Disclaimer: I don't own these characters - they belong to Joss Whedon,
Evil Genius # 2 and Mutant Enemy, Evil Genius Company. Grrrr. Argh.
Rating: R
Spoilers: Season 7 through "Potential"
For Molly, whose over-usage of the letter "e" finally made me finish something.
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Blindside
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"Strike!"
"Hyaa!"
Buffy still marveled that with all of the uncoordinated potentials crammed into the training area that was her basement, somebody didn't end up getting kicked in the face or elbowed in the ribs.
"Ow!"
The male timbre of the voice automatically told her that Spike was the first victim of her theory. She glanced in his direction, just to make sure he wasn't hit in any of those places that were still healing. He was holding his hand pressed to the side of his head, a gesture that reminded her of the Spike from two to three years ago, the Spike who would receive a powerful shock when he forgot about the behavior modification chip in his head. Or tested it to see if it still worked.
As she watched him rub his hand against his temple, squinting and doling out a gentle reprimand to the culprit of the errant foot, she wondered how she'd forgotten just how changed this man - yes, he was a man now - had become. Of course he still bore resemblance to the Old Spike, but he was gentler, quieter, more measured in his movements, his speech. He was a new man.
She hadn't realized she'd been staring at him till he captured her eyes with his own and she watched his features soften as they often did when he caught her staring at him. The Old Spike would have followed up with a self-satisfied smirk that said he knew she wanted him. But Souled Spike had checked most of his confidence at the door and so he only gave her an inquisitive head tilt and slight raising of the eyebrows that spoke of non- verbal communication between business partners. What next? Time to call it a day?
Buffy tried not to feel the sting of disappointment that their relationship had become more business-like than anything but instead of squashing it she rode it out, giving Spike a non-committal shrug and a slight shake of the head. Yet her eyes never left his.
Someone giggled.
And she noticed that it had become quiet as all the potentials were waiting for their next cue to strike from her. She looked around at the mixture of expressions on their faces and felt heat rise up in her cheeks as she realized that not only had she spaced out on giving them their next command but it was due to a Spike eye-fest. Great, just hand the slumber party- fodder to them on a plate. She took a deep breath as she met all of their faces, masking her embarrassment with the professional no-nonsense look of their leader.
"Good. But your kicks are still sloppy." Buffy walked a little ways away from them, into the relatively cleared space by the drier. Balancing on one foot she slowly twisted her body and brought her other foot into a side- kick. "You have to remember to contract the abs." Demonstrating, Buffy pressed her hands into her stomach. "Otherwise, you have no balance. And without balance?" She raised her eyebrows expectantly at them.
"You have no power," piped up Molly, whose earlier note-taking obsession had paid off.
"Right. You have no power. Without the balance, your leg is just flopping in the breeze, and a vampire sees that. He'll use it to his advantage. Spike?" She looked over at Spike again, this time her business face firmly in place. He nodded slightly and started weaving his way through the sea of potentials. As Buffy waited for him to come to her side, ready to complete the picture of peril she was about to paint, she continued her instruction.
"A vampire will identify all of your weaknesses before he makes the first strike. Whether he's a fledgling or a hundred years old, he'll know your flaws immediately. And he'll exploit them. You can't allow yourself to be blindsided." Spike was now at her side. "Now, watch what happens when I kick without contracting -"
"Pizza's here!!" Dawn's shrill announcement sent up a collective sigh of relief from the potentials.
"Uch, I feel like I haven't eaten anything in weeks!" Amanda cried. Some of the potentials exchanged uncomfortable glances then returned their hopeful faces to Buffy.
"Just a second, guys. Dawn!" She called up from the foot of the stairs. Dawn's brown head appeared at the basement door.
"Buffy, it's like laundry central in the kitchen."
"What?! You were supposed to fold that stuff!"
"I had homework!" Dawn protested.
Buffy rolled her eyes up to the ceiling and tilted her head up in seeming supposition. Since when did I become Mother Hen? Bringing her head down, she massaged her eyes and it struck her that it was something she used to see her mother do when Buffy or Dawn was being "impossible to deal with." She raised her head up to meet her sister's slightly apologetic look.
"Buffy, we'll be extra careful in the kitchen. We'll put paper towels over everything so there'll be no chance of staining."
"Dawn, you couldn't eat pizza by yourself without staining my shirt."
Dawn's face blanched a little. "I thought you would think it was blood."
"Haven't come across any demons whose blood smells like tomatoes."
A few snickers sounded behind her, and the former Key had the decency to look sheepish, shifting her weight in anticipation of Buffy's final decision.
"Okay, you can eat in the livingroom." She watched Dawn's face light up. "But-"
"I know, I know. 'You spill, I kill' or something. We heard you the first hundred times."
"Actually, wasn't it 'you stain, feel pain'?" Rona supplied.
"Whatever. Just be careful with the carpet and the sofa and anything else that's not wood." Buffy looked over at the potentials. "And save me some," she reminded them, before giving them a wave of her hand that signaled their release from training. As the slayer wannabe's thundered up the stairs, some taking two at a time, she met Spike's eyes again and reached for her towel to dry off her face.
"So, what do you think?"
As she wiped her face and neck, she considered their partnership: this was the real business-part of their relationship. Going over the training, giving each other feedback, making suggestions. They made a great team, Buffy knew it.
"Think their kicks are getting better, though maybe Vi needs a little more work on that self-control thing. Coulda given me a shiner, if I hadn't ducked a bit." Spike touched the side of his head to recall the results of Vi's out-of-control foot.
"Yeah, they're getting better." Buffy leaned against the thrumming drier. "What about their punches - did you see anyone who needs more help with those?"
"The whole lot of them need reminders 'bout the emphasis on contraction. When they get excited, they tense all up, locking their elbows." Spike splayed his arms out in front of him, balling one hand into a fist with a straight arm and clamping down on the joint in question with his other hand. He fixed her with his eyes, which took on a bit of the Old Spike fire when dealing with combat tactics.
Buffy nodded in agreement, doing her best to ignore the recently returned effect his gaze had on her, making her "tense all up" in her own brand of excitement. She bowed her head, seeming to consider his input when it was really just insurance against exposing her thoughts. "Good, good.okay, well we'll go over some of the fine tuning points next time." Forcing herself to focus, she was thoughtful for a moment, running over all of the moves they'd practiced and cataloguing which ones were weaker. "Do you think they're ready for us to teach them-"
Baaaaarrrrnnhhh!
Being right next to the drier, it was almost painful the inhumanly loud buzzer in her ear so that she practically jumped when it sounded. It was just as well, as Buffy could sense that they were getting to that point when the business meeting ended and the uncomfortable, awkward silence began of two people with a history who couldn't quite define their relationship to each other anymore. She turned to the drier, opening the door and emptying its contents into the waiting basket as she spoke.
"I was going to ask if you think they're ready to learn more advanced weapons training?"
She concentrated on the array of bright pastels contained in the load of towels so she could ignore the change in the air between them. Even with her back to him, she knew he knew that she was flustered on account of him. The Old Spike would have relished his ability to make her squirm by simply standing there. New Spike only allowed his eyes to become a softer blue, which Buffy could sense as she forced the damp load from the washer into the drier. So much easier to talk to when he wanted to kill me.
"Buffy."
