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Beer Foamy by Spikez_tart
 
Something in Common
 
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Chapter 13 – Something in Common



The Watcher’s Journal of Sir Arthur Gosnard-Tisklin.

Skelton on Ure, January 9, 1901 - I’m happy to report that the events of January 2, described previously, have sharpened the Slayer’s appetite for hunting and exterminating vampires to such an extent that no reports of vampires in the entire county reached my notice for a week before we traveled to London for the season.

Oddly, I note that Lady Vicky’s appetite for food and drink and revolting ditties (this evening I was treated to her off-key rendition of
The Giggling Girl from Guernsey) after her Slaying duties are completed for the night, have also increased. It has become my primary task to see that she has a sustaining meal waiting when we return from the darkened countryside and that she doesn’t awaken the servants with a rousing chorus of Hanging in Eastcheap is Too Good for the Likes of You.


***

Buffy snatched Spike’s cigarette out of his mouth, pitched it to the sidewalk and crushed it under the pointy toe of her boot.

“Bloody hell, woman. You won’t let me steal or bite or kill. You’ve killed all my minions. You might at least let me smoke a damn fag. Why did you drag me on this sodding trip if I’m not going to have any fun?”

“You came so I could keep you from drinking your dinner.”

“Right, then. How about a bite and quick shag, luv? The park’s nice and dark. If you don’t fancy standing up, the Ladies’ Loo in the Fish Tank has a comfy couch. You can sit in my lap and give me a dance.”

Why had she brought him? This idea of keeping track of Spike seemed stupider by the moment. Was a Loo the same as the Ladies’ Room? And, how did Spike know what kind of couch was in the Ladies’ Room? She had no trouble believing that he was intimately acquainted with the Fish Tank.

They reached Demonia, the Goth store, and Buffy stopped to look at the outfits in the display windows.

“You really buy your Slayer outfits in this place? Doesn’t exactly seem stylish enough for you,” Spike said.

“Goth stuff is heavy duty. Stands up better to Slaying wearage and tearage. You know when I’m dusting vampires?”

“You mean when you’re killing all my friends.”

“Cause you have so many.”

Buffy was examining the clothes displayed in Demonia’s window when Spike disappeared. He was nearby, she could feel his presence through the claim, but he was supposed to be where she could watch him at all times and she could prevent any Unscheduled Biting Incidents.

She scanned the shadowy park and saw nothing but a couple of freckle-faced boys with grimy hands trying to climb the mayor’s statue and a Sunnydale Streets and Sanitation worker hooking up the destroyed car to a wrecker.

She was about to head into the park to see if Spike was lurking in the bushes, when she heard a woman scream. Buffy raced in the direction of the scream – inside Demonia.

Sunday -- and another Sunday -- were vamped out and shoving a teenaged girl between them. The duplicate Sunday must be the twin sister that Willy told her about. Buffy didn’t understand how Sunday had reappeared after the thorough dusting she received last September at Buffy’s stake, but Buffy was prepared to send her right back to Hell where she belonged.

Buffy tossed down her patrol bag and leaped over the sale bin as Sunday and her twin turned to see who was interrupting their game.

“Shit,” said Sunday. “I told you we should have gone to the Food Court first. I wanted to save the Slayer for dessert. Oh, where are my manners, Rosamund, this is the Slayer. Slayer – My sister, Rosamund. The Slayer killed me the last time around. Guess you two have something in common, since Rosamund killed me the first time.” She tossed the store clerk against the nearest wall and allowed her to scamper out of the store.

“Gee, Rosie, I hate to kill you after we’ve just met. Don’t know how I’ll be able to live with myself.” Buffy’s eyes flicked around the store for weapons. To her horror, the store was entirely fitted out in metal – metal racks, counters, clothes hangers – everything. Not a piece of wood in sight. “Damn, no wood. Guess I’ll just have to rip your heads off with my bare hands.”

Sunday shoved over a rack of clothes to give herself fighting room. “I hate to kill you while you’re wearing that jacket, Slayer. Did your Mom loan it to you? It’s sort of a Class X Fashion Felony.”

While Sunday was yapping and flexing her legs, Rosamund was creeping around to Buffy’s left.

“You know, Sunday. I think I like your sister much better than you. She keeps her mouth shut. Kinda prettier than you, too.”

“We’re twins, you dumb bitch,” Sunday said. She shifted into a fighting stance and raised her fists.

