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LAST ORDERS




CHAPTER 6




“Here we are!” Willow stated, as ‘Mandi’s Meeting Place’ came into view. Xander parked up and the trio headed into the bar, Spike swaggering the minute he came through the door, his bright eyes darting about in search of the Slayer – although he’d deny it, if asked directly. Willow hid a smile as she walked behind him, Xander shaking his head as she nudged his arm and linked her arm through his, delighted that her plan appeared to be working just fine.




She was uncertain what she should do, though, as the trio entered the pub, still fairly empty as it was early in the evening. Should they go and seek Buffy out, get it over and done with? Or should they stash Spike in a corner with a bottle of booze and play it cool. She knew what Spike would say, and Buffy for that matter, if they were the ones doing the planning. The decision was made for them when Giles came rushing over, flustered and attempting to smooth down his hair and blocking their view of Buffy and Dawn at the bar.




“Ah, Willow, Xander…ahem…fancy meeting you…erm…here. What a coincidence, and you’ve brought Spike too? Good, good, yes, well – we all need a night out, I’ll wager. Why don’t you find seats and I’ll have some drinks brought over. Beer, Xander? And you, Willow – really? Double vodka? Well, if you’re sure…fine, fine. Spike – I can recommend the single malt, Dalwhinnie, if you’ve a mind to savour the good stuff. My treat. Oh – well, yes I suppose I could bring the bottle…”




Giles scurried off, muttering beneath his breath at being taken advantage of. Spike chuckled as they settled themselves in a booth, taking pleasure in the little bits of evil he could do without causing him too much discomfort with his shiny soul. The Big Bad may have been scaled down, had his wings clipped, but he was still there, and about to get free booze no less.




She was there, he knew it. Knew he’d been set up, didn’t give a bugger. Well, he did, but he was kind of grateful anyway. It reminded him of the night Buffy had started to walk away from him in the basement and he’d dashed in front of her at the last minute. Sometimes he wondered if she would have stopped anyway, even if he’d given her the space to go. And would things have been different between them in the short hours they had left if he had let her make the decision without any prompting, would it have allowed her to admit feelings to herself if she’d allowed that small chink in her armour to appear?




Spike’s smile slipped a little as he played out an entirely different scenario in his mind, one where she’d been too stubborn to turn round and he’d been too stubborn to race in front of her before she reached the stairs. The hellmouth would have taken him without him spending that final night wrapped around the slayer, the memory of her warmth sustaining him on his trip to hell.




Willow nudged the vampire, noting his maudlin mood, not wanting him to take off running. He was strung out tight with tension, and if he bolted she knew that it was unlikely even she would be able to do something about it, surrounded as they were by the public, blissfully unaware of vampires and demons and witches that go bump in the night. In fact, the only one who would have half a chance of catching up to him if he ran would be Buffy – and the jury was still out on whether she’d try to.




Dawn had given her some hope of a happy resolution when they’d spoken earlier, but there was no definite about anything to do with Buffy and Spike, never had been, probably never would be. Willow thought back to how disconnected Buffy had been after the massacre in Sunnydale. They’d all lost somebody, left them behind in the crater, but somehow Buffy seemed to have left a little bit of herself behind too, and when everybody else moved on, Buffy didn’t. Every day that passed saw her slipping away from her friends and family; Dawn was right – it would only take a lucky vampire and Buffy would welcome the killing bite.




So here they were, dealing with the awkward silence that was stretching longer and longer…




Giles’ return with a tray full of drinks was welcomed with over-excited glee. Giles didn’t seem to mind, sitting down to join them, but constantly glancing over his shoulder towards the bar. From where Spike was sitting, he couldn’t see the object of Giles’ attention, but he knew who he would find if he stalked over. He almost did, but stopped himself. Oh, he admitted that it was only a matter of time, and if the landlord called last orders he’d be sprinting over to the bar before the bell stopped ringing, but he was proving something to himself by staying put. Besides, the Dalwhinnie was good.




+ + + +




Dawn was becoming increasingly worried. Giles had headed off Willow, Xander and Spike and mumbled something about ‘cheeky buggers’ when he’d returned for drinks, but now she was left all alone with Buffy – and Buffy was making friends with another bottle. It had only been the one time that Dawn had witnessed drunken Buffy, but that had been enough; sisterly love only stretched so far and she paled at the thought of having to hold Buffy’s hair out of the toilet again. And if Buffy got drunk, who knew how she’d react to Spike.




Spike – the Spike sitting not twenty feet from them right now, the Spike who’d loved Buffy for as long as Dawn could remember, almost from the minute she’d been created if you counted time from her debut on this earth as human formed from a mystical key. And the Spike who may very well become part of her history rather than her future if she didn’t manage to get Buffy to shrug off her pity-party and get with the smoochies.




“Hey, don’t you think we should join Giles?” Dawn queried, trying to prise Buffy’s fingers off the bottle of vodka that Buffy had liberated from the bar counter.




“Can’t. I’m workin’…don’t…don’t have a…a break for…for…whatsname…an ‘our…thingy.”




