Break It
I made up my life, how it was all going to work out, I mean. Pretty well it turns out. But I was supposed to marry Riley.
Supposed to.
God, I hate those words.
"What the hell, Riley? I'm not your fucking wife, you don't own me! I can do what I want, see what I want and I can sleep wherever the hell I want to!" Buffy screamed, flying off the couch in Riley's tiny apartment and flinging the pillow she'd been holding in her lap at the ground. "And if you think I'd do that to you than there's something wrong with this relationship!"
"I know his type of guy, Buffy, makes you think you're friends, then goes in for the kill," Riley spat back, and Buffy threw her head back and laughed, bitterly and almost hysterically.
"Yeah, Riley, when we were eleven and his mom introduced us it was all about the sex," she said, smoothly, almost calmly but with an edge to her voice that said she was about to lose it. She'd come over to Riley's giddy from spending a night and day with Spike and hoping to get some time with Riley before she went out with Willow, Spike and Xander for some quality bonding time. Then she was going to his second last gig at the Bronze (he'd somehow signed up for a third without knowing it, Buffy had chosen, wisely, not to ask), she'd been in a fantastic mood, but Riley had looked miserable. He'd pulled her to the couch and sat her down, and told her he didn't want her spending the night at Spike's again. That's when things had escalated to where they were now.
"You say that like you haven't been screwing him for years," Riley said, standing up and towering over her, if it came down to a fistfight (which it might have at this point, even if they had never fought before), he had the advantage, but in a screaming match, there was no point in competing with the incensed blonde.
"Screwing him?" Buffy said, incredulous, "where the hell did you get that idea?"
"You don't think I saw the way you looked at him last night up on stage?"
"I love him, Riley. He went with me through hell and back again a thousand times, that's not something that you go through without getting to care about someone. But I've never slept with him!" Buffy was angry now, the accusation, to anyone else, would have been reasonable, but to her it was outrageous.
"That doesn't mean you don't want to!" He yelled back. "And what have you been through with him that I can't understand?"
"How old were you when your mother died, Riley? What did you do when your father didn't realize you needed to be packed a school lunch every day? When your brother tried to kill you in your bed?" She snapped, "have any of those things ever happened to you? No."
"Tell me about them then- what you have with him, it's wrong and I can't stand for it."
"Then don't, Riley. Your life has been fine for all your teenaged angst and the exactly one time you tried a joint. Spike and I we've been through things no child should even know about, together. If it weren't for him, I wouldn't be alive today, do you understand that in any way? I care about you very much about you. But you will never understand that, never," Buffy turned away from him, they'd been standing the couch's width apart and screaming, but she spun to look away for a moment in the middle of her speech, and as she continued her ranting she lowered her voice and moving closer and closer to him, so that by the time she got to never, she was only inches away from him.
"Stop being so melodramatic, Buffy," he said, dismissing her. "It's weird that you two are friends, you clearly have nothing in common except some old tragedy you probably don't even really remember-"
"I was eleven, Riley, I remember every single minute I spent with my mother."
"Yeah, right. What is that, your tag? Your mother died, so you're special?" Riley had never been this inconsiderate before, Buffy would have dumped him on the spot if she'd even thought he had the potential. She was that picky, but now she was too deep into the argument to leave without having definitively won.
"What the hell do you know? You left before you could even get to know Spike, and, apparently, you decided that I am just a slave to lust."
"So you admit it that you want to?"
"No! Because I don't!" She didn't know when she'd gotten on the defensive, she was almost certain that when she'd started she'd been assaulting him. But then, by this point she was almost headed into rage blackout territory. Yes, people had assumed she and Spike were a couple. Yes, their parents and friends weren't so subtle in saying they could be. But damn it, he was her boyfriend, he was supposed to be the keeper guy! Oh, good, and now she was thisclose to tears.
It had kind of always been her plan, fool around a bit in high school, get adjusted to university for a couple years, and then meet Mr Right. So when she'd met Riley at the beginning of last year in her Psych class, she'd been thrilled. He was smart enough, in a stable career, conservative and looking for love.
