SECTION 2 - ANGEL CITY

I got a buncha boys
We make a lot of noise
Little bit crazy
Playing with chemical toys
We're such bad ass dudes
I almost can't stand it myself
I wanna get the c**bs
In my elegant rags
Make my mom and daddy uptight
I wanna be an intellectual
Heterosexual, Angel City tonight.

(Motorhead, Album 1916)



Chapter 2.02
Monday, May 6th, 2002

"You. are. Eee-vil." Buffy punctuated each syllable by poking him in the chest.

Spike shrugged. "I left your options open, didn't I? It's up to you if you go in there tomorrow with a bloody huge elastoplast and rely on the Sunnydale denial factor, or whether you come shopping with me for stuff for the flat."

"Ooo. What sort of shopping? .Hey, no fair. How am I supposed to try to be good if you're deliberately trying to tempt me?"

"Shopping, it is. I need some heavy curtains, bedding, towels, maybe some pictures and stuff, maybe a DVD player. Since anything I buy now is eventually going to end up wherever we live when we're married, it only makes sense for you to have a say." Spike shifted along the seat nearer to Buffy and let his elbow rest on the back of the chair. He tucked Buffy's hair behind her ear so that the scar was fully visible. "It's not that bad really. To judge by the scar Angel's was a lot messier." He ran a tentative fingertip over the wound and Buffy shivered. "Most of these teeth marks are too shallow to even scar. With your healing, in a month or two all that'll be left is another set of puncture scars." He tilted his head and moved in to kiss her neck.

Buffy felt as if there were mild electric shocks flowing all through her body, except the feeling wasn't unpleasant by any stretch of the imagination. She began to think the vampire could probably make her come, in public, fully clothed, just by kissing and touching those scars.

"You're not playing fair," she protested.

Capturing her hand and pulling it back toward his still open fly, Spike replied, "Neither's leaving me like this."

"But didn't you just tell me that you get like that whenever I walk in the room?" Buffy teased even as she moved to straddle his lap once more. "That would make it a bit difficult not to leave you like that."

"Especially if you give out little samples of slayer blood, then it would. Or did you forget about that little detail?"

Buffy rubbed her pelvis up against him and Spike growled in frustration. He slid one hand between the slayer's parted legs, letting his thumb circle her clitoris as two of his fingers pushed inside her.

He resisted the urge to pay further attention to his mark as yet and instead used his other hand to guide one of her perfect breasts to his lips.

His desperation was almost primal and Buffy responded to it, urging him with her actions to take things harder and faster, pushing down on him as he thrust in with two then three fingers. Buffy saw rainbow lights spiral against a sea of black as she slumped against him, temporarily replete.

Spike's hands moved to grasp her hips and he positioned her over his painfully engorged member before pulling her down onto him in one swift movement that brought her eyes wide open once more

"God, Spike, you feel so good." She began to push herself up and down around him. "Never knew how good it could be till you." She wasn't telling him any more than he'd already worked out but it did his ego good when she said these things. His hands helped support her hips taking some of the weight from her knees and helping her slam home on the down-stroke for maximum penetration.

As her speed began to build he nuzzled against his mark, nipping at the area with blunt teeth and licking at the newly formed scabs, but careful not to reopen the wound. Even so, it was enough. Her inner muscles spasmed wildly around him as if trying to draw him deeper into her. At that signal he stopped holding back his own release and with her last few movements he soothed the raging heat within her by spilling his cool seed.

He pulled her in close against his chest and hooked his chin over her shoulder. He couldn't put into words how he felt right then and there wasn't space or time to spoon together till they fell asleep, so he just held her close against his chest and hoped that she would know. Minutes passed in comfortable silence before she moved to ease the growing ache in her hips, so maybe she did.

"So now you've corrupted me into playing truant from work, what did you have planned for the rest of the evening?"

"Well, I thought I might drop you off at home and then head back to the crypt for a wash and a change before I go food shopping. Then, I'd come back to your place to cook and then we could maybe patrol or watch a video with the Niblet and then patrol. How does that sound?"

"Better plan. You drive me over to your place or as near as you can, I fetch you a couple of changes of clothes and then we both go back to my place for you to get cleaned up. Dawn and I can go to Blockbuster while you do the food shopping. Cook, eat, video and patrol, assuming Dawn hasn't made other plans."

"As you wish, love, as you wish."

"Out, slayer." The vampire encouraged his fiancée to leave the kitchen.