Dawn doubted that Geno would classify what Buffy was doing as work, but still…




“Oh, well – maybe in an hour then. Don’t you think you’ve had enough…” The words slipped out before Dawn could stop them, and she waited for Buffy to bitch slap her for daring to question her. Buffy just snorted and downed a couple of fingers of vodka, neat, screwing up her face and shaking her head.




“Not enough…never enough…d’you…d’you know, I’ve got a secret. Shhh!” Buffy giggled, managing to get her index finger in the vicinity of her pursed lips if not exactly on them.




“No, what is it?” Dawn questioned, wanting to keep Buffy talking so that there’d be less drinking.




“Silly!” Buffy crowed, punching Dawn playfully on the arm, but with slayer force so that the girl fell backwards off the stool and landed in an undignified heap on the floor. “Can’t tell you, can I? It’s a secret!”




Dawn dragged herself up, fighting the urge to lunge at her sister - superhuman powers be damned – and leaned on the bar again, her head in her hands. Where was Giles? A male voice made Dawn look up sharply, but it wasn’t anybody she knew; the poor guy was helpless in Buffy’s crushing grip, listening to her babble about chances lost and how she’d realised too late how special their love was. Dawn tried to convey how sorry she was with her eyes, but the stranger was desperately trying to unlock Buffy’s fingers from his forearm and didn’t respond.




“Drink…need another drink…” Buffy mumbled, releasing her reluctant audience to grab at the bottle that Dawn was trying to stash away, taking a healthy gulp with accompanying soundtrack. A young couple waiting to be served were her next victims, both of them huddling together but unable to avoid her verbal onslaught, nodding vigorously in agreement when Buffy asked them to confirm she was capable of love. Buffy sobbed at that, wrapping them both in a bear hug that almost crushed them, asking their names in barely audible tones.




“Brad…and…and…Janet, ‘s lovely, lovely names. You love each other, y’hear? Never give him a black eye…and…and if you have to save the world, don’t let him…thingie…with an amulet…noooo, not good. ‘kay? Jus’ kiss an’…an’ no biting.” Buffy blinked, her brow furrowed. “Well, okay…biting’s nice, but no kicking. Not in the head. An’ if you get invisibibible…invisibbbbll…if nobody can see you, be naughty.” She giggled, covering her mouth with her hand and allowing the horrified customers to flee.




Geno popped his head round the kitchen door, opening his mouth to yell for Buffy – but changed his mind as he watched her try to manoeuvre herself further onto a bar stool and ending up kneeling on it, trying to swing her leg over before giving up and clinging to the bar instead. Dawn mouthed ‘sorry’ and tried to look contrite, and Geno slinked away rather than deal with his liquored-up waitress.




Dawn realised that Buffy was sobbing quietly, head resting on her folded arms on the counter, and she quickly moved to hug her sister, stroking her hair and murmuring soothing words. “It’ll be alright, Buffy, don’t worry. Shhh, don’t cry.”




Dawn’s heart almost broke clean in two when Buffy swivelled her head to look up with enormous hazel eyes, her bottom lip swollen where she’d chewed on it, her nose red and snotty. “I do love him, you know. Stupid vampire. And now he’s gone, and I made him go and I don’t think I can bear it. He said he loved me…and I broke him…now he doesn’t…”




Xander came up alongside them and slapped the counter, making both girls jump. Buffy sniffled and laid her head back down on her folded arms, so Xander addressed his comments to Dawn. “She still crying over deadboy junior? Let me tell you, he’s not a bundle of laughs either. Giles wants another bottle of scotch, but not so much with the break the bank stuff, ‘cause Spike’s drinking it like water.”




Dawn cleared her throat, indicating with her eyes that he was forgetting about Buffy not knowing that Spike was there. Buffy was deep in her morose musings though, so didn’t respond, and Xander shrugged. To be honest, he thought the best thing would be to just shove them together and remove all pointed objects – or not, as Spike was seriously pissing him off now. In fact, when he’d retrieved the drinks, he was going to suggest it. Pity that there was nobody working the bar, but that was maybe because the waitress was drooling onto the counter and hiccoughing.




“Hello? Anybody back there?” Xander hollered, standing on the foot rest and leaning over the bar. He shuffled along a bit so that he could get a better look, apologising quickly as he knocked somebody to his right, hearing the sound of spilled liquid.




“Sorry! So sorry – just trying to …guh.” His words petered out as he got a glimpse of his victim. Drop dead gorgeous blonde, amused smile threatening to turn into a giggle as she dipped her eyelids and peered up at him. Xander felt his heart rate increase and settled himself down on the bar stool next to her, his mission to refuel the vampire completely forgotten.




Her voice was like molten chocolate when she spoke, and she blushed under his adoring gaze. “I’ve been trying to get a drink for ten minutes, was just about to leave in fact…” The sentence didn’t finish, and Xander discreetly checked her out for signs of demon. None being apparent, he settled in to make her acquaintance, ignoring Dawn’s less than subtle attempts to remind him of what he was supposed to be doing.




+ + + +




“Where is the boy?” Giles muttered, craning his neck to see if Xander was on his way back from the bar.




