Disclaimer: I do not own any the characters of BtVS, I'm just a lowly follower with a ridiculously active mind.
Rating: PG-13 for language.
Feedback: Of course! Feel free to email me feedback at Buggers267@aol.com if you like too. Remember, reviews = updates (at least quicker ones).
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Chapter 2: Helping HandA few nights a week, when she wasn't too tired from the strenuous hours at the dinner, she went to the little club down the street. It was clean and well lighted and usually occupied by friendly visitors who swayed amiably to the music of the bands that played on the colorful stage, varying night to night. It reminded her of the Bronze, except it was completely different. No place would be like Bronze, not without the usual exclusive group of bookworms, laconic guitarists, and good-hearted buffoons. It would never seem quite as bright, quite as fun, quite as free without these particular people around. It pained her slightly whenever the comparison flitted through her mind, but she sullenly reminded herself that this was how it was supposed to be.
She sat at the bar, morosely stirring her rum and coke in the glass. She was a regular and the bartender knew full well that she was under 21, but she always looked too melancholy to refuse selling a drink to. Besides, she never did anything more than sip. She never had the intention of drowning her sorrows in a bottle. She wanted to look like a droopy alcoholic so that people would knowingly leave her alone. It was character self-assassination.
The bartender shook his head at her as he cleaned the glasses. She raised an eyebrow at him. She knew he knew what she was doing. And he couldn't understand it. Once he had asked her, "What does a pretty little girl have to be so broken up about? Guy troubles?"
She nodded resignedly.
"He dumped you?"
She shook her head.
He whistled. "Well whoever he is, he seems like a tool. Who'd wanna hurt a nice sweet kid like you?" He waved a hand at her. "You ask me, he can go to hell."
She was emotionless, but inside, she turned to ice. "If only you knew," she muttered to herself.
Tonight, he had watched as three perfectly nice gentlemen sidled up to her, asking politely for a dance. Coldly, she rejected them, one-by-one, all with a flippant shake of her blonde mane. The bartender whistled again.
"Geez, takes a lot to get a word in with you, huh Blondie? You're making these guys really work for it."
The look she gave him indicated that they would have to do more than work to get in a word with her. They would have to be "him" . . .
. . . Or Spike, apparently.
She scrunched her face into an intense frown when he carelessly plopped into the chair next to her. It was only when she cleared her throat and shot him a murderous scowl did he turn to her with innocent wide eyes.
"Oh I'm sorry, is this seat taken?"
He had said it in a mock-polite tone and she wasn't falling for it.
"Spike!" she seethed through clenched teeth.
Raised, scarred eyebrow. "Is it?" he persisted genteelly.
She sighed. "If the alternative is you, Spike, then yes, it's taken."
He shrugged indifferently. "Finders keepers."
She grabbed the chair out from under him and he stumbled back onto his ass with a yelp. "Can it, Spike. I don't have times for your games. Can't you find another girl to annoy?"
He sniffed, climbing into the chair. "Don't flatter yourself. I'm just asking the good man for a drink." He waved a bill at the bartender. "Scotch on the rocks."
She rolled her eyes disgustedly. "Who are you, Colonel Mustard? Can't you drink like a normal eighteen-year old?"
"My, aren't we the prattly one tonight. Here I am, minding my own business and you immediately take to metaphorically boxing my ears."
Eyes slit, she folded her arms across her chest. "Another minute of this, it won't be so metaphorical."
"Oh don't get your knickers in a twist. I'm not bothering you. I have a right to be here, same as you."
"What happened to leaving me alone?"
"What happened to you being anti-social?" he snorted. "I figure it'd make more sense, me being here than you. Don't have the same aversion to people you do, pet."
She glared at him, swirling the ice in her glass irritatedly. "I don't have an aversion to people, just to you."
"Go on girl, you're making me blush."
The bartender tried unsuccessfully to contain his laughter. "You guys know each other?"
They both answered in unison:
"No."
"Yes."
The bartender laughed again and Spike smugly put his arm around Buffy's barstool. She roughly pushed him off and he willingly fell back, chuckling as well. With a sigh, Buffy closed her eyes and waved a hand at Spike. "Yes," she admitted. "Unfortunately, yes I know him."
"Oh don't be so modest, girl." He snaked his arm around her shoulder once more and grinned impishly at the bartender. "Known each other since we were tots, us two. Yea big." He held his hand a few feet from the floor. "Playtime, we used to do this rowdy version of 'Doctor'----"
Buffy clamped a hand on his mouth and he started laughing again. Inflamed with annoyance, she bit her lip and smacked him upside the head. She glanced apologetically at the bartender. "We didn't really know each other back then. . . we aren't really friends . . ." she explained.
"Don't tell me you've forgotten our prepubescent romps and wrestling matches---" Spike cut in once more with a puckish grin, only to be silenced by an irate Buffy.
"That's enough, Spike," she hissed. "I'm serious. Leave me alone."