Issue: She was smarter than him and she would never have made Mensa.
Issue: His stable career was boring and seemed to consume his life.
Issue: He was too conservative for her, she would never have classified herself as a raging liberal before
(that was Spike's job), but Riley was probably still working on accepting the wheel.
Issue: By 'love' he appeared to mean 'chastity belt model'.
But back to the issue at hand and not the problems she'd been trying to turn into blessings in their relationship. Which she was getting to feel might be ending. "Look, I can't trust you around a guy like him, Buffy." Riley said, reaching out to stroke a hand up and down her arm, something she was shocked to find she was more repulsed than comforted by. She ripped her arm away, with what she would realize a second later as she lost her balance and fell up against the wall, was far more force than was needed.
"I'm tired of you trying to reason with me, Riley," she said, pushing herself up off the wall and standing up to her full height. Buffy was one of those people who are, in inches and feet, short, but if you were in a room with her she had a presence that made you forget little things like that. And she was in fighting mode now. "It's my choice who I'm friends with and I chose William," she didn't even notice that she'd gone back to his given name, which she knew Spike hated, but hoped would have some sort of effect on Riley. Distract him from the rock-star Spike he'd met the night before and remind of the guy who'd spent three nights a week tutoring Buffy in English for a year.
"Yeah, well, if you're so goddamned determined to choose then choose me or William," Riley spat out, his anger getting the better of him. Buffy looked at him from where she was standing across the room.
"Riley, think about this, you're not this kind of person, or at least you never have been before. What's so special about Spike that's got you like this?" She asked, falling back on a habit of acting calm when her emotions were in turmoil. Suddenly, Buffy wasn't only angry, she was terrified and sad that it looked like her forever guy was melting away to reveal a brute that she'd never known was there.
"He wants you! Can't you see that? He's not your friend, Buffy. He doesn't want that… How stupid can you be?"
Buffy froze, about to open her mouth and try once more to calm him down, but before she could say anything, he pulled his arm back and there was only the sound of skin clapping against skin and Buffy hitting the floor. She reacted instantly and without thought, getting up, ripping the door open and running down the hall pulling out her cell phone.
"Spike, please, I need help."
When Spike came roaring into the parking lot ten minutes later in his infamous Desoto, Buffy was leaning against the grey cement wall, still shocked with a bruise forming all along her left cheekbone. Spike didn't even bother pulling the keys out of the car, just ripped out of the seat and stood in front of her.
"Riley?" He said, between gritted teeth and she nodded. Then she broke down, heavy sobs that physically hurt, shivering, snot, the whole ordeal. Spikes pulled her into his arms without any more words, his jaw noticeably clenched as he tried to sooth her. He was angry beyond belief, and his thoughts were along the general lines of beating Riley to a bloody pulp, but as the small (Spike would forever find Buffy surprisingly tiny) person in his arms convulsed again, he laid those feelings aside and concentrated on her.
"Was this the first time?" He asked, Buffy nodded.
"I… I never thought Riley… he didn't seem like he… he's so…" She stumbled over her words, sniffling and letting the tears fall freely down her face, the large black mascara tracks running from her lower eyelids down to her chin.
"'S'alright, love, you're going to be good. As for that bugger," Spike cut himself off before he got a chance to get into what he'd like to do to Riley. "He only hit you the once?"
"Yeah, I ran," she mumbled, "I just need ice. And I'll be fine."
"We're going to call the cops, Buffy." Spike said, "no matter how you are."
"Yeah."
"Let's get you home," he said, "I'll fix you up there. We'll get the boys in blue in, get you some food. Don't worry, I'll take care of you." He smiled and hugged her more tightly before letting her slide into the old-fashioned bench seat of his car and getting in after her, sliding his arm over her small, shaking shoulders.
"You're going to be fine."
"I-I know," she whispered, "just take care of me for a while?" Spike grinned, thankful to see her forming full sentences.