Oh God, he was using that voice, that tender voice of a young boy who only wanted to be helpful. That voice, that, when emitted from the Old Spike had caused her to roll her eyes at his pathetic attempts to sound sincere. But when New Spike used that voice, it only caused her to shiver as something jumped inside of her to land in her throat.
Keeping her back to him as she bent down to pick up the heaping laundry basket, she addressed him with a lightning-quick flash of her head as she started her ascent up the stairs.
"I'm just going to run these upstairs." She attempted to keep her tone even. "Cause if I don't, I'll forget about them and the slumber partyers will get cranky if they can't take showers when they want to." Yes, that was good. She sounded flippant, the timbre of her voice light.
"Are we going to talk about weapons training or you wanna call it a night?" Spike called out to her retreating back.
Buffy turned her head to look at him as she took the last couple of steps, giving the appearance that she was okay with eye contact right now. "No, no - I'll be right back down." Of course, all she could see of Spike over her shoulder was a glimpse of black t-shirt and jeans with a dash of blonde on top, but he didn't need to know that.
"'Kay. I'll.wait here, I guess."
"Yeah." Buffy breathed an inward sigh of relief that her escape from icky awkward situation had been successful. Just needed a few moments to breathe, put the professional mask back in place and she would rejoin him. Turning her head back around, she let out a sigh of disgust as she surveyed the mountains of laundry sprawled over the kitchen countertops.
And almost dropped the basket when her gaze found Angel standing in her kitchen.
Slayer speed saved her from another embarrassing moment and she caught it before the momentum of the fall could propel any precariously balanced towels onto the not so clean floor.
"Angel." Moving a few steps towards the island, she hefted the basket onto the countertop, sweeping aside another mountain of laundry to make room, before dumping its contents out. At least there's no danger in dropping it now.
"Hi Buffy." His tone was friendly, good-natured.odd coming from the usual angst-ridden souled vampire. Jamming his hands into his pockets in a gesture that reminded her too much of Spike, he met her eyes with a confidence and an openness she'd rarely seen.
"Hi..is everything okay? I mean, not like there has to be some imminent apocalypse for you to show up, but.there's no imminent apocalypse, right?" Not that she could have been of much use anyway as she was roped into the tight schedule of training, patrolling, advising, and researching. Suddenly, she really hoped that there wasn't some apocalypse brewing in L.A. as she didn't want to see the look of disappointment on Angel's face when she told him she couldn't help.
Angel shook his head, giving a slight shrug of his shoulders, his lips pursed, and his hands gave a slight jerk in his pockets. Was he usually this fidgety? It seemed a strange contradiction to the silent, bulking, brooding form she remembered.
"Are.are you okay? You're kinda all jumpy."
Giving a short laugh, he glanced down at his buried hands before looking at her again with a self-deprecating smile. "I'm just antsy.sitting in the car a while."
"Right." Buffy nodded, giving a slight smile. "Um.so."
Angel anticipated her question. "Yeah: what am I doing here?"
Maybe she wouldn't have phrased it that way, but she raised her eyebrows questioningly all the same.
"I, uh, I actually came to talk to Spike."
Buffy's mouth fell open and a wave of panic washed over her. Did he know about.them? Was he going to question Spike about.?
"Huh?" Was all she could manage.
"I mean," Angel caught himself, "it's not that it's not good to see you." He flashed her a quick smile.
Buffy returned the smile and felt her shoulders relax a little. Just a little. But Angel was a gentleman - he wouldn't pry into her personal life like that. It was something they had in common but it wasn't.duh! Buffy mentally slapped herself upside the head. In common? Gee, how about maybe one souled vamp wants to talk with the only other souled vampire in the world. She felt all the tension seep from her body, and gave Angel a full- fledged smile.
"It's good to see you, too. I'll go get him - he's in the basement."
"Didja get eaten by a Laundry Demon, Slayer?" Spike's voice sounded from the bottom of the steps and continued to increase in volume as he neared the top. "I've seen those things at work: they only like to eat one of every pair of socks, but sometimes they'll get hungry and attack human feet."
Buffy turned to meet him in an effort to.what? Cover her tracks? She'd said maybe twenty words to Angel - she had nothing to be ashamed of. Or.cover. Cause it's not like she and Spike were.like that. But she knew that it was she didn't want to see the look on his face when he saw Angel standing in her kitchen.
Old Spike would've gotten jealous, and might've triumphantly spewed out a few choice words amounting to "guess you weren't the only vamp she went for." New Spike would probably just look hurt.
Buffy met him at the threshold, trying to block his view, which was silly considering she was several inches shorter than him. It would provide some stall-time, though.
"Spike!" Did her voice sound shrill? "Angel came to talk to you." In spite of herself, she searched his face to see if it would produce that awful heart-breaking look. And, a little tiny part of her admitted, to be in the mostly annoying, but secretly thrilling situation of two guys squaring off over her.
What passed on Spike's face wasn't anything Buffy could have predicted. There was a brief flash of his old cockiness, followed by a penetrating gaze that quickly dissolved into distrust, hatred and.fear? His eyes had widened, his lips were parted and she heard a barely perceptible yet unmistakably sharp intake of breath.
Buffy swung her head back to survey Angel's reaction. He was calm and looking a bit confused. Well, she was confused herself. Since when did one souled vamp fear another? Isn't it that one souled vamp deserves another but.uh, not in that way.
"Spike?" She'd moved a few steps away from him to the countertop, suddenly wishing that she were still holding a laundry basket so she could have something to do with her hands. She kept her eyes trained on Spike's face.
"Buffy, it's not him."
Feeling like she was at a tennis match, she turned her gaze back to Angel and watched his brow furrow further in his confusion. Buffy's own brow matched his.
"Uh.what's he talking about?"
"You know full well what I'm talkin' about; don't play the bloody fool." Spike's voice had dropped to a growl now and Buffy decided her head was going to hurt if she kept swinging it back and forth between the two of them and moved to a more neutral position to the side of the island. There: right between them, no favoring of either side.
But her movements only seemed to alarm Spike and he froze where he was, calling out to her. "Buffy, get away from him - it's not Angel!" Fear had now won out and was radiating from his eyes. Her gaze slid to Angel's who appeared dumbfounded. His hands had found their way to his waist and he stood there, squinting at Spike as if he'd gone off the deep end.
Suddenly, realization dawned on her. She'd almost been duped - it explained the fidgetiness, the confidence, the friendly, relaxed air he'd donned. How long did it possibly think it could fool her?
"Ohhh, come on! You didn't think I'd figure it out?" she snapped at him and his eyebrows shot up. "You can take on dead forms - just another way of listening in on our plans, showing up as an ally. Very clever." Crossing her arms, Buffy smiled sardonically. "Get. Out." Her tone was deadly and her eyes burned with hatred.
Angel looked like he'd been punched in the stomach. "Buffy, what are you talking about?"
She snorted in derision. "Still gonna keep up the act, huh? Well, sorry: it's the end of the act." Bringing her right arm around she threw a punch into his shoulder, sweeping various odds and ends of pajamas off the island.
And was shocked when her fist connected with rough cotton and impressed cool skin underneath.
The impact didn't faze Angel, although he still looked surprised. Buffy unfolded her fist and pressed her palm up against his shoulder, willing herself to melt into the floor so she didn't have to meet Angel's eyes at that moment. She let her eyes take their time in finding their way back to his face.
