ready to be picked up."

"Sweet talker." Buffy raised her lips to his, so that no other part of their bodies touched and yet somehow they were so aware of each other that their mere proximity made their blood sing. "You think you'll be able to get everything?"

"Wes lived in LA for two, three years. I think we'll manage to find what we need. There's nothing too complicated on the list." Spike spoke softly, his lips less than half an inch from Buffy's own.

"Good." Buffy still hovered so close to his familiar body with its scent of spicy cologne and those hard muscles that looked so innocuous wrapped in leather and cotton but which could reduce either an opponent or a lover to a quivering mass with equal effectiveness.

"Hey... if you two are going to go get a room... again, then one of you better hand over some plastic so that the rest of us can go shopping." Dawn's joking comment broke the tension, as she'd intended. Thanks to Buffy's intercession, she and Spike were back on a more normal if still slightly tentative footing. Her punishment was, as yet, undetermined but both of them were trying to act as normal as possible and hoping that if they did the veneer of awkwardness would dissipate.

"And the day I let you loose in LA with my credit card is the day I volunteer to go back to that clinic." Buffy threw her arms around Spike's neck, the pair saying their goodbyes with a series of brief, open-mouthed kisses that somehow managed to walk the tightrope between public decency and eroticism. Stepping back, Buffy licked her lips in a subconscious gesture and, inclining her head toward the blond, she repeated her earlier promise as a farewell. "Later."

Spike's lips formed a enigmatic smile. "Later."

As the other males waited for Spike to either give up watching the motion of Buffy's butt as the women walked away or for the girls to turn into one of the many shops, Connor looked at Wes and asked, "Are they always like that?"

"So long as there's nothing more pressing to interrupt them."

"And this is what it is like when people are in love?"

Wes twisted his head to look at the boy for a second before he watched the women again, his mind on someone else entirely. "If they're very lucky, yes. It's how love is supposed to be." He turned back to the youth once more with a wry grin. "...Though our friends here are rather more overt in their affection than most."

---

 

"I am just shopped out." Fred dropped a selection of plastic bags onto the bed next to her boyfriend. "Have you been up here all day?"

"More or less. Leastways since I found out it was 'Be Nice to Wes Weekend'."

"Charles, he's trying to help-."

"Sure he is. He already helped himself to Angel's kid. Who's he going to help himself to next?" Gunn's eyes flicked up Fred's body and back down again.

"It's not like that-."

"You didn't even notice I wasn't there, did you? You and Wes, busy doing the thinking for everyone."

Fred looked hurt. "That's not fair. Everybody else was there and I noticed."

"And when was that? When exactly did you fit this in between shopping for dresses we can't afford and visits to the hairdresser?"

"'Round about when you were busy nursing that huge chip on your shoulder. Charles, I told you when we came back from Sunnydale that I picked you, not Wesley. I don't know where you get this idea that there's something between us."

"Anyone who wasn't blind could see he's been in love with you for years. I just never thought you were interested until you saw him with that woman, like he leaves town and a week later the fact he's been makin' eyes at you for years just goes out the window, and I'm not hypocrite enough to pretend that I want to see him sniffing round my woman."

"Well, maybe over dinner you'll get the chance to see he really has moved on."

"Since, I'll be fetching my dinner from the taco stand down the block, I doubt it."

"You're not going?"

"I thought that was what I just said."

 

---

 

People were beginning to straggle into the hotel's reception area, one by one in preparation to leave. Wes gave the slight brunette one of his most charming smiles. "It seems unlikely that your usual escort is going to be available. Perhaps you would permit me to take his place?" He held out his arm.

Dawn twined her own arm around it. "If you don't mind people thinking you're my sugar daddy, again, and Marie and Rosa aren't going to mind, I can live with a tall, dark and handsome escort."

"I'm sure the ladies would approve under the circumstances and I don't mind people jumping to conclusions... provided you don't encourage them."

Dawn's eyes twinkled once more with mischief. "Would I do that?"

Fred blinked a couple of times to keep back the tears that blurred her vision. A heavy arm settled around her shoulders. "Smile, my little cup cake," Lorne whispered in her ear. "I can't claim to be the guy that's stupid enough to be up in his room when he should be down here, but I can give you an arm to lean on for the night."

---

 

The bed bore dishevelled witness to Buffy and Spike's earlier activities even if the naked vampire, barely covered by the white cotton sheet, hadn't worn the satiated look of a dairy cat as he lay there, watching her with hooded eyes, one arm behind his head and the other hand holding a lit cigarette. Buffy rose from the stool in front of the dressing table, her make up finished, only needing now to discard her robe and put on her stockings, dress and shoes.

