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You Could Explain It To Me
 
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Chapter 14 – You Could Explain It To Me


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

London, Crepuscule Place, January 19, 1901 - We traveled to London in a style most appropriate for an Earl and his family – first in his Daimler-Benz automobile to nearby Elsington and from the station to London in a private railway car. Lady Vicky has naturally spent previous winters at her father’s London townhouse on Crepuscule Place, (Crepuscule Place is less well known than Grosevnor Square, but more exclusive and more privately fashionable) but she was exceptionally excited about this visit. She is to come out this season and attend her first formal ball as an adult and marriageable young lady.

I should warn her that the frivolities of balls and other recreations will be cut short by her duties as Slayer and that marriage is not recommended due to the short life span to be expected of a Slayer, not to mention the complications of Slaying while properly attending to one’s husband’s needs), but I find myself unable to address these sorrowful subjects. The thought of my Slayer meeting a youthful death at the hands of some vile demon chills me until I can’t bear to speak of it.


***

Buffy went directly to the mansion as soon as school was out. Spike threw a fit when she threatened to drag him to school with her so she could watch him. She’d finally agreed to let him stay at the house after he swore, with blood and spit, that he wouldn’t bite anyone or otherwise wreak mayhem and refreshing violence, as he put it. She’d had to make a promise in return, to come to him as soon as her last class was over.

She also made a promise to herself. She was absolutely not going to have sex with Spike today, no matter what. She was not going to go all weak kneezy like she did last night, and the night before and every night since Spike vamp-napped her, and give in two nanoseconds after he licked her ear.

She was only staying at the mansion to make sure Spike behaved. Spike behavior was the only reason it was absolutely necessary to hurry back to the mansion before the sun went down.

When she got there, Spike was sitting on the bed, dressed only in his jeans, painting his fingernails.

“Hey, hottie,” she said. She stood in the doorway admiring Spike – nice chest, excellent abs, good arms and a handsome face as well as other admirable parts. If you had to have a mate, Spike was a hottie in the mate department.

“Took you long enough, Slayer. It’s too bloody quiet around here. As soon as it gets dark, what do you say we run over to the Bronze and dust a couple of fledges?”

Buffy tossed down her books, kicked off her shoes and crawled into the bed next to Spike. She really shouldn’t sit so close to him, because Spike plus Vicinity always equaled Sex Explosions, but she couldn’t help herself. She felt an irresistible pull to be next to him. It must be the claim.

“You want to take out vampires? Since when?”

Spike picked up her bare foot and massaged her toes. “Have to take out fledges from time to time. Thin the herd so the peasants don’t haul out their flamey torches and pricking pitchforks. Nasty thing an angry crowd.”

Mmmm, foot massage very good after wearing pink, strappy, high-heeled sandals all day.

She stretched out her other foot for equal treatment, but Spike decided that he’d rather paint her toenails black. He stuffed little blobs of cotton between her toes, stroked the polish on her big toe and blew on her nail. He’d found the cotton balls when he’d looked through her overnight bag to check out her knickers.

Buffy giggled. “That tickles.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be doing your homework, Little School Girl?” He painted the next toenail and traced his finger down the arch of his foot.

“Stop it, Big Bad. You’ll mess up my nails. I don’t want to do my homework.”

Spike blew on her toes and finished painting the nails before lifting her foot to his shoulder. He kissed and nibbled her inner calf and up her thigh. “And, what do you want to do this afternoon? Want to have a little fun with the Big Bad?”

“I want – stop that, Spike – I want to ask you a question.”

He nipped her harder. “What question?”

“Did you claim Drusilla? She was your girlfriend for a long time.”

Spike lowered her foot and rolled to the side of the bed with his back to her. “Where the hell is my bottle?” He found a half empty bottle of liquor under the bed and took a long swig. He took another swig. Talking about Drusilla required plenty of liquid libations of the intoxicating variety. “I didn’t claim her, but yeah, we were together for a long time.”

Buffy wanted to ask another question or ten about Drusilla, but for once, Spike didn’t seem to want to talk her ear into paralysis. Then, when she’d given up on getting a real answer, he spoke.

“I was with her from the beginning. Drusilla made me. She turned me into a vampire and brought me into Angelus’ family.”

