Chapter 53 - Stances

Buffy arrived at the Magic Box after hours and tapped on the door until Willow opened it.

“You ready to go?”

“Yep,” Willow said. “Let me get my bag.”

Giles was sitting at the back and hadn’t looked up so far.

“Earth to Giles,” Buffy said, walking toward the table.

“Yes?” He glanced up from his books. “Ah, Buffy. Good. I may have made some progress on your prophecy.”

“I have a prophecy now?”

“Possibly. I’ve been looking into your late calling. There’s a reference to a Slayer who will be called in her twentieth year.”

“Giles, I’m not twenty.”

“No, but this writing is quite old.”

“And this matters because?”

“Many cultures had other methods for measuring time,” he said. “One of the most common variations to our own system was assigning a baby the number one upon its birth. Meaning that one is the age of one during one’s first year. Accounting forward, in a way.”

“Say huh?”

“Put one way, you have lived a full nineteen years on the planet, and you are currently in the middle of your twentieth year of existence.”

“I get it,” Willow said. “Like when kids always say eight-and-a-half, cause they want to be older than eight. I guess they kinda are, technically.”

“Okaaay, sort of making sense. So, what else about this twenty year Slayer?”

“Er, nothing yet,” Giles said. “I’ve only found the one mention.”

“So we don’t even know if it’s me.”

“Well, no. But there’s been no record of a Slayer being called as late as you have been, so there’s every chance that it is.”

“So, what sort of prophecy are we expecting here?” Buffy asked.

“I don’t know. It could be something simple, or…something not so simple.”

“Wonderful.”

“But you shouldn’t worry about it,” Giles continued. “Let me do more research and see what I can uncover.”

“Uh-huh. Well, if you say so.”

“Sure you don’t wanna come to the Bronze, Giles?” Willow asked.

“Quite. I shall enjoy the end of the year in peace.”

“Your loss.” Buffy smiled. She turned to Willow. “Let’s go?”

“Let’s go.”

-----

The Bronze was rather packed. It seemed that there wasn’t much to do in Sunnydale on New Year’s Eve. There was a band on stage, and the TV on the wall was turned to the typical countdown coverage.

The others were already there and had managed to snag a table, even holding on to the empty chairs for Buffy and Willow.

Willow slid in next to Oz, placing a kiss on his cheek.

Anya stood up as Buffy walked over. “I saved your chair,” she informed her.

“But now you don’t have one. I can’t be the chair stealer.”

“Oh, but I have Xander to sit on,” Anya said, planting herself on his lap. “I was sitting on him earlier, before someone tried to run off with the chair.” She glanced at Xander. “He’s very comfortable.”

Xander grinned, but extracted himself out from under her after a moment. “Hold that thought. I’ll go get the drinks for everyone.”

“I like it when he buys me things,” she said happily, watching as he disappeared in the direction of the bar.

As the evening wore on, they eventually abandoned the table, moving toward the center of the club as things progressed. Xander and Anya danced, Willow and Oz danced, and Buffy dusted some vampires in the back who thought that tonight would be easy pickings.

Spike was here, somewhere. She could feel him, but she hadn’t looked for him.

He hadn’t looked for her, either.

It was Willow who spotted him, as she and Buffy were standing together while Xander and Anya were occupied and Oz was helping a guy in the band rig up some cords.

“Hey Buffy?”

“Huh?”

“That guy over there playing pool?”

Buffy glanced over her shoulder, and there he was.

“That’s the guy you know, right?”

“Um, yeah.”

Spike looked at her and grinned.

“You should go say hi,” Willow encouraged.

“He knows I’m here.” Buffy turned back around.

“You have a fight?”

“Sort of. I’ll talk to him later.”

It wasn’t too long after that that the countdown began. When the clock struck twelve, the crowd cheered and shook the noisemakers someone had given out. There was actually confetti falling over the stage and the dance floor.

Buffy looked away as Willow and Oz shared a sweet kiss, and as Anya practically attacked Xander. She could feel Spike’s eyes boring into the back of her head from across the room.

But he was giving her space, she realized—waiting for her to approach him. She was the one who had said she needed time to think, and he was giving it to her.

An hour later, things were winding down, and Xander and Anya were the first to leave.

Willow started gathering up her things afterward. “You want to walk with us, Buffy?”

“You and Oz go ahead.”

Willow looked in the direction of the pool tables.

“Yeah,” Buffy said.

“See you tomorrow?”

“Sure.”

A moment later, she walked over to where Spike was playing against some guy about her age. A guy who was looking increasingly put off and sullen at each ball Spike pocketed. They must be playing for money.

“Are you cheating?” she blurted.

Spike smiled at her. “Don’t need to cheat. I’m just that good, pet.”

“I’m sure.”

“Play pool for enough years, you get good.”

She hadn’t considered that. But as Buffy watched him effortlessly line up a shot, she realized that among other things, Spike was a pool shark.

“Sometimes I cheat a poker,” he said. “Just to keep it interesting.”

“Why?”

“For fun. And money.” He walked around the pool table. “You’re not exactly payin’ me in usable funds,” he said in a low voice as he passed.

He made another shot.

“Please tell me you haven’t spent all the money Mom and Dad paid you.”