Once she let go, he unfurled back out into his chair. "But it's so much more fun this way."
"I can't believe you," she fumed, throwing her hands in the air. She got up to go, incensed. This was too much. He think he could just stride up to her, proceed to mock her and then---
His eyes suddenly widened as he seemed to spot something past her shoulder. Abruptly, he grabbed her arm. "Come on, Blondie, let's dance." He started to pull her out onto the dance floor.
"What?!" Astounded she tried to wrench free. This was surreal. "What the hell do you think you're doing?!" She turned around and scanned the crowd to see where he was looking. Staring straight at them was a bulky, towering man with a thick neck and an intimidatingly stone-like face. He rapidly approached them. "Who is that?"
He had already tugged her onto the floor, grabbing her hands up in jerk-like motions to feign the impression of lively dancing. "My Aunt Betty. Now come on Slayer, get on with your fancy feet." He tried spinning her around in rigid motions, all the time staring fixedly at the man. He held her waist and wrist, trying to wave her around in a rhythmic manner, but he was too absorbed with the presence of tall man to even notice that she was yelping, being thrown into ridiculous spins and awkward dips.
After being forcibly yanked around, Buffy broke free and glared at him. "Spike! What the hell is going on?!"
He sighed, finally forced to fill her in with the details. "Keep you trap shut," he whispered to her conspiratorially. "If you must know, that ape-like character has been on my tail for days now. I have to make it look like I'm occupied so he won't take the opportunity to pummel the guts out of me."
Confused, she turned around. The man had his arms crossed, still staring at the steadily. She could tell he meant business with Spike. He was thick and brutal looking, the regular prototype of a hit man. Apprehensively, she turned back to Spike, who was still dancing with her a little less aggressively. "What did you do?" she murmured.
He shrugged. "Nothing to warrant a kicking-of-the-arse. Just borrowed a few bucks from his kid brother, with the full intention of paying him back, but he wants the money back quicker than I can give it----"
She eyed him skeptically. "What's a 'few bucks'?"
He hesitated, but shrugged again. "Y'know . . . well I . . . you see . . ." He sighed, and broke. "Five hundred."
"Five hundred!" she exploded in dismay. "You stole five hundred dollars from that, that . . . goon?!"
"Well stole is such an ugly word . . . Borrowed, more like. Made temporary use of."
"How can you make temporary use of five hundred dollars?!"
"Very easily. Made a trip to Las Vegas, bet all the money, lost all the money and . . . well that pretty much brings us up to date."
This got worse and worse. He was unbelievable, so she told him so. "You bet some guy's money?! You're unbelievable!"
"Hey, it was merely an economical venture. I thought I was making a very strategically sound move."
"You stole a mobster's money! And then you bet on it! That's not sound, that's suicidal!"
"Ah ah ah pet, stole is such a-----"
"Shut up!" She threw down his hands. "I can't believe you're using me as bait to guard against some criminal, I'm not going to help you-----"
"Is this guy giving you trouble ma'am?" The tall man was at their side in an instant, solid and foreboding. Warily, Buffy stared up at him and grew nervous as he eyed Spike, baring his teeth and cracking his massive knuckles. One gold tooth glinted in the light and Buffy shuddered. Unable to do anything else, she wavered and put her hand on Spike's chest, patting it with a plastered smile.
"O-oh, no s-sir. We're good. My boyfriend, he just stepped on my brand new Manolo Blahniks. Ugh, he . . . massacred them." She flashed a grand grin and hugged Spike uneasily.
"That's right!" Spike held her tightly and a bit protectively (although it was more for his protection than hers) as Buffy tried to repress a grimace. "I'm a terrible cad on the dance floor you see, but nothing a little lover's quarrel won't straighten out."
The man made no move to leave. He looked them both up and down suspiciously, finally cocking his head at Spike. "We gotta talk first."
Spike trembled with his arms still slung around Buffy, who kept him up. But he regained his composure and sniffed sanctimoniously, "Well can it wait? Me and Ginger here are just about to get the soft-shoe routine in."
"Pleasure can wait, Dancing Boy. We got business." The man gruffly punctuated this by grabbing Spike round the collar. Spike swallowed hard and submissively followed him through the crowd. Buffy panicked and watched as they made their way through the club, crashing through the back door and out into the alley.
Her hand curled instinctively into a fist. As she watched them, the impulse to grab the tall man and pummel him into meek cowardice was rising within her, but another internal voice willed it down. She didn't do that anymore. She wasn't the slayer. She was just a girl. Just a girl.
Conflicted, she didn't know what to do. She had tried to so hard to avoid her old life, the fighting and the brawls. One half-hour spent with Spike and it all came barreling back what with his criminal antics and his gibing and his mockery of her. God, he was infuriating. She should let him be pounded to a smirking pulp . . . shouldn't she?
She sighed, finally striding to the back of the club towards the alley.