“I thought Angel sired you.”

Spike lay back on the bed and held out his arm for Buffy to cuddle next to him. “No, it was Drusilla. She was too crazy to take care of me after I was turned, so Angelus took over.”

“But, you didn’t claim her?”

“Never wanted to. It wouldn’t have worked. Angelus wouldn’t have allowed it for one thing, and for another, she was so loopy, I couldn’t trust her not to do something crazy and get us both dusted. Besides, Dru was enchanted with her Daddy.” Buffy’s puzzled look told him that she didn’t understand. “Angelus? The siring claim? It’s complicated.”

“You could explain it to me.”

Spike took another drink. “Your sire controls you, warps you, feeds you, teaches you to hunt, tortures you if he feels like it, which Angelus always did. You’re completely dependent on him when you’re a fledge. If you have a good sire you survive, if not, if you have a sire like Drusilla, you won’t last until the morning sun. There’s a strong bond between a sire and a childe, one that can’t be easily broken unless one of them is dead, or another claim takes precedence.”

“Like a mating claim? Is that why you claimed me? To break away from Dru?”

Why should that thought hurt so much? He’d only claimed her as a trick, but she felt jealous and hurt at the thought that he might care for Drusilla, if only in his lame, vampire way.

“I never wanted to break away from my dark beauty. She was everything to me for a century.”

“Then, why?”

“Drusilla broke up with me because of you. She said I loved you and was lost to her. Actually, she said golden fishes were swimming around my head. Same thing in her book.”

“You don’t have a soul. You can’t love me.”

Spike tangled his fingers in her hair. “Who told you that bunch of crap? Your Watcher? I’ve half a mind to kick his arse. Course I can love you. Not saying I do, but I can. I’ll show you.” He held two fingers in front of her eyes. “Be in me.”

Buffy resisted and looked away. The first thing Giles trampled into her brain was to avoid being thralled by vampires, but she couldn’t resist long when Spike opened the claim.

Spike touched her chin gently with the tips of his fingers. “Don’t struggle. I won’t hurt you. Want you to see something.”

He held his fingers to her eyes, then turned them to his own.

She sank into his blue, sparkly eyes and suddenly she could experience Spike, his thoughts, his feelings, the love he had for Drusilla, the searing pain he endured when Drusilla left him. The fury that sent him flying back to Sunnydale. The fury that included killing her. And, something else, too. Something about her. She saw herself, naked, of course, standing in a twilight-blue shadow where even Spike couldn’t see her. She stepped into a golden ray of light. Goldfish swam around her head.

The thrall lasted a moment, then Spike released her. When Buffy was able to focus again, she saw tears trickling down Spike’s face. He had loved Drusilla. Maybe, he loved her still. But, maybe Drusilla wasn’t the only one he loved.

Still, there was the little matter of him coming back to Sunnydale to kill her that needed to be exorcised.

“You came back to Sunnydale to kill me.”

“Yeah. Wanted to get Dru back. Thought she might take me if I proved myself by eliminating her rival.”

Great, she was shackled to a lunatic vampire who wanted her dead so he could get back together with his ho-bag ex-girlfriend. And, who might also love her. “So, why’d you claim me, Spike?”

Spike grabbed her other foot and examined her unpainted nails. “Damned if I know, pet. Hold up those toes. Can’t have my mate walking around lopsided. Have you ever been to the dog races?”

***

Giles closed the cover of Sir Arthur’s journal with relief and some sadness. Sad that another Watcher’s Slayer had gone so far astray; he knew the heartbreak of a Slayer gone bad, but grateful that Buffy could be pried from the grasp of this fiend, William the Bloody, with so little trouble, before she became irrevocably bound to him.

His problem was how to approach her.

Buffy had never been fond of taking orders, from him or anyone else, and that characteristic was both her strength and her failing. Perhaps, he should inform Willow of the results of his research and allow her to give Buffy the key for extricating herself from this predicament. That would be the easy way out.

It would also be the path of a coward. Giles rewrapped the journal in its brown paper cover, sealed the covering with his Watcher’s signet ring and a few dribbles of hot, red candle wax and returned the journal to its hiding place.

He poured himself a fortifying glass of whiskey and dialed Buffy’s dorm room telephone number.











 
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