Chapter 11: Entrances
"But what if he's still mad?" Buffy whimpered as Willow pushed her closer to the door of Giles' condo. It had been three days since the whole mess with Angel and Spike at the Bronze. Buffy was now attempting to visit Giles, albeit a little nervously, since she was unaware whether Giles' anger towards herself had passed. Willow tried to be flippant with her best friend's concerns.
"Pfft, you know he's probably not. Come on, he's British. He's probably making with the whole stiff-upper-lip and Mother Country stoicism."
"Well from when I last saw him, he seemed to have that whole good ol' American rage thing down pat," said Buffy as she wrinkled her nose, frowning.
"Yeah but Giles----" Willow's train of thought suddenly was interrupted when she and Buffy became increasingly aware of the thunderous crunch of death metal rock muffled from inside Giles' apartment. They could practically feel the violent thrashing of the electric bass, as it seemed the whole condo complex seemed to rumble in time with the beat. The girls exchanged confused glances.
"What the . . . ?" Willow urgently and worriedly pounded on Giles' door now, lest he had been attacked by a horde of heavily tattooed biker gang-members, who had locked him in his bathroom and proceeded to rip apart his house in a mad spirit of partying and drunkenness. Just as Buffy was about to kick in the door with similar panic, a ruffled and disheveled Giles thrust open the door, allowing a storm of deafening and crunching metal music out into the courtyard, forcing the girls to smash their hands to their ears.
"What IS that?" Willow yelled over the din. Giles wearily motioned them both in, which were invitations that Buffy and Willow were a bit hesitant to accept.
"Yeah, I would have figured your taste in music would precede the Metallica era . . . y'know, some rockin' little ditties written by 17th century dead white guys with violins," Buffy pointed out, still wincing from the screeching feedback of the music.
"Well it bloody well isn't my music," Giles sighed, reaching down for his Scotch bottle. "It's some of Spike's. Since he's refusing to talk to me, he's translating his adolescent dissatisfaction by blasting rubbish at ungodly volumes. All the neighbors have been complaining."
"Well how are you dealing with it?" Willow asked, hands still muffling her ears.
"I find a great deal of alcohol helps," Giles said almost cheerily, as he downed a glass. Suddenly becoming aware of both girls' stoic glances, he hiccuped and sighed. "I'm afraid I'm not very experienced in how to deal with such situations."
"Well I'm pretty sure the loss of your long-term hearing wouldn't help," Buffy said, alternatively trying to find ways with her hands and ears that would block out the most sound.
"He's been playing that music for----well I'm not sure how long, the hours have seemed to have all melted together into one endless stream of hoarse screaming and non-sensical heavy metal gibberish." Giles rubbed his forehead in the spirit of extreme vexation. "Spike, will you PLEASE turn the music down?!" He called up towards Spike's room pleadingly.
"Sod off!" was the irate reply from upstairs.
Giles sighed. "Well I suppose it can't be helped. Ever since I took him home from the hospital, he's been like this."
Willow's eyes widened. "D-did you talk to h-him? About, you know . . ." Willow glanced worriedly at Buffy, who had suddenly turned sullen now that they're were discussing the topic at hand, and mouthed "A-N-G-E-L" to spare her. Buffy laughed an abrupt, mirthless laugh.
"Willow, please! You don't have to treat me like a piece of glass, I'm not tearing myself up about it, am I?" But there was a flash of pain behind her eyes that seemed to say otherwise. Giles saw it and suddenly felt a pang of guilt, remembering how he had driven Angel to the bus depot and nearly had to force him onto a bus.
"Where will you go?" Giles asked quietly. "Not that I'm concerned one way or another."
Angel looked at him intensely with his trademark burning brown eyes as he prepared to board the Greyhound. "I've existed on my own nearly eighty years before coming to Sunnydale. I'll find somewhere. I'll survive."
Giles nodded, but wondered if, without Buffy, that suddenly became not so true anymore. He also wondered why he cared.
"Giles?" Buffy tried to shake him out his thoughts.
"Huh? Oh . . ." It had not been Buffy, but the incessant noise emanating from Spike's room that had brought him back to life. Giles sighed and took off his glasses to clean them. "Oh yes, now what was it you girls wanted to see me about?"
Buffy twitched slightly, but Willow, with her eternal spirit of irrelevant enthusiasm, jumped towards Giles. "Giles, would you please tell Buffy here that you are in NO WAY angry at her?"
"Willow!" Buffy elbowed her for her forthrightness. She cast a guilty and timid glance towards Giles. "I d-didn't think you were MAD mad, I just---"
Giles smiled tiredly and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "I'm not upset with you in the least, Buffy. I fully realize that none of what happened was your fault."