"I'm.I'm sorry," she stuttered. "I.I thought you were the First.it can take on dead forms and it's pretty convincing sometimes so." she trailed off and suddenly the dire situation of clean pajamas on a dirty floor needed her immediate attention. She knelt down to begin gathering them up, muttering more explanation to the growing heap of tangled shirts and nightgowns in her arms. "It's worst when it takes on forms of people close to us, cause you know, the whole face of someone you trust, telling you lies, with the evil lurking underneath."
"It's okay." She heard Angel say and she felt him kneel down in front of her. "Here - let me help you with those."
"Buffy!"
She felt more than heard the whish of the kitchen knife blade cutting through the air and though she ducked she watched as if in slow-motion its inevitable, purposeful descent as it moved towards the final destination of her neck.
Just then she was tackled from behind and she heard the blade slice through skin to meet bone and a blood-curdling scream from Spike before it cut a gash in her side on the way up. She rolled them over, away from the knife and leapt to her feet, reeling from the speed of her bloodloss. Blindly, she reached out a hand toward the wall to steady herself, while trying to keep her eyes on her most feared nightmare awakened again, standing in her kitchen.
Angelus smiled sweetly, a gross contrast to the kitchen knife he still gripped, dripping with the mixed blood of vampire and slayer. "I guess my souled counterpart and I do have something in common afterall, huh?"
The hatred returned to Buffy's eyes, and she raised her chin defiantly, her voice low. "What's that?"
"We're both great actors." And with a thespian flourish, he tossed the knife onto the counter, spattering deep red onto the fluffy mound of pastels on the island. His shoulders tensed and she watched the muscles in his knee twitch as he prepared himself to spring.
As Buffy steeled herself for another attack, she noticed that Spike still lay on the floor, a pool of red growing on the floor at his arm. It was his ribs that became the target of Angelus' heavy boot. The resounding crunch and the strangled cry made Buffy forget her dimming vision as she lunged herself toward Angelus. Seeing her oncoming advance, he whipped his boot to right above Spike's throat.
"Ah ah ah," he warned her. "He may not need to breathe, but a crushed larynx will take a long time to heal." Buffy froze in her tracks. Angelus' face brightened with a cruel delight. "But that's not as much fun when you can kick -" and he supplied his words with another harsh kick "ribs that haven't healed yet from his time away from home."
Nausea and deep-seated fear overtook Buffy as she realized that the First had found its perfect weapon against them. Who needs an impossibly strong Turok-Han when you can have the former Scourge of Europe to mastermind your apocalypse?
"So it was the First. It did this to you."
He laughed again. "No, that's the funny part." Sliding his foot down Spike's throat so that it came to rest on his stomach, Angelus fished in his pockets, producing a cigarette and a lighter. Buffy watched in disgust as he lit up, blowing smoke in her face, a lazy smile on his. "My friends did this to me."
"Your.friends? Why would they -?"
"Oh, it was classic! They actually hired a shaman to take away my soul - I mean, they were going to keep me locked in a cage, but," he snickered, "we can see how that one worked out."
Buffy fought the swimmyness that threatened to overtake her eyes, and tried to anchor herself to the floor. She kept her eyes on Angelus as her peripheral vision sought for a weapon in the kitchen, something within reach, as Angelus had taken the strategic position by the knife rack and his foot was still on Spike's stomach. Her entire side was sticky with blood and it had begun to soak down her leg. She tried not to focus on that and continued her sweep of the kitchen.
But the Scourge of Europe was always two steps ahead of her.
"You need a weapon, huh? Hmm, there are plenty of knives over here," He indicated the block of wood with a sweeping gesture that invited, no dared her to try for one. "I could throw one to you, see if you could catch it. Whaddya say?" He gave her a self-satisfied smirk.
The tiny bubble of hope popped and Buffy saw she would have to resort to a different tactic. Distract him, keep him from killing Spike, from killing her, and getting him out of the house so she could run as quickly as possible into the livingroom to command Willow to do a protection spell.
"Why here? Is it just the whole devil's playground thing around the Hellmouth? Couldn't find an apocalypse in L.A. so had to come to Sunnydale?" Her tone was biting, sarcastic, playing his game. She hoped.
"Oh, there was a good enough Armageddon in L.A., believe me. But you know, I just got so tired of playing with ole Beastie boy. I mean, he had the right idea: rain of fire, the slaughter of hundreds, hell - the whole blotting out the sun made it freebies 24/7." He gesticulated with his cigarette, purposefully tapping it so ashes fell onto Spike's face. Buffy cringed at the hissing sound they made from contact with his skin, and a strangled groan emitted from the back of Spike's throat. "But the Beast - I don't know, he lacked something." He studied his cigarette, his brow drawn together, considering it as he rolled it between his fingers. "Class? Finesse? It was just one kill after another - well, there was the torture of my friends, but that was easy enough from inside the cage. But that was just it, you know? The Beast knew how to disembowel a guy in ten seconds, but torture?" His gaze flicked back up to Buffy's and he smiled slowly, painfully so. "He knew nothing about that."
Buffy tried to suppress the shiver that racked through her body, keeping her breathing at a normal level. Business: her goal was distraction. If she could continue to distract him long enough, maybe get him away from Spike.
"So, what? You decided to give him a few pointers on the subject?"
Angelus took a slow drag on his cigarette that reminded her way too much of Spike. "Actually." Tilting his head up, he blew a long stream of smoke into the air. "I did. But Beastie's got a one-track mind. Guess he never read any Sun Tzu in his hell dimension. It's all about knowing your enemy enough to weaken it. Then attack."
"Hence the stunt you tried to pull earlier."
Angelus waved his hand dismissively, flicking the butt onto the countertop where it sizzled as it landed on a fluffy pastel towel, burning an ugly hole into the already-blood-smattered fabric.
"Nah - that was just to get your attention. I wasn't really going to kill you."
Buffy did not allow herself to feel relieved, as she knew there was a catch.
"I was going to kill him." He accented the last word with another boot at Spike's throat. "Almost worked, too! Well, I mean, there's always a second chance." And with that he brought his boot down hard on Spike's side, issuing another agonized moan from the crumpled heap of a souled vampire on the floor. Angelus winced, as if he could feel the pain he was inflicting. "Oops! Now that's not really killing him, is it? But then again, what's the fun of the kill without torturing your victim to the brink of death, just to bring him back so you can make him scream some more?" He leaned over to peer into Spike's face, twisted in pain. "Cause the screaming's the best part, right, Spike?"
Spike's jaw twitched as he tried to protest, but another kick to the throat squashed any possible response. Buffy fought down all threats of crying and let her fury and hatred rise to the top. If she could just get him away from Spike. "So you came here to kill him? Cause that's what non- souled vampires do to souled ones?"
Angelus raised his head to meet her fiery gaze and smirked at her expression. "Nah - this is just a bonus. I just came here intending to pay an old lover a visit."
"Really, I'm touched." Play his game - that's what Angelus liked to do. Make with the mindgames, the psychological trips.
"And being in the neighborhood of the thing that created you, you picked up its scent like a dog and followed it to its fashionable underground hideout?"
Angelus' eyes darkened, his look turning menacing. "Like a dog?" He snickered to himself in disbelief, removing his foot from near Spike's neck and took two steps back, flailing his arms out in disgust. "See, that's where everyone gets it wrong!" Holding up his hands as if in surrender, he addressed Buffy, who was trying to calculate how quickly she could grab Spike's unwounded arm to drag him away from the perilous position near Angelus' heavy boots. "I really try, you know? And no one seems to appreciate my efforts."
