Chapter 43 - Outings

“So you’re Buffy. Buff-ee,” she drawled. “Hmm, I dunno. B works for me, what do you think?”

“I don’t care what you think. You’re just a dream.”

“Am I?”

“Yes.”

“So, getting all set up in my town, huh?”

Buffy glared at her. “This isn’t your town. You’re dead.”

“Maybe.”

“No, you’re definitely dead, or I wouldn’t be the Slayer.”

“Got me there. But maybe it’s still my town.”

“Nope.”

“Probably not,” she agreed. “It’s his town.”

-----

That afternoon at the Magic Box, she mentioned the dream to Giles, who made a note of it. However, he was obviously much more interested in hearing about her encounter with Angelus on the previous night.

After apologizing again and again for leaving her alone, Buffy cut him off.

“Hey, no biggie. I’m here. Anyway, you might have gotten hurt or something. Have you actually fought him before?”

“Not as such,” Giles admitted. “I’ve seen him, and once when we were in a group—but I could have been of assistance. Though I’m sure you handled yourself admirably. What happened?”

Buffy knew she had to choose her words carefully. “It was pretty much like you said, he didn’t want to fight this time. He made some dumb comment about me being the Slayer, and I said if he wanted to end up dusty, blah, blah. But then I had to go and save some teenagers kissing in the bushes. When I came back, he was gone.”

Giles nodded. “Of course. Others’ safety is your primary concern.”

“Oh, and I think the Master may be dead.”

“Really? What makes you think so?”

“Well, I’m not completely sure, but Drusilla, the uh, insane one, just blurted something about blood and blood and the oldest thing in the Hellmouth being gone. Angelus seemed put off with her.”

“It’s possible, I suppose,” he conceded, taking off his glasses. “It’s true that we haven’t heard anything from the Master since Angelus came to town, and records have indicated that the Aurelians didn’t always get along. At any rate, Angelus is our primary focus until we know differently. Now…” He opened a notebook and gave her an expectant look.

After Giles finished questioning her and was going over what he’d written, she waved Willow over.

“So, are we going to the Bronze tonight?” Buffy asked. Then she quickly looked at Giles. “I mean patrolling. Patrolling at the Bronze. To kill the vampires,” she added.

“Buffy, hard as it may be to fathom, I do realize that you’re going to have a social life.”

“But I totally am going patrolling after. And I’ll definitely be watching for vampires at the Bronze.”

“Very good.”

Buffy turned to Willow. “So, what should I wear?”

-----

As Buffy entered the Bronze, something suddenly felt very familiar, though she couldn’t quite figure out why. Shrugging it off as having been in there before on patrol, she looked around for Willow.

“Buffy!”

She turned to see Willow sitting at one of the nearby tables. She was wearing a sparkly beige top with a peasant skirt, and there was a guy with reddish brown hair next to her.

“Hey,” Buffy said.

“Buffy this is Oz,” she said. “Oz, Buffy.”

He nodded and held his hand out.

“So you’re in the band?” Buffy asked. And thank God that had come out, because ‘so you’re the werewolf’ had been on the tip of her tongue.

“Yeah.”

“Cool.”

He nodded again. A few minutes later, he went backstage to set up.

“A man of few words, I see,” she said.

“Yeah,” Willow agreed. “But he liked you, I can tell.”

“Good to know. You two look really cute together.”

She blushed. “Thanks.”

Later Xander arrived, and in a game that no one remembered starting, Willow and Buffy took turns picking out prospective girls for him out of the crowd.

“Oh, but she’s cute,” Willow said, pointing to a blonde. “You should talk to her.”

“She’s out of my league, Will.”

“Is not! She’s completely league-y. And alone,” she hinted.

“You do remember what happened with the last girl I picked up? Are you trying to get me killed?”

“What happened?” Buffy asked.

“She wanted to use me in some ritual to open up the nether realm.”

“Okay, so you attract girls of the non-human variety sometimes,” Willow admitted. “That doesn’t mean you should stop looking.”

Buffy frowned suddenly. “Speaking of the non-human variety, I’ll be right back.” She stood.

“You need someone—?”

“Nah, I got it.”

Buffy made her way across the club, looking for the vampire she felt. She headed in the direction of the back, but only found several normal couples making out.

Then she saw a pair going out the side exit.

Bingo.

Buffy followed them out, made quick work of the vamp before he’d even gotten his teeth in, and told the terrified girl to stay inside and not go places with strangers. Feeling good about the fact that she’d done her Slayer duty, she went back inside to have some well-earned enjoyment.

She was making her way over to Willow and Xander when she felt the significant presence of another vampire.

A pair of arms encircled her from behind, pulling her back onto the dance floor. Spike, of course. She brought her hands up to the leather-encased arms around her middle, as he ran his hands over the silky fabric of her shirt.

