Chapter 37 - Ramblings

Spike woke up with the scent of Buffy surrounding him. Disoriented at first, he quickly remembered where he was.

By the light, it was mid-afternoon. He sat up and found a clock on Buffy’s nightstand. 3:27. The house was silent, and he remembered that she was gone. Joyce was still at work, of course.

He’d come back to the house early that morning, watching from a distance as Joyce’s car headed downtown. Then he’d parked the bike in the driveway, climbed up to Buffy’s window, and let himself in. Tempting as slipping into bed with her had been, it seemed a good way to get a hard shove in the ribs. She’d been rather explicit with her ‘there’s the floor.’ The house was empty and Spike had considered crashing on the couch, but there was something he liked about being near her. So he took the floor.

After he’d left yesterday, Spike had driven around the town a bit more, got a feel for things. He hadn’t stayed here an incredibly long amount of time before, but most things were where he remembered. Of course, there was the new suburban sprawl where there had previously been nothing. But even with all of that, there were no lack of abandoned houses and ramshackle buildings, Spike noted.

He had also found Angelus’ headquarters—an old mansion, like the new Watcher had said. Spike went by it once on the bike, but not wanting to spoil the surprise just yet, hadn’t circled back. He hadn’t caught a glimpse of his family, but somehow he’d known that it was their place. Angelus always did have a thing for living it up. So did Darla. Dru—well, you could tell Dru a mineshaft was an enchanted cave and she’d be perfectly happy.

There had been quite a few other vampires hanging about the property, which surprised Spike somewhat. Angelus had never been one for minions; he preferred to keep it simple and keep their numbers few. Of course, this was the Hellmouth, and minions probably came as a package deal. At the very least, the older vampires had attracted some hangers-on.

Spike looked at the clock again and got out of bed. He’d mostly slept on the floor, but after Buffy got up that morning, Spike crawled into her bed. When she’d come back in the room later, she hadn’t said anything about it. Sometime around lunch, she left.

He noticed a note next to the clock.

I’m with Giles. Not sure if I’ll be back. We might go patrolling later, probably leaving from the Magic Box. Mom gets home around 5:15. –Buffy

The address of the Magic Box was scrawled below.

Spike stood and walked downstairs. Rummaging through the kitchen, he found an almost empty bag of barbeque chips and finished it off, wandering idly through the house as he did so. He ended up back in Buffy’s room, lying on her bed with his hands folded behind his head.

Right. Pleasant as this was, he needed to find a place. Spike doubted that she would want to explain a permanent lodger to her mother.

There were plenty of abandoned houses to be found, but he’d done enough of that already in his day, and since he had the funds, he wanted something that, if not necessarily nice, wasn’t a dump. Something like what he had before.

He had bet that being the Hellmouth, he’d be able to find someone willing to overlook his lack of paper identity in exchange for cash. However, also being the Hellmouth, he’d found that all sensible offices closed their doors at dusk. As for the not so sensible apartment offices, ones on the so-called wrong side of the tracks, that obviously had vampires and other demons living in them, not to mention questionable humans, he thought not. Besides the fact that he didn’t play well with others, Spike didn’t want to have his bike stolen. Not that he’d acquired it legally, but that wasn’t the point.

More importantly, he wanted someplace that Buffy wouldn’t be disgusted to enter.

And he preferred to blend. Somewhat. He liked a place where the neighbors didn’t know what he was, where he could go about his business unnoticed. Again, somewhat. It was one thing to be carelessly killing anyone who looked at you funny when you were fancy free, but you just didn’t start piling up leftovers on your doorstep if you planned to stay in one place for any length of time. He’d pushed the envelope in L.A. himself. Case in point, Buffy seeing him. Though of course, that wasn’t going to be a problem here, as everyone was currently off the menu, per Buffy’s ‘terms.’ Sure, it might get slightly annoying, but doing it while he was here was more than worth it for the blood alone.

Spike absently licked his lips.

The blood.

Buffy’s blood. Slayer blood. Together in one package.

He’d tasted her four times, each better than the last.

The first had been a gift, a few drops from a girl who had no idea what she was doing, what she could have been getting into. She had naivety. An innocent sort of radiance. Which was why he’d felt a slap of devastation when she became the Slayer. Everything that made her her would change, be hardened, be replaced. It wasn’t, though, as he’d discovered. She still had that certain something, only now she had power to go along with it.

The second time he had taken and not asked, and tasted Slayer blood for the first time in nearly a hundred years. It was intoxicating. It was still hers, though.

The third time had been the first time he sank his teeth into her. Pinned her against the wall and taken what he’d pleased. She had offered. He’d felt a jolt of panic go through her that time. She’d made a small choking noise, and something in him screamed that he had the Slayer, here, alone, completely at his mercy—her body overpowered and her blood already running down his throat.

But as Buffy’s—Buffy’s—hand gripped at his arm at an awkward angle, some larger part of him knew that it wasn’t an option, had never been a possibility. If he killed her, he’d lose something. Maybe it was something he never had to begin with, but it would be gone.