She hoped he hadn't noticed her quick sizing-up of the situation. "To what?" Maybe she could get him involved enough in his own rant that he'd forget about Spike and start pacing.
"Distinguish myself! Show why I was the Scourge of Europe! It's pretty hard to break down that revolting reputation Angel established, but if I torture and maim and kill at a fast enough rate, people begin to notice. But it's not the slaughter - although that's fun, too - it's what I was talking about earlier. Knowing your victim, anticipating his moves and working out how to counter every one of them. You think people would appreciate my finely crafted art after a while, but.well, take you for instance."
Fingers of panic started to creep into her senses.
Angelus smiled widely, giving a short laugh before he continued. "You probably think I haven't noticed your stall-tactics of the last several minutes, your methods of distraction, keep me talking, so you can save your boyfriend or find a weapon to plunge into my chest, right?"
Any programmed response of "he's not my boyfriend" never made it to the forefront of her mind as her words of warning to the potentials not ten minutes ago echoed inside her head instead: You can't allow yourself to be blindsided.
"You also probably didn't think I could hear the whisperings of your pathetic little group of slayer wannabes on the other side of the kitchen door."
In spite of herself, her eyes widened and she gulped down her long-digested lunch rising in her throat. The potentials.Dawn.Willow, Xander, Anya, even the pathetic Andrew. It hadn't even crossed her mind that they would all be cowering at the door, as one blood-curdling scream from Spike was enough to draw them away from their pizza feast. She was suddenly so nauseous that she reeled back, clapping her hand to her mouth.
He stopped his pacing and surveyed her, his hands hanging casually at his sides. "And look at you!" He gestured a hand at her. "You can barely stand, cause as you've tried to pull the wool over my eyes, you've just kept bleeding." And it was true: part of the reason she realized she couldn't get a firm footing was her blood had reached her sneaker and soaked through to the floor, making it slippery with bloody footprints.
"Oh, I won't kill them. At least.not right now." He raised his head, addressing the door behind Buffy. "So all you teeny-boppers back there can open the door and see a real live vampire if you want. I won't hurt you."
Buffy's hand flew off her mouth as she raised her voice, turning her head to the side without losing eye contact with her enemy. "Don't listen to him! Under no circumstances do you open that door! Hear me - don't. Open. The door." As long as he didn't know what they looked like, they were at least a little protected. Right now, anyway.
Angelus clapped his hands together, rubbing them as if to keep warm. Bringing them to his mouth, he completed the allusion, and seemed to consider something. Or.Buffy's heart sank, he was listening. She tried to cock her ear, too, to see what their decision had been but the slight ringing in her ears that had started a few minutes ago blocked out any possible sound she could decipher. So instead she searched the face of the demon standing in her kitchen, trying to take cues from his expression. Eyes still focused on some nondescript point, his voice dropped down to a whisper.
"They're being quiet as mice now. Harder to make out but." His eyebrows shot up and his eyes brightened. "Of course! Willow's trying to do a protection spell, but." He shrugged his shoulders, turning his palms to the sky. "Doesn't work unless the vampire is already outside and well.I'm not going anywhere."
Just then the door flew open and a gust of wind issued in the presence of Willow, her eyes jet-black, and Buffy noticed with dismay that her feet didn't quite touch the floor.
"Yes, you are." And Willow shot out a hand towards Angelus, uttering something in some ancient language and all at once, a force field swirled up around him, separating him from the rest of the kitchen. "Thicken!" The force field obeyed and Angelus swatted furiously at the now invisible barrier blocking him from the rest of the house. Upon contact with the shield, however, he let out an angry cry as it sent a shock coursing through him. He only struggled for a few seconds, during which time Buffy dove down to Spike's battered body and grabbed his good arm, dragging him to the corner of the kitchen.
She started issuing commands to the potentials for water, cloth, antiseptics, bandages, splints and they scurried off to all corners of the house, despite the overwhelming desire to stay and watch what transpired with the scariest vampire who'd ever walked the earth.
Buffy glanced up at Willow's levitating form and saw that her arm was so tense, it was beginning to shake. Her mouth was set in a determined grimace and Buffy could hear her labored breathing in between each murmured string of curses as she struggled with the dark magic within her.
Then she heard laughing.
Grasping the top of the counter for support, she pulled herself up to standing again. The shield still held, but Angelus had stopped struggling and was only laughing uncontrollably. "Very impressive, Willow. Taking a forbidden dip back into flaying territory?" Willow only continued to mutter under her breath, training her hateful gaze on Angelus. "See, the funny part about this set-up is that I can just walk out the door and come in at the front. Or an even better idea." His eyes lit up. "You can't do a protection spell until I leave. And as long as I'm content to stay behind your little barrier here, you have to stay there to hold it in place." His eyes widened and his jaw dropped as another thought hit him. "Maybe long enough for that daaark magick to infect your system - ooh, dare I say it? - permanently."
Alarmed, Buffy turned to Willow in an effort to make her stop the spell. "Willow," she began.
"Wrong." Willow pulled her arm back, poising it near her face, twisting her hand as her muttering increased in volume. The shield went taut and at a "Cresce!" from Willow, accompanied by a throw of her hand, started to push back towards the door, taking the demon with it. Steeling himself against the shocks, he addressed Buffy with an eerie calm.
"This is just the beginning, you know. Sooner or later cabin fever will overtake one of them and they'll need an escape. And I'll be waiting when they do." He smiled again and opening the door, walked the rest of the way out of the Summers' kitchen into the night.
Buffy looked at Willow, whose eyes were slowly returning to a normal color. Once they were green again, she gasped and doubled over from the weight of keeping such dark power at bay. "Will, are you okay?" Buffy's concerned expression searched Willow's face and was met with a weak smile from the exhausted witch.
"Yeah, Buffy, I'm okay." Letting out an audible sigh of relief, Buffy gave a slight nod of her head before dropping down to the very hurt vampire at her feet. Willow protested. "But Buffy you're bleeding, too! We can take care of him - you need to get cleaned up." As if on cue, the potentials appeared through the door, carrying all the requested supplies.
"I'm fine," she insisted, ignoring the blurriness of her vision and the increased ringing in her ears. "Just help me get him - no. Wait, scrap that. He shouldn't be moved." She stood up and surveyed the scene before her. The blood-caked knife lay in the middle of the countertop, with various spots and splotches from where it was spilled. The towels were ruined, and she thought those fluffy pastels looked violated by the angry red stains and the thin mist of cigarette ashes. She let her gaze slide down to the floor where Spike had been and gasped at the veritable lake of blood that had been shed there. Lastly, she found the once-more expectant faces of the potentials, waiting for instruction. Their youthful faces swam and Buffy realized there were tears silently streaming down her cheeks.
"The wound needs to be cleaned and dressed and you might have to set his arm. His ribs are probably broken again on both sides so remember that. He also might have lost the ability to talk -" For some reason this choked her up more than she could bear. ".so remember he can't tell you if he's in pain. Although." She trailed off as the series of expressions of pain at every cruel kick of Angelus' boot filled her brain. So much so that she was beginning to not be able to hear anything else.
"And the towels are ruined."
