I was really overwhelmed with how many people read this fic, and it makes me really happy. As an apology for taking so long to post, I will be putting up two chapters of Get Wet today (though there will be maybe a three hour gap between them), and the first one is extra long. Enjoy, and review if you're up for it!
"Mom! I'm home!" Buffy called as she walked in the front door. Joyce appeared from inside the kitchen with a wide smile on her face.
"I'm so glad," she said, and led Buffy over to the couch. Both of them sat down.
Buffy laughed. "Wow, Mom, didn't know you were so worried about me driving. Believe me, it's not so dire as you seem to think it is."
Joyce shook her head. "No, it's not that. I do get a little concerned when you drive, but that's not why I'm so eager to talk to you." She really did seem excited, in a way that Buffy hadn't seen in a while. She was almost like a child, practically bouncing where she sat next to Buffy.
"What's up? You're so happy. I haven't seen you like this is a while." That was true. Joyce had run into a few problems with the gallery that she owned and ran. Her right hand woman, an assistant that had taken on half of the work when Joyce was overwhelmed and swamped, had just quit a few weeks before. Alone, Joyce couldn't handle everything. She needed at least one other main assistant to keep it going and still manage to bring pieces back from other locations. All the stress had been really detrimental to her happiness, but seeing her like this made Buffy feel hopeful.
"It's been so hard not to tell you the past week, I've been almost unable to keep from saying anything." She grinned in a very un-Joyce-like way. The energy was infectious, and Buffy found herself dying to find out what her mom had been holding back.
"So what's up? Did you get a surprise for me?" she asked, thinking she might be getting a new bathing suit, or maybe a day at the spa. Though she wasn't sure that Joyce would get so excited about either of those things.
"It's something for both of us. I know you were looking forward to spending spring break with your friends, but I made a sort of last-minute decision and—"
"We're going somewhere!" Buffy shrieked excitedly. She immediately started guessing. "Baja? New York? Florida?"
Joyce was happy that her daughter was so thrilled without having even heard where they were headed—and it was better than any of the places she'd guessed. "We're going to stay on a yacht—" at that word Buffy's eyes widened—"in the Caribbean!"
Buffy's scream of happiness was almost painful, and yet it was music to Joyce's ears. "Ohmigod are you serious!" she asked in disbelievingly, and hugged her mom. "Just you and me? This is going to be so much—"
"Actually…" Joyce cut her off warily. "We're going to be joined by a couple of other people."
Buffy did not like the sound of that. Not one bit. "Who? Do I know them?"
"I'm not sure," Joyce said in what could have almost been a teasing manner. "It's possible you met one of them at school today."
Buffy, nonplussed, just sort of wrinkled her nose up confusedly. "Um, not sure what you're…" then it dawned on her like a freight train. "No," she said slowly, giving away her recognition, and growing horror. "Nooo…."
"Oh, so you did meet?" This fact seemed to give Joyce immeasurable delight. "You see, I have a friend from college, Rupert, and he just moved to Sunnydale. It was really unexpected—he got specially invited to come here for the next four years to set up an exhibition of rare Peruvian artifacts owned by a wealthy collector. Of course it's going to take a while to sort them all, catalogue, and then curate the collection, but it's what he loves best. And as it just so happens, he is also an amazing author. He made enough money on his first two books that he now owns a yacht, anchored in the Caribbean, and ready for us to put to good use!"
Buffy was still in shock. Maybe the next words that came out of her mom's mouth wouldn't confirm what she thought to be true. Maybe she was about to find her salvation. Maybe…
"And best of all, he has a nephew your age, who is attending Sunnydale!"
…her life was about to become a living hell.
"And um, what does his nephew look like?"
Joyce frowned. "Well, Rupert said he's going through some sort of phase, but apparently he has bleached hair and likes to go by the name of 'Spike,' though his real name is William."
"Dear god." Every last milliliter of Buffy's ecstasy at the thought of a week floating through sapphire-blue waters had been erased by the thought of every second of it including Spike. "What is my life?"
"Buffy Ann Summers!" Joyce's original happiness was rapidly disintegrating. She couldn't believe that her daughter could already have a bad attitude about this. When she had come up with the idea to take a yacht out into the Caribbean with one of their family friends—albeit ones Buffy had never met—, she had thought Buffy would be totally thrilled. What teenage girl wouldn't want to spend two weeks on spring break in paradise, doing everything she wanted to—tanning, listening to music, swimming, and generally ignoring her mother. What could be better? And Joyce would have fun as well—she hadn't seen Rupert in ages, and it would be wonderful to see an old friend after so long.
