Chapter 2 – Bonding And An Ominous Plot
After Spike got up, the two stared at each other for a moment. Spike couldn't help but smile; she was so much like Buffy he almost couldn't stand it. So proud, so strong, so—stubborn. "Let's take a walk, eh?"
"Fine, whatever." She smirked.
He wanted to get a better look at her, especially. When they got into the light, he took a quick study of her. She looked probably around 16 or 17, dressed in ragged clothing (perhaps she was homeless?), bright green eyes and dark brown hair. Her eyes made her look old, like she saw a little too much for her young age. But, then again, most slayers did tend to have that problem.
"Whatcha staring at, vampy?" she rolled her eyes.
"Just looking you over." He shrugged. "Gotta see what I'm workin' with is all."
"Am I up to par?" she asked, not actually looking interested in his opinion on her.
"You look well enough, yeah." He nodded absently.
"Well, since you're going to be my weird watcher person or whatever—what's your name?" she inquired as they started walking down the darkened street.
"Spike." He answered.
"Spike?" she repeated. "What kind of name is that? Your mom didn't name you that, right?"
"Well if you want to be all literal about it, my name is William." He rolled his eyes. "Such a bloody stupid name. Call me Spike."
"So I guess you named yourself that, huh?" she questioned.
"It's a nickname I picked up. Back in my glory days, when I killed two of your sort of people—I was known to impale people with railroad spikes." He explained.
"Why do I ask?" she shook her head. "That's disgusting."
He paused. "I don't think so." She rolled her eyes. So, you know my name, what's yours?"
"Katrina." She replied. "Just Katrina."
"That's it?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Hey, I'm only giving you what you gave me SPIKE." She purposely made mocking emphasis on his less-then-nice nickname. "Sorry I don't have any witty nicknames. I'm not into that whole impaling thing."
"I'll call you Kitty then."
"Call me Kitty and you die—again." She glanced over at him, noticing the usual cocky grin on his face.
"All right then, Kitty." He nodded. She huffed but didn't make any move to kick his ass, though she knew she really should have. "Got to warn you, though, I suggest you not feed me to a monster like you did with your last watcher."
"I ALMOST did. There's a difference." She pointed out quickly. "He was annoying. I didn't like him."
"Well I think this chip in my head is annoying and you don't see me throwin' people to the wolves." He paused. "Well, not often anyway."
"I have trouble with authority." She shrugged. "Big deal."
"Now I definitely know that feeling." He grinned, taking out a cigarette from his pocket. She watched him light it up and take a puff from it.
"Lovely, I have a vampire watcher who smokes. You don't happen to cross-dress too, do you?" she rolled her eyes.
"Are you sayin' I'm weird?" he inquired.
"That's exactly what I'm saying." She answered easily. "I would say that could give you lung cancer but I suppose you don't have to worry about that, huh?"
"Got that right." He nodded.
"You're being a bad influence on me, you know. I'm gonna start smoking because of you." He looked at her and shrugged.
"Free country, you can do whatever you bloody want too." He took another puff of it before flicking it away. "Could give you lung cancer though. Make you wheeze and be slow too. Two things you don't really want as someone who needs to outrun and sneak up on monsters to kill them."
"I was kidding."
"I know." He nodded. "So, want to grab some grub?"
~~
"I still don't know about this."
"Sir, he's about the only one who can actually get her to listen to him. You saw what he did to Mr. Holland—"
"She is strong, I will give her that." The man rapped his fingers lightly on the desk. "I just don't know about Spike. I mean, at least with Angel, we had the comfort of him having a soul. Spike has a chip. In his head."
"I beg to differ, sir. I have seen his files and noticed the trend of utter loyalty through his entire life—or unlife, as the case may be. He's a strange case. Even after Miss Summers' untimely death, he continued to watch her sister like a hawk until well—but even HE couldn't protect her from that. But he watched her for thirteen years, and you know he didn't have too."
The man at the desk considered this. "Yes, I think that is one of the only reasons I'm allowing this."
"He's not going to listen to us, though, sir."
"I wouldn't expect so." He shook his head. "But that's why we have Doyle. Sort of a go between."
"Where did this Doyle come from, anyway, sir?" he asked.
"Some guy brought over from the Powers To Be. Died a bit ago, but they brought him back. Thought he'd be of use for our cause. He's a good guy, though now he's full demon."
"You just better be right. There's a lot laying on this slayer." He flipped his calendar and stopped on a date. He smirked slightly as he read the words 'Dimension Alignment'. It was in his handwriting. "We only have to the end of this month to have her ready."
"I realize that, sir." He bit his lip. "I'll send Doyle to keep constant watch on them, sir."
"Good. Carry on." He waved a hand and in an instant the nervous fellow did a little bow and scurried out like a scared rabbit. "We're all doomed." He whispered to himself, shaking his head sadly.
~~
"So, where do you live?" Spike asked, watching her eat the burger he had bought her. She ate it like she hadn't eaten in weeks.
"You saw it." She smirked.
"Homeless?"
"Hey, I like my box." She huffed. "So I wouldn't consider me entirely homeless."
"Guess that means I'll have to set up a bed in my apartment, then." He raised a brow.
"I am not sleeping in your apartment." She shook her head. "No way. We're not that high up on the trust level."
"What do you think I'll do? Bite you?" he asked, rolling his eyes.
"You win the prize." She said before stuffing her mouth with a big bite of her burger.
"And I suppose I'm feeding you to fatten you up, huh?" he inquired.
"You know, now that you mention it—"
He shot her a glare that she didn't even wince at. "Funny."