She let out a half-strangled sob before she felt herself falling and the world fading before everything went black.
Rating: R
Spoilers: Season 7 through "Potential"
For Molly, whose over-usage of the letter "e" finally made me finish something.
***
Blindside
***
"Strike!"
"Hyaa!"
Buffy still marveled that with all of the uncoordinated potentials crammed into the training area that was her basement, somebody didn't end up getting kicked in the face or elbowed in the ribs.
"Ow!"
The male timbre of the voice automatically told her that Spike was the first victim of her theory. She glanced in his direction, just to make sure he wasn't hit in any of those places that were still healing. He was holding his hand pressed to the side of his head, a gesture that reminded her of the Spike from two to three years ago, the Spike who would receive a powerful shock when he forgot about the behavior modification chip in his head. Or tested it to see if it still worked.
As she watched him rub his hand against his temple, squinting and doling out a gentle reprimand to the culprit of the errant foot, she wondered how she'd forgotten just how changed this man - yes, he was a man now - had become. Of course he still bore resemblance to the Old Spike, but he was gentler, quieter, more measured in his movements, his speech. He was a new man.
She hadn't realized she'd been staring at him till he captured her eyes with his own and she watched his features soften as they often did when he caught her staring at him. The Old Spike would have followed up with a self-satisfied smirk that said he knew she wanted him. But Souled Spike had checked most of his confidence at the door and so he only gave her an inquisitive head tilt and slight raising of the eyebrows that spoke of non- verbal communication between business partners. What next? Time to call it a day?
Buffy tried not to feel the sting of disappointment that their relationship had become more business-like than anything but instead of squashing it she rode it out, giving Spike a non-committal shrug and a slight shake of the head. Yet her eyes never left his.
Someone giggled.
And she noticed that it had become quiet as all the potentials were waiting for their next cue to strike from her. She looked around at the mixture of expressions on their faces and felt heat rise up in her cheeks as she realized that not only had she spaced out on giving them their next command but it was due to a Spike eye-fest. Great, just hand the slumber party- fodder to them on a plate. She took a deep breath as she met all of their faces, masking her embarrassment with the professional no-nonsense look of their leader.
"Good. But your kicks are still sloppy." Buffy walked a little ways away from them, into the relatively cleared space by the drier. Balancing on one foot she slowly twisted her body and brought her other foot into a side- kick. "You have to remember to contract the abs." Demonstrating, Buffy pressed her hands into her stomach. "Otherwise, you have no balance. And without balance?" She raised her eyebrows expectantly at them.
"You have no power," piped up Molly, whose earlier note-taking obsession had paid off.
"Right. You have no power. Without the balance, your leg is just flopping in the breeze, and a vampire sees that. He'll use it to his advantage. Spike?" She looked over at Spike again, this time her business face firmly in place. He nodded slightly and started weaving his way through the sea of potentials. As Buffy waited for him to come to her side, ready to complete the picture of peril she was about to paint, she continued her instruction.
"A vampire will identify all of your weaknesses before he makes the first strike. Whether he's a fledgling or a hundred years old, he'll know your flaws immediately. And he'll exploit them. You can't allow yourself to be blindsided." Spike was now at her side. "Now, watch what happens when I kick without contracting -"
"Pizza's here!!" Dawn's shrill announcement sent up a collective sigh of relief from the potentials.
"Uch, I feel like I haven't eaten anything in weeks!" Amanda cried. Some of the potentials exchanged uncomfortable glances then returned their hopeful faces to Buffy.
"Just a second, guys. Dawn!" She called up from the foot of the stairs. Dawn's brown head appeared at the basement door.
"Buffy, it's like laundry central in the kitchen."
"What?! You were supposed to fold that stuff!"
"I had homework!" Dawn protested.
Buffy rolled her eyes up to the ceiling and tilted her head up in seeming supposition. Since when did I become Mother Hen? Bringing her head down, she massaged her eyes and it struck her that it was something she used to see her mother do when Buffy or Dawn was being "impossible to deal with." She raised her head up to meet her sister's slightly apologetic look.
"Buffy, we'll be extra careful in the kitchen. We'll put paper towels over everything so there'll be no chance of staining."
"Dawn, you couldn't eat pizza by yourself without staining my shirt."
Dawn's face blanched a little. "I thought you would think it was blood."
"Haven't come across any demons whose blood smells like tomatoes."
A few snickers sounded behind her, and the former Key had the decency to look sheepish, shifting her weight in anticipation of Buffy's final decision.
"Okay, you can eat in the livingroom." She watched Dawn's face light up. "But-"
"I know, I know. 'You spill, I kill' or something. We heard you the first hundred times."
"Actually, wasn't it 'you stain, feel pain'?" Rona supplied.
"Whatever. Just be careful with the carpet and the sofa and anything else that's not wood." Buffy looked over at the potentials. "And save me some," she reminded them, before giving them a wave of her hand that signaled their release from training. As the slayer wannabe's thundered up the stairs, some taking two at a time, she met Spike's eyes again and reached for her towel to dry off her face.
"So, what do you think?"
As she wiped her face and neck, she considered their partnership: this was the real business-part of their relationship. Going over the training, giving each other feedback, making suggestions. They made a great team, Buffy knew it.
"Think their kicks are getting better, though maybe Vi needs a little more work on that self-control thing. Coulda given me a shiner, if I hadn't ducked a bit." Spike touched the side of his head to recall the results of Vi's out-of-control foot.
"Yeah, they're getting better." Buffy leaned against the thrumming drier. "What about their punches - did you see anyone who needs more help with those?"
"The whole lot of them need reminders 'bout the emphasis on contraction. When they get excited, they tense all up, locking their elbows." Spike splayed his arms out in front of him, balling one hand into a fist with a straight arm and clamping down on the joint in question with his other hand. He fixed her with his eyes, which took on a bit of the Old Spike fire when dealing with combat tactics.
Buffy nodded in agreement, doing her best to ignore the recently returned effect his gaze had on her, making her "tense all up" in her own brand of excitement. She bowed her head, seeming to consider his input when it was really just insurance against exposing her thoughts. "Good, good.okay, well we'll go over some of the fine tuning points next time." Forcing herself to focus, she was thoughtful for a moment, running over all of the moves they'd practiced and cataloguing which ones were weaker. "Do you think they're ready for us to teach them-"
Baaaaarrrrnnhhh!
Being right next to the drier, it was almost painful the inhumanly loud buzzer in her ear so that she practically jumped when it sounded. It was just as well, as Buffy could sense that they were getting to that point when the business meeting ended and the uncomfortable, awkward silence began of two people with a history who couldn't quite define their relationship to each other anymore. She turned to the drier, opening the door and emptying its contents into the waiting basket as she spoke.
"I was going to ask if you think they're ready to learn more advanced weapons training?"
She concentrated on the array of bright pastels contained in the load of towels so she could ignore the change in the air between them. Even with her back to him, she knew he knew that she was flustered on account of him. The Old Spike would have relished his ability to make her squirm by simply standing there. New Spike only allowed his eyes to become a softer blue, which Buffy could sense as she forced the damp load from the washer into the drier. So much easier to talk to when he wanted to kill me.
"Buffy."
Oh God, he was using that voice, that tender voice of a young boy who only wanted to be helpful. That voice, that, when emitted from the Old Spike had caused her to roll her eyes at his pathetic attempts to sound sincere. But when New Spike used that voice, it only caused her to shiver as something jumped inside of her to land in her throat.