And concerning Spike: well, to be truthful, Joyce had been a little wary at first, but only because she thought Buffy might like him a little too much! She herself had gone through a long-buried phase of being attracted to 'bad boys' and the like, and Joyce had to admit, that it was a mild worry of hers that Buffy would fall all too easily for who William had become. She had never met the boy, but from Giles' descriptions, and after seeing a few pictures, she was on the verge of delicately warning her daughter.
"Mom, is there any way we can cancel this?" Buffy asked desperately. "Please!"
"No! I don't know what your problem is, or what William could have possibly done in the short time you've known him to make you act like this, but we are going. You will enjoy it."
From Buffy's point of view, that sounded like an order.
After giving her mom a non-commital noise of assent that she would have a good attitude about their vacation, Buffy went upstairs to her room. With a heavy sigh, restraining a frustrated scream and instead settling for a groan, Buffy flopped onto her bed bonelessly, and picked up the phone to call Willow.
Her best friend answered on the second ring. Buffy smiled—she could always count on her red-haired cohort. "Hey Wills. You will not believe what my mom just told me."
But before she could unload the whole saga, Willow interrupted her. "Buffy, I got the sitch on Spike, and it's crazy!"
Well, if there was only one thing that would stop Buffy from bursting out with what she wanted to tell someone, anyone, then it was counter information. Anything about Spike was of interest to her.
Willow didn't wait for her to respond. "He just moved here with his uncle. His parents are still in England, but the uncle is his legal guardian or something. And they've got tons of money! Like, obscene, ridiculous, aneurysm-inducing amounts of money."
That pretty much fit with what Buffy had already learned, and she continued with spilling the beans to Willow. "That makes sense, because guess what my mom just dumped on me? We're going to the Caribbean for spring break,"—she heard a gasp of excitement from Willow—,"and I'm going to be stuck on a yacht with that piece of freaky punk for a whole week!"
There was a small silence while Willow processed all this information. Buffy could practically hear the gears turning in her head. Then she voiced her thoughts out loud. "Okay…" she started slowly, "Caribbean equals good."
"Definitely," Buffy answered. That was true, she was at least a little bit looking forward to going somewhere so exotic, with swimming and sun.
"And," Willow continued, "yacht equals extra good. But Spike, to you, equals bad. Very bad."
"Exactly," Buffy said, and sighed, long and exhaustedly.
"Do you maybe think…" Willow trailed off as if she wasn't sure she should say it. "Well, maybe Spike might be kind of fun?"
Buffy didn't know how to answer that. Her automatic answer was something along the lines of "HELL NO," but she paused and thought it over a little. Spike was undeniably attractive, she could give him that much, and maybe his insufferable personality could be ignored. If she had her way, she would be relaxing anyway, not spending time with him. Therefore, it should be easy to pretend that he wasn't even around! Perfect.
"You know, Willow, you're probably right. Not that he'll be fun, but I guess it's possible that he can be easily ignored. As long as he doesn't do something else to make me hate him even more, we'll be good."
She should have known that was the wrong thing to say.
Tuesday morning, Buffy managed to be late again. It was something of a normal occurrence for her; she often slept through her alarm, or just couldn't get out of bed because she was so tired, and yesterday she had stayed up too late talking to Willow on the phone about what she would have to pack for the Caribbean, and whether she would need to go shopping.
She stumbled into school in practically the same fashion as the day before, knowing that she really was going to get detention this time, and not just a harsh warning, so it didn't make her morning any better when she saw the bleach boy himself, leaning against the wall just like he had been the day before. This time she managed not to run straight into him, but that didn't make her any less angry to see him.
Spike smirked when he saw her. He knew what game she was playing now—she didn't want to be seen with him. Fine by him, but he still wanted to see her. Since it was clear that the only way he could do that was out of class, he had waited outside her first class, guessing rightly that she would be late. Probably busy doing her hair, he thought to himself. Make it all shiny and bouncy. Unbidden, the thought flickered through his mind that he wouldn't pass up the opportunity to make that hair bounce while he was doing something to make her writhe.
Whoa. He needed to slow down there. She might be a typical SoCal girl, but she's bloody gorgeous. Without trying, he found the image of Dru, his ex, floating to the forefront of his mind, and he couldn't help but compare the two girls. They were as opposite as could be, and that gave him some angry satisfied pleasure. He wanted to get as far away from Dru as he could, physically and mentally. That was the only reason he had agreed to leave England. If he hadn't, dear old Uncle Rupert would have found himself needing to send out a search party for his nephew.
Seeing Buffy, he couldn't help that smirk that appeared on his face. She was right on time for him, though not by the school's standards. "Morning, luv."