Buffy relaxed and brightened. "Well y'know, I felt I should apologize for not coming to you right away about Spike---"
Giles shook his head, cutting her off. "I understand why you did what you did. In a similar situation, I would have been equally torn. I'm just at a loss of what do now with Spike and his recklessness."
Willow and Buffy feebly glanced upstairs to the source of all the ruckus and frowned when they thought of the fuming young teen behind the door.
"Spike . . . I was kind of . . . well I was kind of hoping that I could see him." Buffy twisted her hands nervously despite her steely Slayer lot. Giles face lit up with recognition.
"Oh yes, well um, just let me . . ." Giles turned to his desk drawer and withdrew a key. Puzzled, Willow and Buffy followed him upstairs as he began to unlock Spike's bedroom door.
"You've locked him in?" Buffy asked incredulously.
"I had no other alternative." Giles mumbled exasperatedly as he struggled with the lock.
"You really don't know squat about teenagers do you?" Buffy hissed. "King of all rules, don't lock the kids in. Especially kids like Spike. You confine and bottle up high pressure like that, it keeps building and building, until you get something that makes Mount Vesuvius pale in comparison."
"Again, I had no choice. The moment he got home, he tried to keep slipping out, despite all his injuries. And I know he had the intention of seeking out . . ." Giles paused and Buffy paled when they both understood that no one in particular wanted to talk about THAT subject at the moment. "Anyway," he recovered quickly, "I had to ensure that he wouldn't get himself into another kamikaze mission. I suppose the music is his way of just thanking me for the favor."
Buffy nodded knowingly as Giles gingerly opened the door. A large, heavy object went flying and Buffy, Willow and Giles were forced to duck. Giles recovered and popped his head through the door cautiously. "Umm, William, y-you have visitors."
"I thought I told you to sod off!" An infuriated voice stated. "That bloody well wasn't a welcoming gift!" Buffy slowly peeked her head into the messy room and surveyed Spike struggling with the window, trying desperately to open it. There was a duffel bag that had been stuffed with a number of weapons, bottles of holy water and stakes on the bed. Despite the number of bandages Spike was swaddled in, and the sling confining his arm, he was wrastling with the window violently. When seeing the still-glaring bruises and cuts that covered his face, Buffy suddenly understood why Giles felt forced to resort to imprisoning his own son.
"Spike," Giles sighed as he went to turn down the music on Spike's stereo. "What on earth do you think you're doing?"
Spike whirled around, enraged at his father. "You even bolted the bloody windows?!"
"Well the very fact you even thought you could slip out of a second story window in your condition only confirms my reasons for doing so."
Spike scowled and landed floppily on the bed. "For being such a bloody awful excuse for a dad, you make an excellent prison warden," he snarled.
"Thank you Spike. Now why don't you greet our guests?"
"Hey Spike," Buffy made her presence known as perkily as she could, but upon seeing her, Spike only darkened even more at a furious rate.
"You. What the fuck are you doing here?"
"Spike!" Giles gave him a parental glare.
"We're just here to visit you," Willow said, entering the room brightly, bearing a basket. "And umm, here, w-we made you Get-Well cookies!" She offered him the basket with a smile. Spike softened a bit and accepted the cookies.
"Thanks Red. Nice to see you." He veered his head towards Buffy. "Not you though. You can get the bloody hell out of here."
"Spike--"
"No, it's okay Giles." Buffy held up and hand at a disapproving Giles and plastered a fake, bright smile. Spike maintained a poisonous glare towards her, but she turned to Giles and Willow. "Umm, why don't you guys go downstairs for a bit? I kind of wanted to talk to Spike alone."
Giles' eyes widened and Spike rose from his bed in disagreement. "Excuse me Blondie, but whoever said I wanted to talk to you? I just told you to get the fuck out."
"Buffy, perhaps--"
"No, don't worry about it, it's okay." Buffy smiled and continued to shoo Giles and Willow out of the room. After the two left, albeit very hesitantly, Buffy turned to Spike, who was glaring at her, and took a deep breath. "Look, I know I'm the last person you would want to see---"
"Oh yeah? And why would that be? Maybe cause you went and told Ol' Rupes all about my vampire hunting gig, thus leaving me to be locked in my room to rot? Yeah, why would that bother me at all?"
Buffy cast a pointed look. "There were dire circumstances."
"Yeah, except you promised, you bitch. But no, you just had to go a skitterin' to Pops as fast as you could and tell him all about it didn't you?"
"Well SORRY, but I considered you landing in the hospital constituted as 'dire circumstances'!"