Keeping her back to him as she bent down to pick up the heaping laundry basket, she addressed him with a lightning-quick flash of her head as she started her ascent up the stairs.
"I'm just going to run these upstairs." She attempted to keep her tone even. "Cause if I don't, I'll forget about them and the slumber partyers will get cranky if they can't take showers when they want to." Yes, that was good. She sounded flippant, the timbre of her voice light.
"Are we going to talk about weapons training or you wanna call it a night?" Spike called out to her retreating back.
Buffy turned her head to look at him as she took the last couple of steps, giving the appearance that she was okay with eye contact right now. "No, no - I'll be right back down." Of course, all she could see of Spike over her shoulder was a glimpse of black t-shirt and jeans with a dash of blonde on top, but he didn't need to know that.
"'Kay. I'll.wait here, I guess."
"Yeah." Buffy breathed an inward sigh of relief that her escape from icky awkward situation had been successful. Just needed a few moments to breathe, put the professional mask back in place and she would rejoin him. Turning her head back around, she let out a sigh of disgust as she surveyed the mountains of laundry sprawled over the kitchen countertops.
And almost dropped the basket when her gaze found Angel standing in her kitchen.
Slayer speed saved her from another embarrassing moment and she caught it before the momentum of the fall could propel any precariously balanced towels onto the not so clean floor.
"Angel." Moving a few steps towards the island, she hefted the basket onto the countertop, sweeping aside another mountain of laundry to make room, before dumping its contents out. At least there's no danger in dropping it now.
"Hi Buffy." His tone was friendly, good-natured.odd coming from the usual angst-ridden souled vampire. Jamming his hands into his pockets in a gesture that reminded her too much of Spike, he met her eyes with a confidence and an openness she'd rarely seen.
"Hi..is everything okay? I mean, not like there has to be some imminent apocalypse for you to show up, but.there's no imminent apocalypse, right?" Not that she could have been of much use anyway as she was roped into the tight schedule of training, patrolling, advising, and researching. Suddenly, she really hoped that there wasn't some apocalypse brewing in L.A. as she didn't want to see the look of disappointment on Angel's face when she told him she couldn't help.
Angel shook his head, giving a slight shrug of his shoulders, his lips pursed, and his hands gave a slight jerk in his pockets. Was he usually this fidgety? It seemed a strange contradiction to the silent, bulking, brooding form she remembered.
"Are.are you okay? You're kinda all jumpy."
Giving a short laugh, he glanced down at his buried hands before looking at her again with a self-deprecating smile. "I'm just antsy.sitting in the car a while."
"Right." Buffy nodded, giving a slight smile. "Um.so."
Angel anticipated her question. "Yeah: what am I doing here?"
Maybe she wouldn't have phrased it that way, but she raised her eyebrows questioningly all the same.
"I, uh, I actually came to talk to Spike."
Buffy's mouth fell open and a wave of panic washed over her. Did he know about.them? Was he going to question Spike about.?
"Huh?" Was all she could manage.
"I mean," Angel caught himself, "it's not that it's not good to see you." He flashed her a quick smile.
Buffy returned the smile and felt her shoulders relax a little. Just a little. But Angel was a gentleman - he wouldn't pry into her personal life like that. It was something they had in common but it wasn't.duh! Buffy mentally slapped herself upside the head. In common? Gee, how about maybe one souled vamp wants to talk with the only other souled vampire in the world. She felt all the tension seep from her body, and gave Angel a full- fledged smile.
"It's good to see you, too. I'll go get him - he's in the basement."
"Didja get eaten by a Laundry Demon, Slayer?" Spike's voice sounded from the bottom of the steps and continued to increase in volume as he neared the top. "I've seen those things at work: they only like to eat one of every pair of socks, but sometimes they'll get hungry and attack human feet."
Buffy turned to meet him in an effort to.what? Cover her tracks? She'd said maybe twenty words to Angel - she had nothing to be ashamed of. Or.cover. Cause it's not like she and Spike were.like that. But she knew that it was she didn't want to see the look on his face when he saw Angel standing in her kitchen.
Old Spike would've gotten jealous, and might've triumphantly spewed out a few choice words amounting to "guess you weren't the only vamp she went for." New Spike would probably just look hurt.
Buffy met him at the threshold, trying to block his view, which was silly considering she was several inches shorter than him. It would provide some stall-time, though.
"Spike!" Did her voice sound shrill? "Angel came to talk to you." In spite of herself, she searched his face to see if it would produce that awful heart-breaking look. And, a little tiny part of her admitted, to be in the mostly annoying, but secretly thrilling situation of two guys squaring off over her.
What passed on Spike's face wasn't anything Buffy could have predicted. There was a brief flash of his old cockiness, followed by a penetrating gaze that quickly dissolved into distrust, hatred and.fear? His eyes had widened, his lips were parted and she heard a barely perceptible yet unmistakably sharp intake of breath.
Buffy swung her head back to survey Angel's reaction. He was calm and looking a bit confused. Well, she was confused herself. Since when did one souled vamp fear another? Isn't it that one souled vamp deserves another but.uh, not in that way.
"Spike?" She'd moved a few steps away from him to the countertop, suddenly wishing that she were still holding a laundry basket so she could have something to do with her hands. She kept her eyes trained on Spike's face.
"Buffy, it's not him."
Feeling like she was at a tennis match, she turned her gaze back to Angel and watched his brow furrow further in his confusion. Buffy's own brow matched his.
"Uh.what's he talking about?"
"You know full well what I'm talkin' about; don't play the bloody fool." Spike's voice had dropped to a growl now and Buffy decided her head was going to hurt if she kept swinging it back and forth between the two of them and moved to a more neutral position to the side of the island. There: right between them, no favoring of either side.
But her movements only seemed to alarm Spike and he froze where he was, calling out to her. "Buffy, get away from him - it's not Angel!" Fear had now won out and was radiating from his eyes. Her gaze slid to Angel's who appeared dumbfounded. His hands had found their way to his waist and he stood there, squinting at Spike as if he'd gone off the deep end.
Suddenly, realization dawned on her. She'd almost been duped - it explained the fidgetiness, the confidence, the friendly, relaxed air he'd donned. How long did it possibly think it could fool her?
"Ohhh, come on! You didn't think I'd figure it out?" she snapped at him and his eyebrows shot up. "You can take on dead forms - just another way of listening in on our plans, showing up as an ally. Very clever." Crossing her arms, Buffy smiled sardonically. "Get. Out." Her tone was deadly and her eyes burned with hatred.
Angel looked like he'd been punched in the stomach. "Buffy, what are you talking about?"
She snorted in derision. "Still gonna keep up the act, huh? Well, sorry: it's the end of the act." Bringing her right arm around she threw a punch into his shoulder, sweeping various odds and ends of pajamas off the island.
And was shocked when her fist connected with rough cotton and impressed cool skin underneath.
The impact didn't faze Angel, although he still looked surprised. Buffy unfolded her fist and pressed her palm up against his shoulder, willing herself to melt into the floor so she didn't have to meet Angel's eyes at that moment. She let her eyes take their time in finding their way back to his face.