"What? It has an excessive amount of grease—so you're either doing that or trying to give me a heart attack." She seemed satisfied with her options of the matter.
Then she took a huge bite of it again, looking even more satisfied that her stomach's pangs for food were being met. "Doesn't look like you're suffering too much."
"Long live the clogged arteries, I say." He noticed her give him a faint smile, but the moment she realized what she was doing it instantly disappeared.
"You know I'm not going to let you sleep outside. That's probably the most dangerous thing you can do." He explained.
"I've been doing it my whole life." She pointed out.
"That's because I wasn't there." He grinned. "But now I am, and you're going to be staying with me. Part of my Watcher duties."
"I have a feeling you don't know the first thing about being a Watcher." She raised a brow, looking at him with a challenging glance.
"Are you kidding? I had to watch this bloody git take care of this other Slayer I knew for a few years. I know all about being one, and why I'm not going to be the usual kind." He smirked proudly. "I never followed rules before, why do it now?"
"You knew another Slayer?" she asked, blinking. "What are you, some sort of Slayer stalker?"
"I didn't stalk." He replied, deciding not to mention the times where he snuck into Buffy's house to smell her clothes.
"Riight." She rolled her eyes, then finished off her food.
"I sense sarcasticness in that comment."
"Because there WAS sarcasticness in that comment." She nodded. "But fine. I'll stay at your stupid—apartment or whatever. But you try anything and—"
"I know, I know, you'll stake my unbeating heart." He paused. "You know, you really remind me of that other Slayer."
"What, she think you're a strange, deranged vampire too?" she asked, interested.
"I'm not strange or deranged." He huffed. "But if you must know, yes, she probably did."
"No surprise here." She smirked, folding her arms across her chest.
"But that's not what I meant." He shook his head. "She was a lot like you in personality. Spirited, really. Sarcastic and tough. Yeah, that's definitely you." He smiled slightly. "Had the biggest crush on this girl, too."
"Wow, you really are a weird vampire." She smirked. "You had a crush on a Slayer? Isn't that against the rules of being one of your kind?"
"Rules are for soddin' idiots." He smirked. "But you should thank this girl. I'd be your biggest enemy without her. She went and slowly without me knowin' changed my thoughts about going around killing people, and let me tell you, that made her pretty special." He glanced at her. "And you remind me of her."
"And who is this mysterious crush of yours?" she pressed.
"Her name was Buffy Summers." His head drooped lightly, flinching at the name. It still brought back bad memories.
He looked at her to see she was giving him a disbelieving look. "You knew Buffy Summers."
"Yeah."
"And now you're going to tell me you're the unnamed vampire ally that the book about her keeps talking about?" she looked at him doubtfully.
"You mean I spent all that time with her and I didn't even get my bloody name in the book? Oh that just figures." He huffed.
She stared at him incredulously.
"So you were the last person she loved then." She nodded. He blinked, a bit surprised.
"Come again, pet?"
"Well, it was in her diary. She never actually said who she was talking about, but—" Katrina shrugged.
"Knew she couldn't resist my charms." He smiled even though the news had awakened the empty void of pain he kept fighting.
Katrina saw through the smile and reached over to pat him lightly on the hand. Though it was a small gesture, it lifted his spirits a little because it meant she was starting to trust him, or at least pity him. Both were pretty helpful in their own right. "Guess you didn't know that, huh?"
"I knew." He responded, idly. "Just remembering the past is all. You know, I'm going to tell you right now, I'm a screw up. Who knows what those gits were drinkin' when they decided to let me watch you. I watched Dawn and—" he shook his head sadly, abruptly stopping himself from thinking of what happened.
"I doubt you can be any worse then the other ones." Katrina said after a long pause.
Spike looked at her, surprised at the sudden compliment that was masked with a slight sarcastic note. She had made her face devoid of any emotion again, smirking haughtily at him. "It's almost morning. Better start getting to your new home away from home."
Katrina made a face but nodded her head.
~~
"Is all going well?" The vampire shot its head up, his body shivering lightly at the voice.
"Y-yes Mistress." The vampire quickly squeaked. "All going to plan. B-but there's just one thing—"
"A problem?" the voice inquired.
"Not a big one, Mistress. N-not at all." He replied. He stood up from the desk he was sitting at. "You see, it seems the slayer that we previously thought wasn't going to be much of a threat since s-she was so erm—rebellious—"
"Spit it out."
"The Council has finally found someone she'll listen to." The vampire withdrew, looking like he was ready to be hit.
"They WHAT?"
"I-I don't know how they did it either, Mistress." The vampire sniveled.
"Who is this watcher?" the voice demanded.
"Spike, Mistress. T-The vampire who killed the two slayers? They've given him the job." He quickly explained.
"What?!" The vampire withdrew even more as his 'mistress' came out of the shadows, glaring icily at him.
"S-surprising, innit?" he asked, cautiously. "A-anyway, she seems to be taking a liking to him."
"This is not good." The vampire nodded his head in agreement with the glaring vampire in front of him.
"Not at all. No no."
"Well what are you sitting here for? You should be planning on how you're going to kill him. Now." She caught the vampire by the lapels as he tried to run out. "On second thought, don't kill him. Bring him to me. Him and his little Slayer. I want to torture them a little first." She pulled him closer to her. "And if you fail me, you will be my toy instead, got it?"
"Y-yes Mistress!" he nodded, trying not to wiggle in her grasp. She threw the vampire and smiled as he smashed into the wall. He got up, a bit dazed, and ran out.
Then Dawn turned away, her now human face scrunching in anger. "Never gonna change, are you Spike?"