Buffy cocked her fists and moved with caution, staying outside of Sunday’s reach, turning to keep Rosamund from sneaking up behind her. She bent her knees to keep her body mass low and stable and planned her attack. This would be a tough fight. She’d had a hard time beating Sunday the first time. Sunday was quick and brutal, but Buffy knew her fighting style – some sloppy karate moves and straight-up boxing punches with a few predictable kicks and back hands.

She knew nothing about Rosamund or her fighting abilities, but assumed the twins had fought as a team before and would combine their skills to their best advantage.

She was going to need a really good pun when this fight was over.

Buffy stepped in with her right for the first punch, slamming her fist into Sunday’s gut and following with a left to her jaw. Her fist glanced off as Sunday brought up her right and punched Buffy in the eye.

After a quick roundhouse kick to Sunday’s right kidney, she grabbed Sunday’s fist as it flew towards her face, and tossed Sunday into a mirror, shattering the glass. “Bad luck, Sunday. In your case, it won’t last seven days.”

Sunday jumped up and cart-wheeled back to the fray, kicking Buffy in the head before landing on her feet. The blow stunned Buffy, who stumbled forward. Sunday grabbed Buffy’s shoulders and tossed Buffy on the floor.

As Sunday leaped onto Buffy to crush her, Buffy bent her legs, caught Sunday in the belly with her boots and catapulted her over the cashier counter. Buffy rolled to one side and sprang to her feet.

While Sunday had been holding her own, Rosamund stayed back. Now that Sunday was temporarily down, she picked up a metal pipe from a broken clothes rack and cracked Buffy on the skull. Buffy staggered, grasped a clothes rack and sent it flying in Rosamund’s direction. Rosamund dodged the rack, giving Buffy time to snatch a heavy metal chain from the belt display.

Buffy whipped the chain in the air, swung it in a circle over her head and caught Rosamund’s pipe as she brought it down again on Buffy’s head. The chain spun around the pipe, Buffy jerked on the chain and sent the pipe flying.

Sunday had recovered by this time and she and Rosamund grabbed Buffy by the arms and tossed her through the store’s plate glass display windows, sending Buffy, mannequins and leather clothes sailing out into the street. Buffy landed in the glass shards and slid ten feet, cutting and scraping herself in a dozen places and ramming her head into a parking meter.

The twins jumped through the shattered window and danced around Buffy.

“Are you going to fight, Slayer or screw around?” Rosamund asked. “I’ve got shit to do. Got to steal a new car for one thing. My last one got damaged. Got to catch the Late, Late Show with that cute devil Spike, too. Caught a sniff of him just now.”

Spike? What did this skank have to do with her mate?

Buffy staggered to her feet and shook her head to clear her brain. “Leave Spike alone.”

She tackled Rosamund first, slamming her with her fists, hard - hard - harder, then socked her neck. While Rosamund buckled to the floor from Buffy’s fierce blows, Buffy attacked Sunday. She threw Sunday in front of a passing bus. The bus swerved and rammed into a fire hydrant, which burst open and soaked Sunday. Buffy ran back into the store to get a stake from her bag.

The noise from the fight attracted a crowd, several security guards and a herd of small boys. A couple of Sunnydale cops, who had previously been minding their own business and directing the removal of the wrecked Miata by a couple of men from Streets and Sanitation, were forced to investigate.

“Rosamund,” Sunday whined, “Look what the Slayer did. My hair’s wet. Kill her.”

Rosamund jerked Sunday away from the gushing hydrant. Surveying the crowd of lookie-loos, cops, guards and other interfering types that were assembling, she decided it was time to leave.

“Let’s get out of here. Kill you later, Slayer,” she called out. The twins ran, limping and shrieking down the street.

By the time Buffy ran back with her stake to finish off the vampire twins, Spike had reappeared. A red-lace brassiere trailed out of one coat pocket and the other bulged with video tapes he’d swiped. A security guard from XXXtra Spicy Video and Adult Toys Store was trailing Spike and talking into his walkie-talkie. The security guard grabbed Spike’s sleeve and released him just as quickly when Spike flashed his vamp face. Spike shook off his vamp face and strolled over to the hydrant where Buffy was washing blood off her face and picking bits of glass out of her arms and hands.

“Finished shopping, pet? Good. Let’s go and get you some ice for that eye.” Spike laid his cool fingers over Buffy’s swollen eye.

