DISCLAIMER: Not mine, "I just got so bored".
**PART ONE**CHAPTER ONE:
She drew up to the bar and signalled for service. Scanning the optics, the bartender answered her indecision by placing a bottle of vodka and a shot glass in front of her. OK, looked liked this was her 'usual'. She smiled thinly as she handed over a bill and the bartender pocketed it, dismissing any expectation for change she may have had.
"So, what's new?" He asked with a vague, non-committal tone.
She shrugged and grimaced. "Not much, same-old, same-old you know."
The bartender nodded, having satisfied his full repertoire of small talk, he drifted away to serve another customer.
She liked that, the anonymity, the fact that, apart from the odd suspicious glare she had received when she entered the bar, no one bothered her. She'd come a long way for that tonight and here, tonight she could be anyone. 'Anyone', she decided, unlike her usual self, was capable of taking her drink without descending into primitive, Neanderthal territory. Oh, it wasn't going to be pretty, she knew that, she was signing the death warrant of a few million innocent brain cells. But it was just what she needed, just for tonight.
She felt the by-now familiar pain wrench in gut as her brain threw up the regular, yet sporadic image of her mother's body lying there, cold, stiffening and open-eyed on the sofa. She felt herself wince and covered it up by pretending to struggle with the screw top of the vodka bottle. The seal broke with a satisfying crack and she was about to pour herself a shot when something instinctive pulled at her back
On alert, she scanned the place, her eyes flitting from one head to another through the blue veil of smoke that hung in the stale air. Just the general mix of unsavoury human types, but no, there was something that tweaked her slayer sense, something familiar. Her eyes settled on a particular, unmistakable head.
"Can I get another glass?"
Once the request was delivered she picked up the bottle and glasses and head over towards the bleached head.
It was him.
She held off slightly behind him and peered over his shoulder to see him nursing half-a-glass of beer between his palms.
"I'm guessing half-empty right?"
His gaze shot up and latched on to her with an almost unnerving predatory glare. His face was hard, his jaw clenched until his eyes flickered with recognition and he deflated slightly. "Slayer." He ground out with a low rumble, his voice marked with annoyance, as if his evening had suddenly got worse.
She pushed aside her Slayer instincts for hardness and reproach and forced a smile. It hurt her face. "Yep, the one and only -- well, actually not the only one but..."
His brows pushed together in confusion and he shook his head before recalling. "Right," he drawled, obviously resenting her presence, "so another little-miss-gym-slip got all Slayer ordained then?"
"Uh-huh, one dies another is called, you know the drill."
His eyes flashed and he eyed her, a hint of his trademark smirk twitching at his lips. "Only too well."
She ignored the shiver that ran through her at the implication of his words and affected an indifferent pose. "Mind if I join you? I have Vodka." She held the bottle up by the neck as if to prove her point and his eyes slid down her arm to the offering. He finally shrugged and she seated herself opposite him.
They stared at each other momentarily, each wondering if the other was going to make a move. When neither shifted, they both visibly relaxed and Spike sat back, his duster creaking around him.
"So, long time, no see?" She balked at her casual phrasing, but then how else was she supposed to address her mortal enemy? She didn't feel much up to death-threats and necro-innuendo tonight. That was for sure.
He sighed and took his time in finding and lighting a cigarette before responding. "Yeah, been a while ain't it? What two, two-and-a-half years? So, what hell's been breaking loose in my absence?"
"Oh, the usual - Big-Evil, death, carnage, and let's not forget the annual threat of apocalypse."
"Apocalypse, really? I've missed me some fun."
"I thought you 'liked this world'?"
He shrugged and tipped his pint glass forward so he could look into the honey-coloured liquid. "Yeah, I did."
"Demons - they're so fickle." She joked but it fell flat and she looked at him properly for the first time. Something was different. He was all... (Broody?) Not a word she ever thought she'd find herself associating with him but she recognised the signs all too well. His cigarette lay forgotten in the ashtray and she watched it burn down to the filter.
"So, the Slayer saved the world again" He said without looking up from his beer.
