Disclaimers: Not mine.

Feedback: I thrive on it!

Rating: PG-13 now, R later.

Author's Note: Sorry for the lateness. I've been busy penning a season 6 BtVS script (not Spuffy, just a MotW) and have kinda been focusing my creative efforts there. I'll try to keep up with this one more regularly; it felt good to go back to conventional story-telling after the script. = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Angelus was bored.

It wasn't the town so much; Sunnydale was not only teeming with nice, juicy people just ripe for the killing, but it was also located on a hellmouth. One location rarely had both of those attributes. If one was lucky enough to find a city that had been built right above the mouth of hell, the odds were that there weren't many living citizens left, and those that survived usually would move away after discovering the extreme amount of demonic activity. Sunnydale, however, was a unique little burg. The citizens of the town (which were in rather large supply) either had a death wish or were extremely stupid. It was most likely the latter, in Angelus' opinion. The problem wasn't even the Slayer, whose death he would enjoy immensely; but rather, his plan. It involved a large amount of waiting, and his patience was growing short.

He didn't usually get so frustrated with the time it took to craft a plan, especially one as brilliant as such, but he found that with every second that ticked by his impatience grew. Angelus found himself bringing home victims to work out his anger at the fact that the Slayer was still living, taking greater pleasure in their torture than he ever had before. He had even found a few new techniques which he dedicated to memory, promising himself that he would use them on his ex when he finally had her in his grasp. Angelus had thought about moving things up a few weeks, but finally decided that the spur of the moment killing wasn't really his strong point. He remembered Spike's failure when he stormed Sunnydale High before the feast of St. Vigious, and carefully reconsidered.

A wry smile formed on his lips at the thought of Dru's idiot childe. Angelus couldn't wait to get his revenge on the younger vampire; he owed him for the torture that Spike had put him through the last time he had seen him. Dru, for some reason, wanted to keep him alive; that is to say, as alive as a vampire can be. It didn't bother Angelus too much; there were many ways to torture someone without tearing off limbs and whatnot - his childe's madness was a fine example of such. Besides, Angelus had discovered that some of the best torture was not physical at all.

The through of driving the insolent lad to the brinks of madness drew a chuckle from his lips, and he found for the first time in days that he didn't mind having to wait. His scheme would work best with much time to plan, think, and re-think ideas; if he could pull it off, a few more weeks would be child's play in the long run.

All good things come to those who wait, after all.

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Buffy froze in her tracks, her heart skipping several beats. 'Did I just hear what I thought?' she questioned herself.

"What?" she managed to stutter, staring at Willow in shock. Surely her friend didn't know ...

"You know, the guy you've been sneaking off to see every night?" Willow explained, grinning at her intuitiveness, "Your secret smooching partner?"

Buffy blinked. "Sneaking? There was sneaking?"

"There was definite sneakage," Willow said, but her grin wavered, "Wasn't there?"

Buffy sighed inwardly. Willow didn't know, she suspected. 'I can deal with suspicion. I've dealt with it my entire life, and I can deal with it now. It's not like she has any proof.'

"I don't remember sneaking off anywhere."

Willow frowned. "But - the patrolling. You've been going, like, every night. And you don't usually have so much fun making vamps all dusty."

"Yeah," Xander agreed, "And when you do go, you usually whine about it for a while first."

The Spike situation momentarily forgotten, Buffy became indignant at his accusation. "Hey! I do not whine!"

"That's it, right there, the whine." Xander smiled as if to brush his comment off, but it managed to cause Buffy to become even more upset.

"Willow, do I whine?" Buffy said, then cringed at her whiny tone of voice. 'Jeez, Fran Drescher much?'

The Wiccan glanced at both her and Xander, before smiling apologetically. "Not anymore." Buffy scowled at her, and Willow continued on quickly, hoping to quell her friend's growing anger. "But that's not the point. The point is: patrolling. Why are you suddenly so much of the liking it?"

Buffy frowned, searching her mental banks for a reasonable explanation. "I don't like it," she answered finally, "I just - I figured after the whole Drusilla fiasco, hey, why not tune up the Slayerness? And as they say, practice makes perfect." She paused, thinking. "Who's 'they', anyway. I mean, the people that always make up those sayings? Because they must have a lot of time on their hands."

"I don't think it's a whole committee of people," Willow explained, her brow scrunched in thought.

"Maybe it's one guy," Xander joked, "One guy named 'They'."

Willow and Buffy both turned to look at him, before presenting him with simultanious eye-rolls.

"What?"

"Cute, Xander," Buffy said, continuing up the path.

"It was funny," he said to himself, "I can't help it if you don't have a finely-honed sense of humor like I do."

"Now who's whining?" Buffy muttered under her breath, causing Xander to stop in his tracks.

"What was that?" he said, eyebrows raised in accusation.

Buffy smiled sweetly at him, as if to convince him that she was, as all girls are told to be, sugar and spice and everything nice. "I don't know what you're talking about. Maybe your ears need some fine-honing, too."

"Oh, I'll fine-hone you," Xander grumbled. Both of the girls began to laugh, and he looked up at them in surprise. "What's so funny?"

"I'll 'fine-hone' you?" Buffy gasped out between chuckles, "What kind of lame threat was that?"

"Yeah. Can't you just imagine it?" Willow joined in, "If you don't eat your vegetables, I'll 'fine-hone' you a new one!"

Both girls laughed even harder at this, as Xander stood behind them, scowling. Finally, their laughter trailing off into giggles, Buffy turned to Xander, smiling. "Oh, come on. That wasn't even a little funny? I'm trying to get up to your honing level of humor, so help me out here."

Willow grinned. "Xander, it's not our fault that you haven't honed your threatening ability. You can't just throw in random words and think they'll be menacing."

"I can be menacing," Xander said, "I just don't allow myself to cross over into my dark side, that's all."

"You have a dark side?" Willow queried, her voice tinged with humor.

"Well, it's more of a light gray," Xander mused, before his voice took on a deeper tone, "But it's there. And it's just waiting, waiting for the day that I let it out."

"I pray that never happens," Buffy piped up, "Because, God help us, you'd hone us all!"

Willow and Buffy dissolved into a fit of giggles, and Xander continued up the path until they were forced to follow.

"Buffy?" Willow asked, her voice hopeful, "You're patrolling a lot now, right?"

"Uh, yeah, Wills. But I kinda thought we already established that."

Willow smiled. "Well, yeah. But I was wondering . . . can I go with you next time?" The Wiccan gave a small yip as Xander elbowed her in the side. "Oh, yeah, and Mr. Jabby here wants to come, too. But . . . can we? I mean, it's like we never see you anymore. You're out galavanting with the undead every night, and we don't have any classes together . . ."

Buffy felt a sharp pang of guilt at her friend's words. 'It's true, it seems like I haven't talked with them in weeks.' "Uh, sure . . . why not. Plenty of vamps to go around."

Xander grinned, and Willow's eyes brightened. Buffy, however, was filled with worry. 'I need to find Spike and tell him that training for tommorrow is off. It would just be too weird if he showed up when Xander and Willow were there. Weird and suspicious.'

The Slayer gazed up into the dark night sky and prayed that she would be able to find Spike.

'God knows where he gets off to at this time of night.'

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To be continued . . .

A/N: Curious as to where Spike gets off to that time of night? Find out in the next installment, arriving shortly!