Took Your Coat Off
Part twenty-five of the Foolish Games series.
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"Baby…remind me why we're doing this again?" Oz asked as he levered his drunken load higher on his arm.
Willow, on the other side answered: "Because it's my turn to Spike-sit?"
"I thought we had pretty much stopped that when he got a chip."
"Oh, um…" She broke off as her side of Spike began to slip. "Uh, because no one else really wanted to?"
"You'd think alcohol wouldn't effect vampires," Oz grunted. Even with his enhanced strength as a werewolf, Spike was a heavy lush.
"Oh but it does, mate," Spike said.
Frowning, Willow came to a halt. Oz didn't complain. "Hey, if you can talk, why can't you walk on your own?"
"Dunno, Luv, why can't I?"
Willow shook her head. "Oy."
"C'mon, baby," Oz said, taking more of Spike's weight onto himself. "Let's just get him in the van and to his crypt."
"You guys," Spike slurred, "you guys are just the best."
Willow attempted to make the crazy-sign one handed. "Yeah, we know."
Oz made a face as they trudged toward the van, doing his best to make Willow laugh.
"Stop that!"
Success! "Almost there," he mumbled.
"Great…" Spike said, "m'head's starting to hurt. I need a drink."
Willow made a sound of disgust. "Hey, that's what got you here in the first place, Mister!"
"Don't get me wrong, Luv…I've enjoyed it e-mense-- immenz-- i-mez--"
"Immensely?"
Spike tried to pat Willow only to slap Oz's face. "That's a girl."
Willow bit her lower lip and looked over at her boyfriend. You okay? she mouthed.
"Let's just say I'm glad we're here. C'mon, Spike, in ya go." Getting him in the van was easier than they'd thought it would be.
"He just kinda…rolls," Willow said, cocking her head in an attempt to look at Spike straight on. It wasn't working. Sighing she followed Oz into the front of the van.
Spike was snoring before they'd even gone a block. Despite his consistent sawing, Willow and Oz fell into a companionable silence. A warm night in Sunnydale with nothing trying to break into the van was a good one by Hellmouth standards, Willow thought as she let down her window. She didn't notice Oz stealing looks from the corner of his eyes. Her red hair swirled around her face in their manmade breeze, shining jewel-bright in the streetlamps.
"Are we here already?" Spike asked drunkenly.
"Yup, good old Shady Pines Cemetery," Willow answered as she and Oz climbed out of the van. "Do you think you can walk, Spike? I guess that's a yes," she said, watching him bound out of the side of the van.
"Yeah, Luv, I think I can--"
Oz was there in an impressive instant to catch him.
"Thanks, mate."
Willow frowned. "So…not sober yet." Oz shook his head in agreement. With a sigh, Willow came around to help her boyfriend with their undead dead-weight. "Someone owes us. They owe us big."
"The Dingoes are playing in Pasedena next week," Oz said, "…get Xander to take over the Spike-watch?"
"That sounds good. I mean—"
"Hey! I'm not a puppy!" Spike protested loudly, and almost without slurring. "I can bloody well take care of myself."
Willow rolled her eyes as she gave Spike's weight to Oz so she could shoulder open the door to Spike's crypt, then she went back and helped Oz drag him inside. "Couldn't we just toss him here?"
"Tempting." Oz caught her eyes over Spike's head.
"Don't you—"
Willow cut him off. "Oh give us some credit, Spike. We're the good guys, remember." They helped him down the short flight of stairs.
"Good to who?" he asked suggestively, waggling his dark brows.
Even before he felt a sudden shift in weight distribution, before the first fist could settle on one delicate hip or the Resolve face turned into the You Are So Getting It Buster! face, Oz was shooing Willow out of the crypt.
"But did you hear what he said to me! He…he insinuated."
"I know," Oz said as he gently maneuvered his girlfriend out of the crypt. "You wait in the van and I'll finish putting Spike to bed, okay?"
Throwing Spike one last glare, Willow agreed. "But don't think this is over you, you…you Bleached Wonder!"