“You should wear black more often, pet.”

“You’re not supposed to be here,” she whispered.

“Yeah? ‘Trail you around town?’ Am I doin’ it wrong?”

“Yes. You’re supposed to stay hidden.”

“I’m just a stranger in a club,” he said, leaning in as he pulled her to the music.

Though a voice in her head whispered that she shouldn’t be doing this, she found that she didn’t want to pull away. It was too easy to settle into his embrace, to fall back into something that had existed for so short a time that it almost never was.

“Some stranger. Any minute Willow and Xander are going to come over here wanting to know why I’m dancing with a vampire.”

“Do I look like a vampire?” he purred in her ear.

“You do. You really, really do.”

“Then why when we met, didn’t you say, ‘Hey, you’re a vampire?’”

He was really enjoying this, she could tell. Buffy turned around to face him, his hands settling on her hips as she found the lapels of his duster. “Because, obviously, I didn’t know vampires were real,” she said, keeping her voice low. “But here, on the Hellmouth, people are going to take one look and say, ‘vampire.’”

“You’re givin’ people too much credit, pet. They see what they want.”

“They’re gonna see a vampire.”

“And why’s that?”

“I already told you. The black. The coat.”

“No changes on the wardrobe this time.”

“Besides, you still look like a vampire.”

“I’ve always looked like this.”

“Bleached hair was in during the 1800s, was it?”

He chuckled.

“Though come to think of it, not so in right now, either.”

“You know you like it.”

“What color is your hair?” She peered carefully at his eyebrows. “And I’m thinking there are some curls here.” She brought her hand up and ran it through the locks just above his forehead.

“Hey, watch it,” he said, pulling back slightly. “You’ll mess with the look.”

The vampire look, she thought. Though there was more to it than ‘the look.’ The way he walked, the way he watched—Spike practically oozed ‘vampire.’

However, glancing at the two people who probably knew more about what happened on the Hellmouth than anyone else in the room, and seeing that they were not raising the alarm, she decided that maybe Spike was right. People saw what they wanted to see. Though technically, there was no way to tell a non-game face vampire from everyone else just by looking, except for their occasional wardrobe lapses.

Buffy grinned. “A lot of vamps walk around looking exactly like they did the day they died, you know.”

“A lot of vamps are idiots. You gotta blend. Somewhat,” he amended.

“Yeah, I guess you’d stick out pretty bad if you were walking around in coattails and ruffled collars or whatever.”

A few moments later, the dance ended and he slipped away again, lost in the crowd. Buffy went back to the table where Willow and Xander were sitting. Despite the impossibility of it, she was still half expecting the third degree.

However, when she got there Willow was beaming at her. It was the universal girl face of ‘you just danced with a complete hottie, go you! now give me all the details.’

“So, who was he?” she asked as Buffy sat down. “Do you know him? Did you just meet him? He looked really into you.”

“He’s someone I knew in L.A.,” she said with complete truthfulness. “He saw me, and well, there you go.”

“He looked really into you,” she repeated.

“I’m sure not,” Buffy said, trying to steer the topic away from Spike.

“There were definite into vibes,” Xander said.

“See, Buffy! Xander’s a guy, he knows. Oh oh, I know! He’s the one you mentioned before. The one it ended with suddenly.”

“Yeah…” she admitted.

Willow beamed. “So, is he going to be in town?”

“For a while, I think. Um, who wants more drinks?”

-----

After the Bronze, she and Willow had gone on patrol, Oz joining them. He really was of few words, and though he managed to speak as little as possible, he didn’t come off as unfriendly. And he was obviously completely in love with Willow.

They’d hit the cemeteries, dusted a few vamps, and called it a night.

As soon as Willow and Oz disappeared, Spike appeared.

“Well?” he said, as if he hadn’t heard every word.

“Fine. No one asked me if you were a vampire. Happy?”

He grinned.

“I think patrol is dead tonight, pun intended. I’m going home.” Buffy looked at him carefully. “You do have a place to live now, don’t you?”

“Well, yeah.”

“So are you gonna invite me over? Only fair, after all.”

Which was how fifteen minutes later she found herself standing in a living room that could only be described as hospital bare.

“It’s like a motel, but without the crappy art.” Buffy looked around. “I liked your other place better.”

“I still got it. Bit more permanent, after all.”

“Oh. Uh, right.” She knew he was going to leave sometime. But the last time she’d brought it up, he had shrugged it off. “What about all that ‘I’m pretty hard to get rid of whether you want me or not?’”

“Yeah, there is that.” He looked around. “Well, I at least need a telly. Maybe a microwave.”

“And maybe some rugs,” Buffy suggested. “And ooh—decorating tip, mirrors make a room look bigger.”

“Ha bloody ha.”