"I just wanted to see if there was anything I could do to help," pouted the chosen one.

"You just wanted to find out what I was cooking, and I've heard enough from Dawn to know I don't want your help. Not this time anyway. If the table's set, go on through to the living room, find something educational on the idiot box and make Bit watch it."

"I could do the washing-up, clean up as you go along."

"What's Bit doing? Thought you were meant to spend time with her."

"Calculus." Buffy said the word with the same tone of disgust she might have reserved for gonorrhoea.

"'Nough said. There's some stuff in the sink already. Get to it wench."

Buffy moved over to the sink and added washing-up liquid and hot water to the few dirty utensils and the couple of chopping boards that were in the sink. She watched as Spike lifted the wok from the hob taking it over to the island where he had a trivet waiting to rest it on. He clicked the door shut on the microwave and dribbled some oil into a large flat rectangular oven-proof dish and tilted the dish until the oil coated the base of the dish and part of the sides. The microwave dinged and he pulled out a plate piled high with tortillas, which he used to wrap the contents of the wok into long thin parcels, arranging them in the bottom of the dish. He poured a jar of sauce over the top, covered the whole lot with grated cheese and slammed the dish into the oven.

Spike carried over the now empty wok and the plates he'd used for the cheese and the tortillas to the sink, dumping the empty jar in the bin on his way. Everything looked so organised. She'd expected the place to look like a bomb-site. Not to mention the efficient, graceful way he moved was damn sexy, even if this time he did have a shirt on. Maybe once she'd finished college she could make enough money to pay Spike to work as her own personal topless chef.

He slid his arms around her waist and rested his cheek against hers. "Can you do that big choppin' board first, love? Need it to do the salad."

Once she'd obligingly wiped down the item in question he pulled a tea-towel from it's place dried it off and got to work chopping various vegetables he pulled from the now full fridge, throwing the bits into a large salad bowl as he went. Some olive oil went into a small jug along with what looked like lime-juice that was already in it and some finely chopped bits he pulled from the new tubs of fresh herbs that now adorned the window sills. Once he'd whisked it up with a fork, this went over the top of the salad and the whole lot was thoroughly mixed up, serving utensils added and the bowl went through to the dining room. Four beers, already opened and topped with wedges of lime were pulled from the fridge and carried through.

Buffy had barely done any of the washing-up and rushed to try to make her contribution look presentable.

"Had enough of me hangin' round underfoot yet?" asked the vampire as he poured a glass of orange juice and tipped some blood from a polystyrene container into a mug before sticking said mug in the microwave and replacing the unused liquids back in the fridge.

"Hey, if you'd told me you were the undead's answer to Martha Stewart, you could have been round here every night long ago."

"So you're only marrying me so you can have an unpaid kitchen maid?" Spike smirked.

"Well, there's that, and your money, and of course I also get an unpaid sex slave and babysitter. The fact I kinda like you is just a bonus." The slayer piled more washing up onto the drying rack, and Spike waded in with a tea-towel putting things away as he finished drying them, at least until his blood was ready.

The self-proclaimed slayer of slayers leant back against the counter, sipping his blood and watching his slayer's rear view as she finished washing the last few remaining dishes and wondered what he could ever have done that meant he deserved to be here.

She turned as she finished, leaving the dishes on the rack to drain naturally. "How long before the enchiladas are ready?"

Spike looked at the kitchen clock. "Between five and ten minutes. Just long enough for me to get your pressies from the car, now it's dark." He ducked out the back door before Buffy could ask anything else and came back in with one large flat box a largish floppy parcel and a carrier bag from a large department store.

He dropped the carrier bag behind his legs and passed her the other two.

"Big one first or bigger one."

"I'd open the parcel before the box."

Buffy started to rip open the parcel, quickly discovering that whatever was in the parcel was made of black satin. Envisioning sexy lingerie she pulled half the contents of the parcel out through the hole she'd made in the wrapping.

"Men's pyjama tops?" she asked with a wry smile, holding it up against herself. Spike noted happily that it fell an inch or two short of mid-thigh.

"Waste not, want not." Spike nudged the carrier bag he'd dropped on the floor with a boot. "Figured with Bit and Red and Glinda around my normal sleep attire might not be appropriate."

"So I get the tops and you get the bottoms."

Spike nodded. "That other one's by way of reparations, but I just couldn't bring myself to buy a duffle coat, let alone a yellow one so you'll have to make do."