Her mood darkened and the words were out of her mouth before she realised. "Can you not call me that? Not tonight."
He glanced up at her, his body jerked with a snort of silent laughter. "Tonight she wants to be a woman of mystery?" She didn't reply and he took that as an affirmative response. "Sure, love, I'll think of something -"
"That'll do."
He paused, his lips parting slightly and his gaze inverting as he thought over what he had just said. "What? 'Love'?"
She nodded and he shook his head.
"Whatever." His gaze threatened to fall back to his beer only to flicker back up to hers. The smirk made its first proper appearance of the night. "So... 'Love', tell me. What's a nice girl like you doing in a nasty little hovel like this?" His arm made a swaying motion at their surroundings.
Scoffing at the tongue-in-cheek use of an age-old chat-up line, her face took on an expression of mock-defiance. "I wanted a drink?"
"So I see."
"You think it's a bit much?"
He shrugged. "It does the trick."
"Come on then, drink up." She fingered the Vodka bottle suggestively. "I've got the good-stuff right her and I know you want some."
Chuckling, he picked up his beer, drained the glass with two or three gulps and gasped, his eyes wide from the rush. "Fill me up."
Her expression contorted as the caustic liquid filled her mouth and left a fiery trail down her throat. She spluttered and groaned at the instant nausea. "People actually like this stuff?"
He laughed. "No but, like I said - It serves a purpose." He downed his shot, his face only registering the slightest ripple of a reaction. "I could say it gets easier but I'd be lying."
"Well if -" She stopped dead, not wanting to look in his eyes for fear of having her dread confirmed. Slowly her eyes lifted to his and there it was. Sympathy. Her limbs steeled themselves to leave. Escapism was always her first and last resort lately. "You know?!"
His face remained neutral but his eyes were infinite with something she decided maybe wasn't quite sympathy. (Empathy? No. What would he know about grief?)
"Word gets around--especially if it concerns you."
She said nothing but as she felt a dark wash of negative emotion roll along her spine she knew she had to stay. It was anger, but it was something. So better than the numb nothingness she had got to know intimately these past couple of weeks.
"She was a good women. I liked her."
She heard a noise, something between a scoff and a snort and took a moment to realise it had come from her.
"Maybe it's not too comforting, coming from me but -- She made the best hot-chocolate I've ever tasted and ... well, I wouldn't have eaten her, put it that way."
"Coming from you that's..." She had an enormous urge to say 'thanks'. (Oh my God, did I just say that? Could tonight get any more wiggy?)
"No problem."
"So, just to check. While you're here... with me, your crazy whore of a girlfriend's not out there happy-mealing on my patch, is she?"
His eyes flashed and she could sense his muscles tense with anger but as quickly as it had flared, it was gone. Only to be replaced with his slack, almost apathetic posture as he sank back down into his seat.
She realised something then. He was heartbroken. It was as plain as the scar on his eyebrow. He flipped a beer mat off the side of the table and didn't bother to try and catch it.
"So the fail-safe get-her-back plan failed?"
"No, it worked... for a while we were happy."
"Where is she now?"
He shrugged and twirled his shot glass between his fingers. "She goes wherever the wind takes her." His fingers twitched out a piano-playing motion and for a moment he was far away, so far away.
"OK, this just won't do," she poured out some more shots and waited for him to return to her. "From now on, we're strangers. Two people who have never met, drawn together for the sole and magnificent purpose of getting as drunk as the proverbial skunks."
He smirked and picked up his glass, holding it out for a toast. "I'll drink to that."
They clinked glasses and downed their shots.
"Urgg-err!"
She'd been pacing herself, she really had. One shot to every three he downed. After her forth, her head began to swim and now, after her sixth, her drinking partner had somehow managed to clone himself - Twice.
"Is there something in a Vampire's constitution that makes them more liquor-friendly?" She wondered vaguely and aloud.
"No, there's just something about your constitution that makes you a supreme light-weight."
"Hey," she began to protest but lost her thread of thought all to easily when his glazed eyes danced with smug humour. "Pig."
He chuckled and re-filled their glasses.