"Ugh. Spike. So I found out about our lovely vacation together. Be seeing you." Buffy breezed past him, and into her classroom without another word, effectively shutting down any hope of him talking to her properly. He scowled at her retreating back.
However, unfortunately for Buffy, she was so busy going into class and getting a detention slip for after school, that she missed seeing another teacher giving Spike an identical slip.
The final bell rang, and Buffy wearily got up from her seat, knowing that she had to enjoy another hour in school, sitting in the one room next to the office that was designated for detention. With a resigned smile, she waved goodbye to Willow and Xander, and went into the detention room, sitting down at the nearest seat. Looking out the window the room she decided that was the worst part of this whole experience: anyone walking by could just look in and see that she, Buffy Summers, was in detention. They could laugh at her, and she would still be stuck in this tiny room, alone.
Her assignment was to write an essay about ten ways being late affected her schooling negatively. She pulled out a sheet of paper and a pencil, and was about to try to begin, though she doubted she was going to get very far, when the door to the room opened, and someone else joined the seat right next to her.
Spike.
"Oh my god," Buffy said rudely. She knew it was rude, but she did it anyway, and added in an eye roll.
Spike wasted no time in sitting down and making himself comfortable, propping his feet up on the desk and leaning back as if he could stay there for days and it wouldn't make a difference to him. "Hello, Buffy."
The way he said her name made her want to slap him. Or something. Something violent and unexpected, that would leave him speechless and unable to annoy her. "What the hell are you doing here?" she asked petulantly.
"Thought you might get bored and want some company. I seem to be free, seeing as I'm new in town and I've got no friends." He added the last part with a self-mocking smile, as if he was not completely joking.
Strangely, the way he seemed to be almost serious made Buffy drop some of the animosity that she had felt towards him. Even so, the words that came out of her mouth were utterly ridiculous. "Why don't you come to the Bronze tonight? With me and Willow and Xander?"
As soon as she said it, she thought she might melt into the ground with embarrassment. What was she thinking? She didn't like Spike. He was going to ruin her vacation, and he had basically given her detention!
Spike looked at her with his head tilted, as if he could see straight into her head, and was observing the tangle of thoughts in her brain about whether this was a good idea or not. Then he nodded, and said, "Sure pet, why not. Sounds fun."
Actually, this didn't sound like fun to Spike. Bearable, possibly, but going to the local club and being surrounded by the peppy California crowd was not his cup of tea. He preferred the underground shows he used to attend in London to any club, but Sunnnydale didn't seem like the place to have that kind of scene. When he got the time, he had planned to go into L.A. and see what was going on there, but for now he didn't have the time or a car.
The only real appeal of going to the Bronze would be Buffy. She would be there, and she interested him. He wanted to know more before he jumped on a boat with her for a week.
"So," Buffy started, hoping that they weren't going to lapse into awkward silence, "how did you know what I looked like? You recognized me when you came here."
"Yeah…" he ran his hand through his hair, making a few bits of it come un-gelled. "My uncle showed me a picture of you, thought it would be good for me to 'know' at least one person on the first day here. Obviously didn't work out exactly how he planned."
Buffy almost felt a little bad about that. "You have to admit, randomly going up to someone and not explaining right away how you know them is enough to wig anyone out a little."
They continued to talk for a while, and before Buffy knew it, an hour had passed, and her essay was nowhere near finished. She didn't mind much, she could just bullshit it at a later date.
Right on the dot, at four, there was a tap on the big glass window that let them see into the hall outside. With a start both Spike and Buffy looked up to see Riley, gesturing to Buffy to come outside. He had told her he would pick her up, but she had completely forgotten. Riley looked a little confused, and definitely not happy to see his girlfriend talking to Spike.
"I guess I'll see you tonight then?" Buffy asked Spike as she opened the door to her freedom.
He raised a hand in farewell, pulling out a cigarette at the same time. Buffy refrained from commenting that he wasn't allowed to do that. "I'll see you around," he said, and lit the cigarette.
Buffy nodded, and left with her boyfriend. The moment they got out of the school, Riley started asking questions.
"What was he doing there with you?"
Buffy rolled her eyes much in the same manner she had done to Spike. "He had detention as well. What, did you think he just hung out in there for fun?"
Riley didn't like it when she got sarcastic with him, and she knew it. Seeing the dark look on his face that meant he was restraining himself from snapping back at her, she stepped in front of him and put her hands on his shoulders. "It's perfectly fine, baby. He's just living with a close friend of my mom. I'm basically obligated to be nice to him, right?"
Placated, Riley nodded, and they kissed.
When they broke apart, Buffy gave him the last bit of news. "Oh, and he's coming to the Bronze with us tonight."