"I'm.I'm sorry," she stuttered. "I.I thought you were the First.it can take on dead forms and it's pretty convincing sometimes so." she trailed off and suddenly the dire situation of clean pajamas on a dirty floor needed her immediate attention. She knelt down to begin gathering them up, muttering more explanation to the growing heap of tangled shirts and nightgowns in her arms. "It's worst when it takes on forms of people close to us, cause you know, the whole face of someone you trust, telling you lies, with the evil lurking underneath."
"It's okay." She heard Angel say and she felt him kneel down in front of her. "Here - let me help you with those."
"Buffy!"
She felt more than heard the whish of the kitchen knife blade cutting through the air and though she ducked she watched as if in slow-motion its inevitable, purposeful descent as it moved towards the final destination of her neck.
Just then she was tackled from behind and she heard the blade slice through skin to meet bone and a blood-curdling scream from Spike before it cut a gash in her side on the way up. She rolled them over, away from the knife and leapt to her feet, reeling from the speed of her bloodloss. Blindly, she reached out a hand toward the wall to steady herself, while trying to keep her eyes on her most feared nightmare awakened again, standing in her kitchen.
Angelus smiled sweetly, a gross contrast to the kitchen knife he still gripped, dripping with the mixed blood of vampire and slayer. "I guess my souled counterpart and I do have something in common afterall, huh?"
The hatred returned to Buffy's eyes, and she raised her chin defiantly, her voice low. "What's that?"
"We're both great actors." And with a thespian flourish, he tossed the knife onto the counter, spattering deep red onto the fluffy mound of pastels on the island. His shoulders tensed and she watched the muscles in his knee twitch as he prepared himself to spring.
As Buffy steeled herself for another attack, she noticed that Spike still lay on the floor, a pool of red growing on the floor at his arm. It was his ribs that became the target of Angelus' heavy boot. The resounding crunch and the strangled cry made Buffy forget her dimming vision as she lunged herself toward Angelus. Seeing her oncoming advance, he whipped his boot to right above Spike's throat.
"Ah ah ah," he warned her. "He may not need to breathe, but a crushed larynx will take a long time to heal." Buffy froze in her tracks. Angelus' face brightened with a cruel delight. "But that's not as much fun when you can kick -" and he supplied his words with another harsh kick "ribs that haven't healed yet from his time away from home."
Nausea and deep-seated fear overtook Buffy as she realized that the First had found its perfect weapon against them. Who needs an impossibly strong Turok-Han when you can have the former Scourge of Europe to mastermind your apocalypse?
"So it was the First. It did this to you."
He laughed again. "No, that's the funny part." Sliding his foot down Spike's throat so that it came to rest on his stomach, Angelus fished in his pockets, producing a cigarette and a lighter. Buffy watched in disgust as he lit up, blowing smoke in her face, a lazy smile on his. "My friends did this to me."
"Your.friends? Why would they -?"
"Oh, it was classic! They actually hired a shaman to take away my soul - I mean, they were going to keep me locked in a cage, but," he snickered, "we can see how that one worked out."
Buffy fought the swimmyness that threatened to overtake her eyes, and tried to anchor herself to the floor. She kept her eyes on Angelus as her peripheral vision sought for a weapon in the kitchen, something within reach, as Angelus had taken the strategic position by the knife rack and his foot was still on Spike's stomach. Her entire side was sticky with blood and it had begun to soak down her leg. She tried not to focus on that and continued her sweep of the kitchen.
But the Scourge of Europe was always two steps ahead of her.
"You need a weapon, huh? Hmm, there are plenty of knives over here," He indicated the block of wood with a sweeping gesture that invited, no dared her to try for one. "I could throw one to you, see if you could catch it. Whaddya say?" He gave her a self-satisfied smirk.
The tiny bubble of hope popped and Buffy saw she would have to resort to a different tactic. Distract him, keep him from killing Spike, from killing her, and getting him out of the house so she could run as quickly as possible into the livingroom to command Willow to do a protection spell.
"Why here? Is it just the whole devil's playground thing around the Hellmouth? Couldn't find an apocalypse in L.A. so had to come to Sunnydale?" Her tone was biting, sarcastic, playing his game. She hoped.
"Oh, there was a good enough Armageddon in L.A., believe me. But you know, I just got so tired of playing with ole Beastie boy. I mean, he had the right idea: rain of fire, the slaughter of hundreds, hell - the whole blotting out the sun made it freebies 24/7." He gesticulated with his cigarette, purposefully tapping it so ashes fell onto Spike's face. Buffy cringed at the hissing sound they made from contact with his skin, and a strangled groan emitted from the back of Spike's throat. "But the Beast - I don't know, he lacked something." He studied his cigarette, his brow drawn together, considering it as he rolled it between his fingers. "Class? Finesse? It was just one kill after another - well, there was the torture of my friends, but that was easy enough from inside the cage. But that was just it, you know? The Beast knew how to disembowel a guy in ten seconds, but torture?" His gaze flicked back up to Buffy's and he smiled slowly, painfully so. "He knew nothing about that."
Buffy tried to suppress the shiver that racked through her body, keeping her breathing at a normal level. Business: her goal was distraction. If she could continue to distract him long enough, maybe get him away from Spike.
"So, what? You decided to give him a few pointers on the subject?"
Angelus took a slow drag on his cigarette that reminded her way too much of Spike. "Actually." Tilting his head up, he blew a long stream of smoke into the air. "I did. But Beastie's got a one-track mind. Guess he never read any Sun Tzu in his hell dimension. It's all about knowing your enemy enough to weaken it. Then attack."
"Hence the stunt you tried to pull earlier."
Angelus waved his hand dismissively, flicking the butt onto the countertop where it sizzled as it landed on a fluffy pastel towel, burning an ugly hole into the already-blood-smattered fabric.
"Nah - that was just to get your attention. I wasn't really going to kill you."
Buffy did not allow herself to feel relieved, as she knew there was a catch.
"I was going to kill him." He accented the last word with another boot at Spike's throat. "Almost worked, too! Well, I mean, there's always a second chance." And with that he brought his boot down hard on Spike's side, issuing another agonized moan from the crumpled heap of a souled vampire on the floor. Angelus winced, as if he could feel the pain he was inflicting. "Oops! Now that's not really killing him, is it? But then again, what's the fun of the kill without torturing your victim to the brink of death, just to bring him back so you can make him scream some more?" He leaned over to peer into Spike's face, twisted in pain. "Cause the screaming's the best part, right, Spike?"
Spike's jaw twitched as he tried to protest, but another kick to the throat squashed any possible response. Buffy fought down all threats of crying and let her fury and hatred rise to the top. If she could just get him away from Spike. "So you came here to kill him? Cause that's what non- souled vampires do to souled ones?"
Angelus raised his head to meet her fiery gaze and smirked at her expression. "Nah - this is just a bonus. I just came here intending to pay an old lover a visit."
"Really, I'm touched." Play his game - that's what Angelus liked to do. Make with the mindgames, the psychological trips.
"And being in the neighborhood of the thing that created you, you picked up its scent like a dog and followed it to its fashionable underground hideout?"
Angelus' eyes darkened, his look turning menacing. "Like a dog?" He snickered to himself in disbelief, removing his foot from near Spike's neck and took two steps back, flailing his arms out in disgust. "See, that's where everyone gets it wrong!" Holding up his hands as if in surrender, he addressed Buffy, who was trying to calculate how quickly she could grab Spike's unwounded arm to drag him away from the perilous position near Angelus' heavy boots. "I really try, you know? And no one seems to appreciate my efforts."