"It's what I'm here for, love." She smiled, faintly, but she smiled, maybe her 'stable' 'forever' guy hadn't turned out that way, but she still had Spike, would always have Spike. Then the moment ended and she remembered the look on Riley's face- contorted with something worse than rage- and her faint look crumbled back into tears, forcing Spike to pull over just outside the apartment building and wrap his arms around her until she stopped shaking.
OK, well, forced is a bit too strong a term. Spike was more than happy to hold Buffy in his arms for as long as was needed but seeing her cry… God, it was tearing him up into tiny shreds. He hated it when she cried. More, he'd thought until very recently, than anything else on the planet, or perhaps at least as much as he hated romantic comedies. But no, he hated Riley far, far more than he had ever hated seeing Buffy cry. And at this point he'd moved on from punching him to letting him drown in molten lava.
Spike was not the world's most peaceful man.
It was twenty-five minutes and three more roadside stops until Buffy and Spike got back to the Giles home. Buffy had known when he said 'home' that's where he meant, as kids, they'd gravitated to Spike's cozy, book-filled house as opposed to Buffy's white-and-beige dull mansion (there was no arguing the fact that that was what it was). And Giles had always (with a healthy dose of British humour and significant glasses-cleaning time) taken care of both of them, no matter how serious the problem. He would be able to handle this far more sensibly than either she or Spike.
Spike looked at her in the seat, where she was leaning against the window before speaking.
"Love, you feel up to walking to the house?"
"Spike, I'm not an invalid."
"You look like hell on wheels and that's going to be one nasty shiner, I'm trying to be nice," he spat back. Glad to see the fiery girl he knew returning, even if it was slow.
"I'll be fine, Spike, I just need a minute, alright?"
"Pet, it's me, be honest," Spike admonished her.
"You know I'm not eleven anymore, don't you?" Buffy asked and Spike grinned, having achieved his goal of getting her angry- it wasn't always pretty but it was damned effective in a pinch.
"Let's get in, alright? I was here when you called and Rupes is probably having a cow as we speak," he grinned at her as he got out of the car. She got out at the same time.
"Do we have to tell him what happened?" Buffy asked as she walked over to Spike, who was waiting in front of his ancient Desoto.
"Yes," he replied, sliding an arm around her waist.
"I told you I could walk."
"I missed you, and I'm worried about you. Aren't I allowed to worry?"
"Next you're going to set a curfew for me and pull out your dad's old STDs finger puppets," she teased, pulling away from him and poking him in the chest. The past half-hour had been a brief and unusual show of weakness, and as she moved closer to the Spike/Buffy bubble hitting the world at large and popping, Buffy pulled herself back together.
"Don't remind me…" Spike groaned, the elder Giles's sex talk had been painful and embarrassing, especially since Hank Summers had asked him to talk to Buffy at the same time. Also, they'd both been fourteen the first time Giles pulled it out and they'd known all the information then. Then he looked down at her, "no games, love."
"No games, I'm fine," she smiled at him weakly, but somehow, with the mascara streaks still on her face and the now vibrant bruise, it wasn't working out.
"Uh-huh," he said as they came to the porch and he slid the door open. "I'm home, Da, Ang. We got any ice packs?" he called out, coming into the front hall.
"Fridge, little blue packets," came an older English voice from somewhere in the back of the house. "Did you run into another fist, William?"
"It's Spike and no, Buffy did." Spike wanted Giles to know so Buffy couldn't rationalize her way out of telling the police, but he also didn't want to play it up. He was dancing a fine line but hoping to get the desired reaction out of both Giles (outrage and a long lecture) and Buffy (outrage and a nice call to the police).
"What?" Giles said, walking quickly down the small hall that divided the kitchen and his office from the front hall and living room, brushing off his glasses, "not yours, I'd hope."
"Should've shoved it into someone's face," Spike muttered, but no one heard him.
"It wasn't Will, can I have that ice pack?" Buffy asked, as Giles began to examine the bruise with the air of a former primary school teacher (three years before he'd moved on to university librarian, it had been hell).