"Come on. You're the one that organised all this. The least you can do is to get ready in time."

Spike stubbed out the remains of his cigarette and, pushing the sheet back, he padded into the bathroom, where he had hung up his new clothes, so that the steam from their showers would cause any creases from their sojourn in the trunk of the car to drop out. Buffy heard the sound of water running and she busied herself with getting the floral lace of her nude hold-up stockings to sit correctly, before slipping off her thin robe.

She opened the wardrobe and took out the dress she had bought for that night, its colour chosen to tone with the clothes that Spike had picked. The silk dress was the deep purple-blue of a summer solstice midnight, a few shades darker than the shirt Spike had selected to accompany his black three piece suit. She wrapped the high collar around her neck, covering part of Spike's mark as she fastened the three small buttons at the back with some difficulty. The dress needed no other fastenings as it left her back totally bare, even as it sheathed her in form-fitting modesty from the front. The slim-fitting shape of the front fanned into a small train at the back, allowing her to walk freely. She slipped on a pair of delicate sandals in the same colour, and as she lowered her foot from the stool to the floor after fastening the second of them, she heard the bathroom door open once more.

Spike emerged, his hair once more gelled firmly in place, his face freshly shaven. His gaze seemed fixed on the stiff new shoes that he wore, but then he twisted his head somehow to almost look at Buffy shyly, his head tilted slightly on one side, as if he expected her to tease him about his formal attire. Buffy could no more have teased him than she could have told him how distinguished he looked, for he had quite literally taken her breath away. The high V of his waistcoat framed the shimmering material of his shirt, metallic cornflower threads cross woven with black to catch the light as the muscles beneath the fabric moved. At his neck he wore no tie, but instead the collarless shirt fastened with a silver stud which matched the links he wore in either cuff, where they protruded three quarters of an inch below his jacket sleeves.

He made his way slowly over to where Buffy stood. A pale fingertip skimmed the skin just beneath the edge of the dark silk, barely brushing the curve of Buffy's breast, before his eyes rose to meet her own. Even without the communication of their shared bond she could have read the pleasure, adoration and desire in their sapphire depths. "For me?" he asked in a husky whisper.

Finally, Buffy found her voice. "For you, so that there will be nearly as many men in that restaurant who will wish they were you as there are women wishing they could be me."

"You could make every man in the place do that in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, my love."

Buffy pressed her lips against the tip of his nose before turning him toward the door and, pausing only to pick up her matching wrap and pass Spike the bag of clothes he had prepared for later, she slid her arm through his. "They wouldn't let me in wearing jeans and a t-shirt."

 

---

Dawn fidgeted nervously as the blonde couple were the last of those who planned to attend to make their way downstairs. They arrived with barely enough time to make it to the restaurant on schedule. She disentangled her arm from Wes's. "This, I have to do on my own."

As she made her way forward she kept one hand behind her back until she reached the couple. "I wanted to say sorry. I guess from what Buffy said it would be more or less impossible to replace it, but maybe this will help."

She took a squarish gift-wrapped and beribboned parcel from behind her back. Spike cautiously took it from her and began to unwrap it. As soon as he broke through the wrapping the parcel seemed to slide into two almost equal halves. Spike looked in incomprehension at Dawn's CD walkman until he saw the double CD of The Ramones greatest hits that came with it.

Dawn rushed to explain. "The walkman's a loaner. I thought maybe I could save up and get you a proper car CD player in a month or two... but I know you've only got the CD drive in your computer, so for now I thought you would probably need it."

Spike looked at the items he held in his hands for a couple of seconds before he wrapped his arms around the teenager. "This doesn't mean you get off with it, Bitlet," he told her. "But, I guess it helps. Come on. If we don't get a move on Brood Boy is gonna frown so hard his face is gonna crack."

Angel picked up the holdall that carried his and Spike's props for the night. "Let's do this."

 

---

 

"And about time. We're not all going to stay young forever." Cordy paused and then looked at her hand, trying to decide if there had been any visible signs of aging since her demonification. "At least, not so far as I know .

And how come hers puts on a suit and looks like a rock star and mine ends up looking like a lawyer? Hang on... That is the same suit you wore when you broke into Wolfram & Hart. Let me guess... you have a dozen different leather coats but you only own two suits and the other one still has baby vomit on it?

And tell me that's some sort of interplanar distortion and not a singe mark on your butt..."