She hoped he hadn't noticed her quick sizing-up of the situation. "To what?" Maybe she could get him involved enough in his own rant that he'd forget about Spike and start pacing.
"Distinguish myself! Show why I was the Scourge of Europe! It's pretty hard to break down that revolting reputation Angel established, but if I torture and maim and kill at a fast enough rate, people begin to notice. But it's not the slaughter - although that's fun, too - it's what I was talking about earlier. Knowing your victim, anticipating his moves and working out how to counter every one of them. You think people would appreciate my finely crafted art after a while, but.well, take you for instance."
Fingers of panic started to creep into her senses.
Angelus smiled widely, giving a short laugh before he continued. "You probably think I haven't noticed your stall-tactics of the last several minutes, your methods of distraction, keep me talking, so you can save your boyfriend or find a weapon to plunge into my chest, right?"
Any programmed response of "he's not my boyfriend" never made it to the forefront of her mind as her words of warning to the potentials not ten minutes ago echoed inside her head instead: You can't allow yourself to be blindsided.
"You also probably didn't think I could hear the whisperings of your pathetic little group of slayer wannabes on the other side of the kitchen door."
In spite of herself, her eyes widened and she gulped down her long-digested lunch rising in her throat. The potentials.Dawn.Willow, Xander, Anya, even the pathetic Andrew. It hadn't even crossed her mind that they would all be cowering at the door, as one blood-curdling scream from Spike was enough to draw them away from their pizza feast. She was suddenly so nauseous that she reeled back, clapping her hand to her mouth.
He stopped his pacing and surveyed her, his hands hanging casually at his sides. "And look at you!" He gestured a hand at her. "You can barely stand, cause as you've tried to pull the wool over my eyes, you've just kept bleeding." And it was true: part of the reason she realized she couldn't get a firm footing was her blood had reached her sneaker and soaked through to the floor, making it slippery with bloody footprints.
"Oh, I won't kill them. At least.not right now." He raised his head, addressing the door behind Buffy. "So all you teeny-boppers back there can open the door and see a real live vampire if you want. I won't hurt you."
Buffy's hand flew off her mouth as she raised her voice, turning her head to the side without losing eye contact with her enemy. "Don't listen to him! Under no circumstances do you open that door! Hear me - don't. Open. The door." As long as he didn't know what they looked like, they were at least a little protected. Right now, anyway.
Angelus clapped his hands together, rubbing them as if to keep warm. Bringing them to his mouth, he completed the allusion, and seemed to consider something. Or.Buffy's heart sank, he was listening. She tried to cock her ear, too, to see what their decision had been but the slight ringing in her ears that had started a few minutes ago blocked out any possible sound she could decipher. So instead she searched the face of the demon standing in her kitchen, trying to take cues from his expression. Eyes still focused on some nondescript point, his voice dropped down to a whisper.
"They're being quiet as mice now. Harder to make out but." His eyebrows shot up and his eyes brightened. "Of course! Willow's trying to do a protection spell, but." He shrugged his shoulders, turning his palms to the sky. "Doesn't work unless the vampire is already outside and well.I'm not going anywhere."
Just then the door flew open and a gust of wind issued in the presence of Willow, her eyes jet-black, and Buffy noticed with dismay that her feet didn't quite touch the floor.
"Yes, you are." And Willow shot out a hand towards Angelus, uttering something in some ancient language and all at once, a force field swirled up around him, separating him from the rest of the kitchen. "Thicken!" The force field obeyed and Angelus swatted furiously at the now invisible barrier blocking him from the rest of the house. Upon contact with the shield, however, he let out an angry cry as it sent a shock coursing through him. He only struggled for a few seconds, during which time Buffy dove down to Spike's battered body and grabbed his good arm, dragging him to the corner of the kitchen.
She started issuing commands to the potentials for water, cloth, antiseptics, bandages, splints and they scurried off to all corners of the house, despite the overwhelming desire to stay and watch what transpired with the scariest vampire who'd ever walked the earth.
Buffy glanced up at Willow's levitating form and saw that her arm was so tense, it was beginning to shake. Her mouth was set in a determined grimace and Buffy could hear her labored breathing in between each murmured string of curses as she struggled with the dark magic within her.
Then she heard laughing.
Grasping the top of the counter for support, she pulled herself up to standing again. The shield still held, but Angelus had stopped struggling and was only laughing uncontrollably. "Very impressive, Willow. Taking a forbidden dip back into flaying territory?" Willow only continued to mutter under her breath, training her hateful gaze on Angelus. "See, the funny part about this set-up is that I can just walk out the door and come in at the front. Or an even better idea." His eyes lit up. "You can't do a protection spell until I leave. And as long as I'm content to stay behind your little barrier here, you have to stay there to hold it in place." His eyes widened and his jaw dropped as another thought hit him. "Maybe long enough for that daaark magick to infect your system - ooh, dare I say it? - permanently."
Alarmed, Buffy turned to Willow in an effort to make her stop the spell. "Willow," she began.
"Wrong." Willow pulled her arm back, poising it near her face, twisting her hand as her muttering increased in volume. The shield went taut and at a "Cresce!" from Willow, accompanied by a throw of her hand, started to push back towards the door, taking the demon with it. Steeling himself against the shocks, he addressed Buffy with an eerie calm.
"This is just the beginning, you know. Sooner or later cabin fever will overtake one of them and they'll need an escape. And I'll be waiting when they do." He smiled again and opening the door, walked the rest of the way out of the Summers' kitchen into the night.
Buffy looked at Willow, whose eyes were slowly returning to a normal color. Once they were green again, she gasped and doubled over from the weight of keeping such dark power at bay. "Will, are you okay?" Buffy's concerned expression searched Willow's face and was met with a weak smile from the exhausted witch.
"Yeah, Buffy, I'm okay." Letting out an audible sigh of relief, Buffy gave a slight nod of her head before dropping down to the very hurt vampire at her feet. Willow protested. "But Buffy you're bleeding, too! We can take care of him - you need to get cleaned up." As if on cue, the potentials appeared through the door, carrying all the requested supplies.
"I'm fine," she insisted, ignoring the blurriness of her vision and the increased ringing in her ears. "Just help me get him - no. Wait, scrap that. He shouldn't be moved." She stood up and surveyed the scene before her. The blood-caked knife lay in the middle of the countertop, with various spots and splotches from where it was spilled. The towels were ruined, and she thought those fluffy pastels looked violated by the angry red stains and the thin mist of cigarette ashes. She let her gaze slide down to the floor where Spike had been and gasped at the veritable lake of blood that had been shed there. Lastly, she found the once-more expectant faces of the potentials, waiting for instruction. Their youthful faces swam and Buffy realized there were tears silently streaming down her cheeks.
"The wound needs to be cleaned and dressed and you might have to set his arm. His ribs are probably broken again on both sides so remember that. He also might have lost the ability to talk -" For some reason this choked her up more than she could bear. ".so remember he can't tell you if he's in pain. Although." She trailed off as the series of expressions of pain at every cruel kick of Angelus' boot filled her brain. So much so that she was beginning to not be able to hear anything else.
"And the towels are ruined."
She let out a half-strangled sob before she felt herself falling and the world fading before everything went black.