“Yeah, ‘m out of booze, and if I don’t get more I’ll be cranky,” Spike pouted with a gleam in his eye that didn’t go unnoticed by Willow. He seemed to be enjoying himself actually; maybe it was time to bring Buffy into the conversation because god knew what else they could talk about, having done the weather to death.




“Spike…erm…have you given any more thought to Buffy?”




Spike almost snorted. What a stupid and redundant question. He thought of nothing else, day and night, asleep and awake, burned up in hell or reforming in a swirl of black leather duster. Now was no different; the only thing that had changed was his reaction to her. He was painfully aware of her presence, could close his eyes and see her, scent her unique aroma within the rapidly filling bar, hear her sobbing…sobbing?




“Yeah, Red…thinking of her…” he replied distractedly, straining to hear more.




Willow almost jumped up and punched the air; she knew he was a big faker! “So…will you at least talk to her then, you know, if we bump into her…maybe?”




“Uh huh,” Spike replied, his head tilted, trying to separate out Buffy’s snuffling from the background noise of the bar. The place was filling up fast though, so it was becoming harder to hear anything in the cacophony of noise.




Abruptly, Spike got to his feet, leaving Willow mid-sentence. She jumped up to follow him, as did Giles, but there was a crush of revellers now and they were blocked so that they lost sight of his white-blond head. They were convinced he'd escaped so were relieved when they found him simply standing and staring at Buffy as she detained yet another innocent bystander and regaled him with tales of a thwarted romance.




Spike chuckled softly as they reached him, watching Buffy and listening to her try to condense their somewhat odd relationship into cliched and epic descriptions. He acknowledged his companions’ arrival with a nod at each of them, unable to hide the grin.




“I really love her, you know. Stupid bint.”




Willow grinned with him. “Yeah, we know. Glad you admit it; now, can we get to the smoochies before she keels over?”




Spike gifted Willow with a dazzling smile that tugged at her heartstrings and reminded her of how she smiled when talking about Tara. The vampire really did love the slayer; any doubt she'd had before was now erased, and judging by the misty eyes of Buffy's watcher, he knew it too.




Dawn looked up, seeing Spike and the others over Buffy's shoulder and she swallowed down a squeal of pleasure. At last things were working out as she'd planned. Her gaze darted along the bar to where Xander seemed to be doing very well with an attractive lady. Dawn's hackles raised in anticipation, as Xander's track record with normal girls wasn't good. She checked for horns or scales, but there were none immediately apparent, so she relaxed a little, her main objective being to get her sister and Spike having a civilised conversation for once – and hopefully a lot more before the night was out.




Of course, a lot depended upon her being able to unclench the slayer's fingers from around the bottle of JD she was presently clinging to.




Spike took two steps towards Buffy before all hell broke loose.




Xander leapt backwards off his bar stool and toppled it to the ground, his left arm flailing on the bar and sweeping off glasses and bottles to crash to the floor. Two large men were upset by the fact that their hard-earned cash that they'd traded in for beer was now wasted and rounded on Xander demanding recompense. The pretty girl Xander had been chatting up was standing in front of him beckoning with a smug grin on her face, Xander backing even further off, horrified. Dawn sighed. Xander's woman curse was obviously still active, although the particular flaw with this one wasn't yet clear.




Buffy turned her head to see where the noise was coming from, noting Xander's discomfort, her bleary eyes seeking out the cause. Gratefully, the unwitting audience to Buffy's alcoholic mumblings slinked away, promising himself never to chat up a pretty blonde at a bar ever again. On unsteady legs, Buffy moved towards Xander, clinging to the bar as a wave of dizziness overcame her. She glanced up to see Spike looking at her with adoration, but wrote that off as wishful thinking as Spike couldn't really be here having been chased off by her stupidity. She moved past him, ignoring the vampire's sudden snarl of frustration.




“She's a bloody liability, Red! Look at her – can hardly walk and she's about to land herself in a whole load of trouble. Suppose I'd better help her out...”




Spike entered the fray, fists flying into the thug who had Xander gripped around the throat, his mate punching the carpenter's belly with meaty fists, while the ‘girl’ that Xander had been getting friendly with had whipped off her wig and was proudly showing the appreciative audience exactly what she had beneath her skirt – and it wasn't Victoria's Secret...more like Victor's...




There was a gasp from the pub's customers as Buffy reached the fracas and dragged thug number two away from punching Xander, knocking him out cold and launching him over their heads like he weighed nothing. Astonished eyes followed the arc of his descent like they were watching a tennis lob, only to do the same again when Spike overpowered the man slowly strangling Xander and sent him flying to join his friend.




Wearing berserker grins, the vampire and the slayer circled each other, revved up from the brief fight and eager to continue. It seemed to take forever before they were standing chest to chest, Buffy panting at her exertions, her eyes shining with excitement. She always did love dancing with Spike, he was her ideal partner. Spike. So close. Even if she was imagining him, he looked good enough to eat, so she'd take that, thanks. If she just moved an inch forward she could kiss him...




Spike bent his head as Buffy uplifted her face, eyes closing happily.




Then she bolted, hand across her mouth, scattering the crowd before her as she headed to the toilets.




tbc