Buffy tore into the wrapping paper as if there was an extra prize if she opened it in under two seconds. She barely took time to register the store name on the box before she threw the lid to one side closely followed by several sheets of tissue. She literally jumped up and down as she pulled the black leather coat from the box.

"Should be a bit harder to get grass stains on that, d'you think?"

The coat billowed as she swung it round to put it on. The leather was thick, heavy and obviously intended to be hard-wearing unlike most of the coats and jackets she bought, none of which seemed to last a week on patrol. Even so, the leather draped in soft lines instead of hanging stiffly. It had a long split at the back so that it moved freely round her legs, and she danced around the kitchen and living room turning this way and that and watching the coat fan out behind her.

Rushing back over to where Spike stood watching her obvious delight, she threw her arms about his neck and wrapped her legs around his waist.

"I love it, but this is the last of the his and hers clothing, isn't it? I can't see myself in Doc Martens however practical they may be."

"Don't knock 'em till you try 'em, pet. They'd be a damn sight comfier and last a damn sight longer than most of the ones you complain about ruining in sewers and on patrol, even if they don't fall into your 'stylish yet affordable' category."

Tilting his head slightly Spike leant in to claim a kiss from her conveniently placed lips and Buffy responded whole-heartedly.

Pulling his head back, he smiled wryly. "If I didn't know better I would say you got me all worked up deliberately, so that I could be uncomfortable all the way through dinner, which should be ready now, so tidy up your mess and I'll give the others a shout and take the stuff through." So saying, he turned the oven off and took the rest of his mug of blood and Dawn's orange juice through, stopping at the bottom of the stairs to shout, "Food's ready!" and then returning to the kitchen for the enchiladas. Buffy meanwhile had moved everything Spike had brought in from the car except the coat, which she was still wearing, into a small pile at one end of the sofa.

Soon several pairs of feet were heard making their way downstairs and a companionable meal was enjoyed by all. Spike didn't eat all that much. Nutritionally speaking the food did nothing for him, but he was pleased to see Buffy and Dawn tucking in. Given half a chance he'd get the slayer back to a proper weight in no time. Especially when she found out there was ice-cream for dessert. Willow and Spike must have spent about half the meal discussing his new PC. He basically wanted to use it to rip-off copies of all the stuff he'd lost on album, so that he could burn them to disc as mp3 files and play them either through the PC or on his yet to be bought DVD player. Other than that he'd thought about getting a web-cam and trying to force Giles into the age of video-conferencing, though that, Willow guessed was more for Buffy and Dawn's benefit than his own. Likewise, he'd asked for word-processing and spreadsheet capabilities, but when Willow asked if there was anything specific he wanted to be able to do, he admitted he'd been thinking about Buffy and Dawn's school and college assignments.

Buffy was surprised to find that despite living in a crypt for the last three years, Spike was more up to date with current technology than she was. She also noticed that even though she'd once asserted that Spike didn't play well with others, he'd fitted in just fine. The more she thought about it, the more she realised, Spike played fine with others, except for males who had some sort of interest in her, or when said males forced their women to pick sides. Of course she'd kinda missed this before because the two of them spent so much time arguing for totally different reasons. Maybe, now that Giles wasn't around, fifty percent of the problem was that Xander didn't play well with Spike.

When Spike started hurling abuse at the TV, Buffy thought maybe the house video night wasn't such a good idea after all. However, having recovered from the idea of the crowd at a medieval joust doing a "Band Aid" to "We Will Rock You" he seemed to settle in to enjoy the rest of the film. If he was a little vocal in his encouragement for the film's characters it was more endearing than annoying. In fact it gave all four women the chance to tease the former Big Bad mercilessly. Buffy was even almost tempted to have him around when the soccer World Cup was on just to see how excited he could get. Maybe by then he would be around anyway.

Patrol was routine in the nicest possible way. There were enough vampires on the prowl to give both Buffy and Spike a bit of a work out, even if Spike did more watching than fighting. Buffy realised how much she'd missed knowing that someone had her back. Most of the time she neither needed nor wanted anyone's help. Spike was the only person she patrolled with who stayed out of her way and let her do her thing but would back her up a hundred percent when he was needed. Actually since her return from the grave, Spike was the only person she patrolled with. And okay, so he let her fight her own battles because watching her fight was one of the ways he got his rocks off. Which was kinda skanky, or it would be if she wasn't seeing him. But since she was, in a creepy sort of way it was kinda cool.