“Course not. But no reason to be using it when I can make some on the side. And I am payin’ rent on two places.”

If he thought she was going to comment on that—she was so not going to start the ‘what happens later’ talk again. “So is this what you do all day? Or night? Play pool and poker?”

“Gotta do somethin’ when I’m not with you.”

“So is it day or night? When do you sleep, anyway?”

“During the day is easiest. But I can sleep whenever.”

He missed a shot on purpose and came to stand beside her.

“So what did you do all day today? After I left?”

Spike twirled the pool cue around once. “Went out. Got into a bar fight.”

“Are you serious? Where at?”

“Place out on the highway.”

Buffy narrowed her eyes. “Did you start it?”

“I didn’t avoid it.”

“You started it.” She crossed her arms.

“Oh, what do you care? Gotta make my own fun. Not like I killed anyone.”

The boy trying to make a shot looked decidedly uncomfortable.

Spike smirked.

“Beating up drunk bikers is fun?” she asked, biting back a smile. As much as she wanted to disapprove, there was something comical and strangely fitting about Spike driving out to some bar and starting a fight for the sheer hell of it.

“I was bored. Fights are fun.”

The kid missed, and Spike quickly finished off the game, grinning as the guy grudgingly slapped his money on the table and walked away.

There was also something almost cute about him winning at pool.

“A hundred years of playing is not exactly fair,” she said under her breath.

Spike pocketed the cash. “Not my problem.”

“And people haven’t figured out not to play with you?”

“What can I say? College boys are idiots.”

“Won’t argue there.”

Spike’s phone suddenly rang, and he pulled it out of his pocket. His tone immediately went flat as he answered. “Yeah?”

After a moment, a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Sounds like fun. But I won’t be able to.” A pause. “No, nothin’ personal. Just outta town for a while.” Another pause. “Got a conflictin’ agreement.” He fell silent again, before he glanced in her direction. “Indefinitely.”

Something about the way he said that, the way his eyes froze on her as he pronounced that last word, made her heart skip a beat.

He hung up.

“Was that Wesley?” Buffy asked.

“No.”

It hadn’t really sounded like it, but she had to ask. “So what did they want you to do?”

“Do you really wanna know?”

“On second thought, no.”

Spike turned to put the pool cue back on the wall. “I won’t be hearin’ from the Watcher again. Ruined a perfectly good arrangement, you did.”

“What? What did I do?”

“Don’t think he was crazy about me followin’ his new Slayer around.” He leaned against the empty pool table.

Buffy did the same. “So not my fault.”

“We also had words.”

“About what?”

“You.”

Buffy raised an eyebrow, questioning him further.

“He said some stuff.”

She laughed. “And you, what, had to defend my honor?”

“No.” Spike looked at her. “He said I was playing games, deciding whether I wanted to kill you or not.” His look darkened. “Told him I could kill him.”

Buffy paused. “That was that night, wasn’t it? The night you beat up the vampire who had me down, the night I made the deal with you. You didn’t see Wesley after that.”

“Yeah.”

“He was kind of weird when he came back to the office.”

“I didn’t, you know.”

“Kill him? Well, obviously.”

“No,” he said. “I never thought about killing you. Even if you were the Slayer. Yeah, I didn’t know what I wanted, but I could never have killed you.”

“I know.”

“Did you? We weren’t exactly talking. Surprised the Watcher didn’t have you all convinced and ready to go.”

“Please, he didn’t want me anywhere near you. He basically said to let you do whatever you wanted, for me not to push it, as long as you were interested in being nice.” Buffy paused. “I think he was really afraid you’d kill me. That you would eventually get bored with following me and make up your mind to fight. I told him you wouldn’t,” she said. “But he never saw.”

“Saw what, pet?”

“I mean, it did make sense. Slayers were sort of your thing, right?”

“Yeah,” he said softly, leaning in. “But not you.”

“I know.”

Spike tilted his head at her. “The Watcher never saw what?”

“He never saw the way you looked at me. I knew because of how you looked at me.”

“And how’s that?” he breathed.

“Almost how you’re looking at me now,” she whispered.

“Yeah?”

“You could never kill someone who you looked at like that.”

His hand ghosted over her hair. “Never…”

For a minute they were frozen. There was a moment when they could have kissed, before Buffy looked down.

Though she didn’t move away.

“And the other way ’round?” he asked. “You think about killin’ me?”

“At first I thought I should—Slayer duty and all. But I never wanted to.”

“What did you want?”

“I wanted you to go away.”

“Good thing that I didn’t.” He smirked.

“I suppose, looking back. But then, I so was angry at you. And I felt betrayed and hurt and I so do not want to have this conversation again right now.”

Buffy pushed away from the pool table.

“What do you want now?” Spike asked.

“I just want…to be. Whatever happens later, can’t we just be right now?”

He moved to stand beside her. “We can.”

“I know it’s probably a phenomenally bad idea. But I don’t care. We can have now, and we’ll deal with later…later.”

“Yeah.” Spike ran his hand down her back.

Then he slowly, almost cautiously, pulled her to him. Buffy leaned into it and she felt him relax against her after a moment.

“Ready to go, love?”

“Yeah.”

His arm remained around her shoulders as they walked out together.