"Hey!" Spike protested from the floor, having managed to slide down the pillar Oz had propped him against.
Oz almost had Willow out the crypt when she threw back, "Wait until I tell Buffy!"
"And what's Fluffy gonna do to me?"
"Something…something really really not nice!"
Although he couldn't see it, Oz mirrored Spike's incredulous look. "And I thought I was the one who was supposed to be three sheets out. You didn't slip the bird a toddy while I wasn't looking, did you?" he asked Oz.
"You aren't drunk."
Spike looked left. Looked right. Tried to follow the train of thought that had led to that particular conclusion with his finger and got cross-eyed. "Huh?"
"You're stone cold sober, Spike."
He made a rude noise. "And you came to this bloody brilliant conclusion based on what?"
"Werewolf, Spike. I can smell you."
The blond slapped his forehead. "Right! Keep forgettin' that." Spike rose from the floor bonelessly, like a marionette pulled on strings. "Most of the werewolves I've known were all about wreaking bloody havoc with their three-day Get Out of Sanity Free pass."
If Spike was expecting a rise out of Oz, he was sorely disappointed. "Ah well, guess the jig is up then."
"A little."
"So why'd you go with it for so long if you knew?"
"Why did you bother to pretend for so long?" Oz tossed back.
Spike shrugged. "Bored mostly. None of the other demons want to play now that I go after'em with you lot. Call me a poncy traitor. Well, no, only Yorn says that, but you get the drift."
Oz gave him a half-nod. "I figured the company couldn't hurt."
"Yeah well…I'd tell you to tell Willow I was sorry, but I wouldn't mean it."
"I understand."
"I may be chipped but it doesn't mean I'm not evil."
"I know," Oz said, turning to leave.
"Hey! You be good to her."
Oz pivoted on his heel. "Why do you care how I treat Willow?" Even putting the idea that he might purposely hurt Willow out into the air pained Oz, despite the nonchalance of his question.
"Red's been good to me. Or as good to a vampire as a human can be. Didn't rub it in when I couldn't bite her proper. Even let me have a second go which is more than most blokes in my situation can ask for."
"You mean a vampire."
"I mean a man. Period. Lovesick fools though we become, we spend most of our time being pure idiots trying to deny it. Red was better to me in those 10 minutes before she ran screaming down the hall than most of the women, vamp and human, mind, have been to me in a hundred and fifty years."
"She never told me she let you try again," Oz said more to himself than to Spike.
"Don't worry about it, mate," Spike said as he shrugged out of his leather duster. He felt around the pockets for a cigarette, tapped it, then stuck one between his lips. "That's just Red for you, always tryin' to make you feel better even when there's no better to feel." He lit the cigarette.
It was one of the reason Oz loved her.
"I told her then that I wouldn't've drained her. Wouldn't've killed her." Spike caught the cigarette between his fingers and blew out a long plume of smoke. "She's a keeper, that one is."
"I know."
"And I meant it when I said you be good to her."
"I will."
"Because if you don't, chip or no chip, I'll rip your bloody throat out." And from the casual way Spike said it, Oz was sure he meant it.
"No worries here, man." He left.
A cross in the face made him take a step back from the driver's side of the van. "Oh Oz! It's you."
"Yup."
"Is Spike okay."
Last Oz had seen Spike, the blond had been looking for a beer he thought he'd set beside the laz-y-boy chair earlier that evening. "He's fine."
"Good. Because he's…he's a turd. A toad. A-- Oh! What if I turned him into a toad? It's a classic. No one will mind. I bet Buffy will thank me…"
He let her babble on as they drove out of the cemetery and toward the dorm. Eventually they drifted back into the companionable silence that always seemed to be hovering around the edges of their relationship – ready to dissipate at a moment's notice but always welcoming. The world that was theirs alone.
"Oz?"
"Yeah, baby?"
"Is Spike really okay?"
"Yeah."
"Good. I know it's probably crazy but…I kinda worry about him."
Oz reached across, took Willow's hand and kissed it.
Fin(ite)