Spike’s hand felt good, nice and cool like he always did. “Might as well, there weren’t any good sales,” she said. “You know, I may have to re-think that whole leather thing. What do you think about tactical rip-stop nylon battle dress uniforms? Tommy Hilfiger makes my size in black, woodland camo or shell pink.”

“Nylon’s a little hot for southern California. Doesn’t bother me, being room temperature, but you might want to consider the traditional all-cotton ninja gear. Only comes in black, though. Shows every bit of vampire dust and your more viscous demon snot, too.”

A few blocks away, Cleotus skidded to a stop on his motorcycle in time to catch Rosamund and Sunday running, squeaking and dripping, into the night.

He revved the engine. “You ladies need a lift?”

***

“You know, Slayer,” Spike said, pausing to take a slug from his bottle. “I’ve been going about this all wrong.”

They were back in the pub and Buffy was sprawled comfortably against Spike. Spike stroked her hair. As he’d predicted, the claim was working on the Slayer. She’d cozied right into his arms tonight on her own. He hadn’t even had to request a dose of potion from the new bartender – the third new bartender this week.

What the hell happened to Bob the Warlock? Bob was going to owe him some dosh as soon as he took out the twin birds. Buffy nearly cut him out of the tidy bit of cash tonight. He’d have to make sure she didn’t interfere with the Twins before he could kill them both.

“Going about what all wrong?” She should not be doing this, pressing against Spike, even though nobody was in the pub tonight that she knew except her former Cave Companions and that dope Parker. No snuggling Spike was bad. Hanging around with Spike was bad, even if she did have a really good excuse that she needed to keep him from killing people. Being mated to Spike was Bad Bad Bad. Except for the part where he brought her posies and was nice to her now instead of being a big fat jerk and threatening to kill her all the time. Oh, and the sex.

“Letting you go out fighting by yourself. It’s dangerous. Take tonight for instance. You got into that nasty brawl with those two trulls, Rosamund and Sunday. Didn’t even have your bleeding pointy sticks handy.”

Buffy frowned. Trulls? Were trulls anything like Sluts? “You know them?” Rosamund had challenged her over Spike, but Buffy hadn’t given her challenge much thought at the time other than to be incredibly pissed off, since she was busy getting the mucous beat out of herself by the Suck Sisters.

“Met them in New York City a few years back when Dru and I were on the outs. We shared a pad for a couple of nights in Soho before it got all trendy and upscale. The girls tag teamed me. Best shag of the decade. Not as good as you, of course.”

She didn’t think before slamming her fist into his nose. She’d forgotten that a punch to Spike’s nose could boomerang onto her own face. She clapped her hand on her nose, anticipating a sharp pain. Nothing happened.

Spike grabbed his nose, “Owww, Slayer! What the bloody hell did you do that for? Christ, that hurts.” He wiped away the blood and started to lick his fingers before he caught the look Buffy was giving him.

Her nose felt no pain, not even a twinge. It just felt noselike. She raised her fist to give Spike another poke, but he grabbed her hand and pulled her into his arms and kissed her.

“I get it. My mate is a little bit jealous. Want me to take you home and show you what I did to the Twinks with my tongue? I nicked a bottle of champagne earlier. We can make a night of it.”

Buffy shoved him away. “I do not. I’m not having sex with you ever again. Ever. And, no champagne.” God only knew what Spike would get her to do if she drank champagne.

“Suit yourself,” he said. He had no intention of letting her get out of her Matey duties tonight. “Anyway, I was saying it’s dangerous for you to run about fighting every two-bit vampire that drags into Sunnyhell. You might get killed and if the claim was open, I might get killed too. I’d miss you, lamb, but I can’t go getting myself dusted just cause you get sloppy one night.”

Wait a minute. If the claim was open? Did that mean it could be closed? She’d just popped him in the nose and it hadn’t hurt like the last time. Was it possible to shut down the claim link? Could she close the claim or just Spike? She couldn’t let him know that she’d caught on to his lie about the claim, so she pretended to be irritated. “Could you get to the pointy, Spike?”

“I’ve decided that I’m going to help you patrol, you know, kill vampires, kick a little demon ass, fight evil, kill something. Protect my mate.”

Was there no end to the tricks Spike could come up with? “And, you’re all Justice League of a sudden because you’re afraid that you’ll get killed because of the claim.”

“Well, yeah. Also, you’re my sweet tiny mate, Goldilocks, and I can’t bear for anything evil to happen to you. Unless I do it to you myself.”
 
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