Now all the "need to talk" issues were out of the way, they were back to not needing to talk. Not that Spike was silent man; that was never going to happen, but there were large chunks of time where they were okay just being together. That was also of the good. Buffy thought they had lost that easiness between them after their first kiss, or at least after her reaction to it. Yet, as soon as she. as soon she what? .as soon as she admitted to having feelings for him, went on a date, took him home and shagged him senseless or vice versa, got engaged the next morning and let him claim her before the day was out. Yeah, just a few minor adjustments and all of a sudden the friendly comfortable silences are back.

Towards the end of the circuit of the graveyard Spike moved to the leeward side of a tree, sheltering the flame from his Zippo slightly as he lit another menthol cigarette. Sliding down against the side of the tree he almost whispered the gentle request. "C'mere, love." Buffy settled herself between his outstretched legs, leaning back against his chest as his free hand slid around her waist. The scene felt familiar to her and yet not. Then she identified the feeling of déjà vu. Last time the earth over the nearby grave had been freshly turned and bare and the vampire had been Angel on his last and possibly his last ever visit to Sunnydale.

Spike had steered them to her mother's grave. She tilted her head back to give him a questioning look. Spike shrugged in response.

"Day like today, wouldn't seem right 'thout sharin' it with her, sayin' thank you."

"So you think she can see us. hear us?" Buffy asked.

"I'd like to think so, though not all the time, I hope. You tell me. Do you think she knows?"

"I don't know. I remember that I knew everyone was okay, but I don't know if I ever knew the details of what was going on in people's lives, or if I just can't remember. It's like the whole thing is getting hazier the longer I'm back," admitted the revenant.

"I like to think that she knows when you're thinking about her, or those sort of moments where you think, I wish she could have been here to see this, but at the same time I feel closer to her here somehow."

"Me too." Buffy let her head rest side by side with his, her cheek against his jaw, and she placed both her hands over his right on her waist. There were things she might have said aloud if Spike hadn't been there. Instead, they ran through her head as a sort of silent prayer, which she hoped would somehow reach her mother. At her back, the vampire did much the same, only his messages were for a woman who had died more than a century before in a far away land as well as for Joyce.

When Spike lit a second cigarette, Buffy took it as a cue that he was ready to leave if she was. With a last goodbye, she levered herself into an upright position and offered a helping hand to Spike. "Come on. Time to make that phone call you were so looking forward to."

"Sure I can't just head home and let you take care of that?" Spike joked.

"Totally sure you can't head home and leave me to take care of it, Fang Boy" Buffy confirmed. "You're the one who made with the teeth. You get to talk to the nice watcher."

Tuesday, May 7th, 2002

Tuesday Early hours of the morning

"Hey, Giles." Buffy opened the conversation.

"Buffy? I wasn't expecting to hear from you again so soon. Is everything okay? You haven't decided that there's no need for my services after all?" It was evident that Giles hadn't indulged in his morning dose of caffeine as yet.

"The wedding's still going ahead, but Spike needs to talk to you." Buffy passed the phone over to the vampire.

"Watcher," Spike started. "There's been a development since we spoke to you last. You know what I said this afternoon about fang marks. It no longer applies."

"Of all stupid irresponsible arrogant things to do. Do you have any idea-"

"Yes, Rupert. I know exactly how bad this looks. I have no intention of using this to undue advantage. What can I say? I lost control and I claimed her. She accepted the claim without realising what she was doing. All things being equal, if we didn't have to worry about the whole human, slayer thing then Buffy would claim me and that would be it, but we need to know that she won't take on my weaknesses. We need." Spike's voice failed.

Buffy took the phone back from him. "Giles, it's me again. I know you want to lecture both of us and tell us how juvenile we've been and how you're disappointed, but we can't turn the clock back and this is a premium rate phone call. What we have to know is what do we do now?

Giles, soon is good. Please."

"Buffy, I will try to get back to you as soon as possible, but you really mustn't do anything until you hear back from me."

"Giles, we know. But we really didn't intend for anything to happen the last time."

"Perhaps you should. em, avoid each other until I can finish my research."

"Not an option. Or at least not one that I'm about to consider." Buffy made it clear.

"In that case, just, please be careful."

"We'll do our best. Speak to you soon."

"I'll be in touch," the watcher promised before hanging up the phone.