The fourth time it had been slow, and he savored the blood he pulled as she melted beneath him. Like liquid fire, it burned him from the inside out in the most delicious way. Afterward, he’d felt completely satisfied in a way that he didn’t know he could be.

Until she’d shocked him out of his reverie with her grim, offhand remark. The fact that she suggested it angered him. The thought of it actually happening made him almost physically ill. Perhaps she had simply said it in the moment, not thinking. But in addition, for her to have actually thought that he would have fought with them, against her— Though he wasn’t in any high position to judge, considering his initial reaction when he’d found out that it was them.

Spike had left L.A. early. He hadn’t been bored, exactly, and not that he would have admitted it to her if he was, but honestly there had been nothing to do. And the instant he’d ridden into town, he’d felt it. It wasn’t so much that he could feel them, but there was something…off. Something nagging, something vaguely familiar. Maybe it had always been there, but he had never been so long removed from their presence before. Perhaps he hadn’t noticed it until he’d become accustomed to the lack of it.

Quickly locating a demon bar, Spike had sauntered in, bought himself a couple of drinks, and casually asked about current events, so to speak. And everything had suddenly fallen into place. He was sure that she’d known all along. Known who she was enlisting him against when she’d been offering up the one thing he couldn’t refuse. However, it had quickly become apparent that Buffy herself had just found out that afternoon.

But they’d sorted all that out yesterday.

Speaking of which, he probably needed to leave now if he wanted to avoid Joyce.

Spike exited the house through Buffy’s window, got on his bike, and headed in the direction of some apartments that had looked promising. An hour and several offices later, he found a manager who looked at him oddly, but finally put the paperwork back in the desk as he slid the cash in her direction.

Spike always dealt in cash; the people who paid him dealt in cash—with a few exceptions that the Watcher handled. He preferred cash anyway, besides the fact that he didn’t have a bank account, birth certificate, or any of those other little things. He knew of places that would set things like that up, but he’d heard that they always wanted to know too much. Having no strings was half the point.

The manager pushed a key ring in his direction. Flashing her a killer smile—but not his killing smile—Spike took the keys and walked out the door.

The apartment he’d rented had a kitchen/living room, a bedroom, and a bathroom. It was furnished, in that it had a couch, a table, a bed, and a dresser. There was a fridge and a stove/oven combo. It would do.

Dumping his bag and locking the door behind him, Spike went to find Buffy. She was at the Magic Box, which he easily located. Buffy didn’t actually go patrolling, so there was little for him to do but wait for her outside. He would have rather gone patrolling, but that didn’t appear to be in the plans for tonight. From what he could overhear, Buffy mostly spoke to the others about various things. They talked several times about cleaning up a back room for her to train in, but they never actually seemed to get around to doing it. They also talked about the other vampires.

After having time to consider it, Spike was looking forward to things. He would enjoy taking down Angelus. He didn’t care about Darla, either. But something in him tightened when he thought of Dru. No, he didn’t want her anymore, but he wanted her around. Not around him, really, just around in the world. Maybe he could get her to leave town or something.

Angelus, though, was going to be fun. Spike had put up with him in the beginning because he had no choice. Though they’d had some good times. Angelus knew what he was about, knew what he wanted, and often had highly amusing ways of getting it. However, he was unbearable whenever he decided to play the ‘leader’ card, and Dru—she always came when he called.

It wasn’t until years later, after Spike had done the ritual to restore Drusilla that he’d truly come to loathe the older vampire. He had been brooding and whiny and uncooperative—not to mention dead weight—and clearly wanted to leave them and their “bloodthirsty ways.” Dru wouldn’t let him go; not that he had much choice, weak as he was. Spike had actually somewhat pitied the cursed vampire, and thought that the best way to end his suffering (and theirs) was simply to stake him. But Dru wouldn’t hear of it, and Spike had sensed that if he did it, she might truly go off the deep end.

It was after Darla returned that Angelus had come back to his old self. How, exactly, Spike never quite figured out, though he didn’t waste much thought on it. Angelus had been weak, pissed off about the years he’d spent cursed, and bitter about the treatment he’d received from Spike and Drusilla. Needless to say, he had not made a fun traveling companion. He’d taken out his frustrations on Spike verbally, and by Dru, of course, who had been more than happy to oblige her daddy once again.

Spike had thought about the ways he could kill Angelus then, but the other vampire once again held the position of power in their little group. It wasn’t worth taking on both Drusilla and Darla. So he’d put up with the bastard, until he’d finally said the hell with it and struck out on his own. A few years later, after he’d gotten the gem, Spike had stolen a car and hopped on the interstate, with the express purpose of driving to New York and beating the lot of them to death. He’d kill Angelus, take Dru back, and go on a spree. She would forgive him eventually. Probably.

He had gotten as far as Arizona before he came to the startling realization that he simply didn’t care. He was done with them. Drusilla had already left him. Spike only left because he’d finally admitted to himself that he hadn’t really had her for a long time. And Angelus could be halfway across the world by now. If he ever saw Angelus again, he decided, he’d beat him to death. Spike had made a U-turn in the desert and headed back to California.

Spike smirked to himself and leaned back against the bricks in the alley. It was sort of funny, in a way.

Angelus had come to him.