In the dark alleyway, the tall man had Spike pinned hard against a wall, his fist hanging threateningly in the air. Spike had already been administered with a black eye.
"Tell me where the money is, punk ass," Tall Man growled.
Spike sighed, his head rolling around on the brick. "Don't ask me. Circulating among Las Vegas tourists no doubt. Businessmen, blue-haired little old ladies----"
"Shut up!" He dragged Spike off the wall and sent him crashing violently back onto it. If that wasn't enough, he grabbed Spike's head and slammed it violently. "You better get me the money and soon."
"I don't have it---"
He thrust Spike's head against the wall again and Spike groaned in pain. "Get it," he snarled.
Buffy rolled her eyes and put her hands to her hips. "Hey, Cro-Magnon!" When the tall man turned, Buffy shot him a saucy grin. "Get this."
She immediately launched into a stunning kick that knocked him back a few paces. Astounded, he stared at her for a moment, but she already spun into a roundhouse that sent him stumbling once more. Regaining footing, the tall man tried to rush her, but she ducked and he crashed into the opposite wall. Striding up to him, she pinned him against the wall, punching him powerfully. Although he started to slump, he managed to trip her and kick her in the side. She quickly kicked back up, but he was ready, throwing out a clumsy punch. She ducked his first one and continued to duck as he swung more heavy punches. She suddenly jumped up and whipped out more precise, sharp and heavy blows to his face. Finally, she grabbed him and practically hoisted him up over her head, sending him crashing into a dumpster. He crumpled to the ground and looked up at her in fear. Scrambling up, he started to run out of the alley.
She gazed at him as he ran. He was the first person she had . . . well, not slayed, but saved someone from. She usually felt smug and self-satisfied after something like this, but now she felt only hollow and cold. She didn't want to have to do this again.
Wiping her hands, she tiredly turned back to Spike, who was still exhaustedly seated on the ground by the wall. She held out her hand, but he just spat blood at her. With his eyes slitted, he murmured, "Bitch."
Taken aback, she drew her hand away quickly. "What?"
He got up and brushed his duster off forcefully, still angry. "You heard me."
"Excuse me if I'm a tad muddled . . . in general customs, people usually offer a 'thank you' at times like these."
"Thank you for what? For emasculating me? For showing that bastard I need a girl for protection?"
"Well apparently you do. God, I saved your ass and all you do is gripe. You're amazingly maddening." She shook her head in disbelief.
"All you did was prolong a beating. That guy's not gonna stop tracking me down, you know. And now that you bruised more than his ego by kicking the shit out of him, he'll take it out on me next time around."
She softened. "Oh. I didn't think . . ."
"'Course you didn't," Spike sneered. "Not a stretch to say you don't think of much besides yourself." He started to walk away from her, but she grabbed his arm.
"Wait. Where are you going?"
He paused and darkened. "Home," he finally muttered.
The way he said the word seemed off somehow. She squinted her eyes and scrutinized him carefully. She knew there was something he wasn't saying. "Where's home, Spike?" she asked quietly.
He sighed. "We've already been through this. Home is---"
"Your 'mates' flat, I know. But who are your mates? Where exactly do they live?"
" . . . Around."
She was relentless. "Around where?"
He clenched his teeth and fists and finally cracked. "Fine. Fine Blondie, you want to hear me say it? Fine. I don't have a home. I'm homeless. Isn't that the bloody spectacle? Why don't you laugh it up, say 'oh that maddening Spike finally got his'. Because I don't have a home. I sleep in alleyways sometimes, take showers at the YMCA and try to scrounge money when I can. And the people I can scrounge it from try to shoot my bloody head off every time I turn around. Funny isn't it?" His expression was mordantly bitter, but under all of that, he looked inexplicably lost.
Shocked, Buffy was speechless. Judging from his jesting attitude every time they had met, she didn't think he had it so bad. She didn't think he had nowhere to go. Biting her lip, she lightly touched the cut on his forehead and his black eye. "You need to get that looked at," she noted quietly.
Her touch was tender and he paused for a moment, but soon batted her hand away. "It's fine."
"It isn't." She paused. "You're telling me you have no place to go?"
He exploded, hating to look vulnerable. "How many times I gotta say it, Buffy? Like to rub it in my face, don't you?"
She flinched, but gazed at him steadily. "It's dangerous out here, what with guys like that looking for you." She looked lost in thought.
He looked up at her with an ambiguous expression. "Yeah . . . what would you know about it, girl?"
She sighed and donned an expression of resolution. "Well, it's pretty obvious there's only one thing to do."
He cocked an eyebrow. "And what's that?"
Innocently, she picked up her purse, strewn on pavement before looking back up. "You're coming home with me."
TBC…………………….I hope to update soon, but I have mad stuff to do. Also, since the chapters are longer for this story than "Haven", I think it'll be updated less often. I hope you enjoy both the stories all the same.