"Here's to being strangers." She said before gulping down her shot.
"OK--but if you were a stranger, I would have drained you already."
"And if you were a stranger, I would have staked you already."
"So much for foreplay."
She tried to suppress her giggle but it forced it's way out through her nose and mouth, spraying him.
He made a show of wiping his three faces with the back of his three hands and gave her a mock-glare. He reached for the bottle again, only even when drunk, her reactions were faster than his. A chipped-black nailed hand closed over hers on the battle.
"OK, yours." He conceded as a means to withdraw. He eyed his offending hand wearily before running it through his hair. "I kinda prefer the mortal enemy vibe anyway."
"Yeah," she admitted, "I guess -- history and all that."
"Which leads me to ask. My Grand-sire, the love of your life--Tell me - just how is the son of a bitch?"
She didn't realise what she'd done until he felt the pain sting her hand and saw him lunge for the bottle to retaliate with only to knock it over. The little remaining liquid it contained spilling over the table. She heard him whisper a curse or two as they both set to mopping the spillage up with beer mats.
Somewhere in the melee their fingertips met and they both pulled back as if burnt. Looking up into his eyes found what she expected to see and knew he would find the same reflected in her eyes and so she said it:
"Drive me hone?"
He was silent for what she could only class as an eternity and even when he nodded his assent she wished he could have spoken.
In the alley outside the bar they came to a stop. The coolness of the air hit her instantaneously, invaded her senses and, most unfortunately, sobered her up. She watched him furtively as he lit a cigarette, the amber glow of the lighter highlighting his face for a brief moment. She knew, from the hard set of his jaw, that he was thinking exactly the same as her: (This should not be happening).
It went against everything she knew. Everything Giles had drilled her in, but for some reason she couldn't stop this. She opened her mouth to say something, but it wasn't her voice she heard. She spun around with a groan to face the game-faced Vampires closing in on them. Running through the log her mind she remembered the stake in her coat pocket.
"Don't I ever get the night off?"
"It would appear not."
She felt Spike step forward and align himself with her. The Vampires started and backed off a couple of paces under the pressure of his glare.
"She yours?"
Spike smirked. "No. I was just off to get myself someone more... substantial to eat."
"Substantial?! You do not get anymore substantial than Slayer blood."
They turned to face each other. There was that nostalgic expression again and his eyes flitted down her body and back up to her face.
"I know."
(Killer of two Slayers, of course he knows.)
"You're the Slayer?"
She rolled her eyes and reached for a stake. "Yes, I am -- and you should be star-struck." Turning she felt another wave of inebriation roll over her and wavered slightly as she wielded the stake.
"Steady on, Love."
"Do you mind, you're putting me off." She spun round and Spike was forced to lean back as her stake stabbed at the air close to his chest. He said nothing, just grinned and took a step back, indicating that the floor was hers. But she was alone on stage now, the Vampires had taken their chance to escape from not-so-certain death.
"Now look what you've done!"
"What I've done? If you were that desperate for a fight, Sl-Love, you could have picked a dozen in there, if you're still up for it when you sober up, then maybe I'll humour you later on... As for now, I think what you really need is some nice, hot -"
"What?!" She yelled, feeling her mind fall straight to the gutter. She concentrated heavily on putting her stake away.
"Black coffee, Love. Nice, hot black coffee... sober you up."
"Oh... I mean no! I'm not drunk!"
"That so?" He stared at her and flicked his cigarette stub into the shadows before walking away from her. "It's what, twenty miles back to Sunnydale? If you're not sober now, you sure as hell will be by the time you get home."
Cursing under her breath she ran and caught up with him. "I hate you."
"Funny that," he grinned, "I hate you too... Ah, the joy of requited feeling."
They turned a few alleys in silence and came upon his Desoto. (Some things never change.) She smiled, when in mock-chivalry he opened a door for her.
Climbing in, she was engulfed by a scent. It was the scent of tobacco, of alcohol, of the bar they had just been in. The scent of him. Snuggling into the nest of the passenger seat she gave into the weariness that pressed on her and closed her eyes.
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