"And whose fault was it that I landed in the hospital?" Spike spat at her cockily. "Whose boyfriend beat the shit out of me in the first place?" Buffy fell silent with guilt immediately.
"I'm trying to apologize here," Buffy said quietly.
"Yeah, thanks. I feel loads better. Maybe if I wasn't stuck captive in m'room with a couple a' broken ribs and a friggin' fractured collarbone, I'd feel good enough to take you out for a cup a' Joe and a chat." His eyes narrowed into slits and his voice oozed with hostile sarcasm.
"Look, what do you want me to do? I can't help what . . ." she paused and tried to say the name, but it didn't seem to get past the sudden lump forming in her throat, "he did . . . if I had known . . . about any of this . . . I would have never let you meet him."
Spike straightened. "Oh don't apologize for that, Slayer. Now that I know where he is, it'll be pretty easy to track him down and make dust bunnies of him."
Buffy glared at him and tensed. "That's not going to happen, Spike."
"And why not?"
"B-because, because . . ." her mind raced, trying to find an explanation that wouldn't indicate how much feeling she still had for the vampire in question. "Because you would only kill yourself trying."
Spike laughed dryly and humorlessly. "I am a vampire hunter, ducks. I do know how stake a vampire or two."
"Angel's more than two centuries old. He's been around the block more than a couple times. He's not your average stakeable. What makes you think you could take him on?"
"What makes you think I couldn't?"
"Well looking at those two shiners on your pretty little mug offers pretty compelling evidence."
"Are you just afraid that I could?" Spike asked, carefully noting how Buffy's composure suddenly changed from confident to guarded. "That's it, isn't it?" he prodded on. "All you're afraid of is losing your boyfriend. You don't care who the fuck suffers or who he hurts, as long as he gets to stay your cuddle monkey."
Buffy eyed him, wounded. "Shut up," she whispered.
"That's a compelling argument you got there yourself, Blondie. Here you are, pretending to be little Miss Concerned-for-Your-Safety, making with the gracious apologies and whatnot, but secretly all you care about is Soul-Boy and when you can snog him next."
"What do you want from me Spike?" Buffy asked pleadingly, thinking that somehow this question would shut him up, get him off her back, stop him from saying anything else about Angel.
"What do I want? What do I want? I want to be with m'friends in London at my favorite pub. I want to be up and about, doing what I do best: dusting vampires. I want to wake up and see my mum smiling at me like the last eight years have been one big joke. I want freedom from this bloody hellhole, I want----" his eyes suddenly gleamed as he gazed past Buffy and spotted the door open. "Freedom," he whispered, grabbing the duffel bag from off his bed and pushing past Buffy before she could realize what he was doing.
With Spike bounding down the stairs, Giles and Willow looked up from their cataloging of old texts they were immersed in. "What the hell---" Giles started. Struggling to keep Spike from running out the door, which he was barreling for, he grabbed Spike's arm and was rewarded with Spike punching him out of the way. Buffy ran down the stairs, trying to catch him as well and Willow dropped all her books in alarm.
"I'm sorry, I didn't know Giles, he just ran past me," Buffy was blubbering towards Giles who was clutching his head in pain.
"I'm blowing this sorry pit stop!" Spike declared triumphantly. "And there's nothing any one of you pissants can do about it!" Thrusting open the door, he prepared to rush into the night, but nearly collided with two bodies about to knock. "Shit," he whined when he realized his exit was blocked. "Why does that happen EVERY time?" He glared fiercely at the two visitors, but his expression soon changed into one of shock when he recognized who they were.
"Is that any way to treat an old chum, mate?" a distinctly rough British voice said, mixed with amusement and familiarity. A young man that looked a few years over twenty stood framed in the door, his arm lazily hanging off a slight young girl about Spike's age. The man had lank, shoulder-length, brown hair, a five o' clock shadow of a goatee and was smiling smugly, as was the girl. The girl was extremely pale, her complexion only made more distinct by her raven-black long hair, large, glittering eyes and heavy red and black makeup. She was dressed in a fashion foreign to the valley-girl stylings of Sunnydale; a long burgundy lace dress with a black satin corset over it, accented by pointy black military-style, lace-up boots, all which culminated into an outfit that brought to Buffy's mind only two words: Goth Princess. Spike seemed to have been struck speechless, something that Buffy had never seen before and regarded with confusion. He just stared at couple with awe and amazement, his mouth hanging open, much to suspense of the rest of the occupants of the room. Suddenly he shook his head, as if he was struggling to wake up from a dream and broke into an ardent grin. His attentions were especially placed on the girl. "Drusilla?" he whispered in disbelief.
The girl leaned against the frame of the door and gave him a wicked grin and wink. "'Ello pet," she crooned.