"You'll need it, do you want some aspirin?" He asked, pulling her towards the kitchen.
"It would be nice. And can I use your phone?" Buffy asked, Spike smiled as he took off his duster and stuck it into the closet.
"You want me to stick around, Goldilocks?" Spike said, using his oldest, and favourite nickname for Buffy. If she told him to bug off, he would have said no and gone with her anyways, but if there was nothing else his father valued it was at least the pretence of manners.
"You don't mind?"
"I want to, as a matter of fact," he smiled at her. "Where's Angel?" he turned to his father. When he'd flown out of the house after Buffy's phone call, Angel and Giles had been sitting in the kitchen eating.
"He's in my office, I thought it might be best…" Giles trailed off.
"Yeah." Spike nodded and collapsed into one of the kitchen chairs that had remained, unchanged, since he could remember, horrible, flowered and pink. They contrasted with the earthy tones Giles had given the house in the massive redecoration that had begun three weeks after Anne had died and transformed the entire house. For some reason, though, Angel had been attached to the chairs, and Giles had made a small compromise, but they and the various pictures scattered throughout the house were the only reminders of Anne Giles's presence. Buffy sat, as she always had, in the one closest to the window, next to Spike.
"What happened to you Buffy?" Giles asked, bustling around getting her the ice pack. She looked to Spike but he shook his head at her. Spike had seen this happen to women before, though never one so close to him, and he knew that she had to tell Giles, had to hear what Riley had done coming out of her own mouth to believe it.
"Riley… he hit me," Buffy murmured, under her breathe as Giles handed her the dishcloth-wrapped ice pack. Spike, seeing that the tears were about to start, moved quickly to kneel in front of her, looking slightly ridiculous in his red dress shirt over all black kneeling in front of this little thing in pink and blue.
"You're not holding that right, pet," he said, reaching out his hand to apply it at the right angle. "'Fraid you'll still look like Marilyn Manson for a couple days at least though."
"He hit you? Will, did you know about this? Have you called the police?" Giles spluttered finally.
"She says it was the first time," Spike said, taking over as the tears, hidden by his hands holding the ice over her cheek, continued to fall silently. "And I believe her, we're going to as soon as she feels ready to talk to them. She'll be alright, won't you?"
"Fine," Buffy managed, "I'll be fine. Just give me a few…" She sighed heavily, "I'll be fine."
"Keep saying it and it might be true, too." Came a voice from a tall, dark man standing in a door off to one side.
"Now is not the time, Angel," Spike growled out from between his teeth. He knew, in theory, that the things his brother said weren't actually under Liam's (it was his real name- Liam Angelus, but he went by Angel) control, but they still managed to infuriate him.
"Probably deserved it, filthy girl."
"Liam," Spike ground out, "Rupes, can you?" he gestured behind him to his brother.
"Yes, yes, of course. Liam?" Giles pulled his eldest son towards the front hall and the staircase.
"You know he doesn't mean that, don't you?" Spike said, "and even if he did it's a load of bullshit, you didn't bring this on yourself, Goldie."
"I know, Spike. And… and thanks, for getting me and taking care of me," she smiled at him weakly.
"Always, it's me, innit?" Spike said, getting up and settling back down in his chair. "Didn't have anything better to do anyway." He grinned at her. "So, tonight, I'll call the gig, but what do you want to do?"
"No, you should do it, Spike. I mean, we should all go, you know, just be normal. I shouldn't let Riley just take over my whole life, right?"
"You sure?"
"Yeah, I mean, I'll get Willow and some major concealing action going on with this," she gestured towards her cheek, "and we'll have a good time. Just us."
"Sure, sounds good."
An hour and a half later Spike ushered a woman from the police force out the door and returned to Buffy, who had changed into one of his old shirts and was curled up on the worn brown leather couch with a
large, steaming mug of tea.
"You sure you're feeling up to going home, pet?" He asked, she had wanted to go home after talking to the officer to get ready for that night.
"Yeah, I'm sure," she smiled at him and pulled him down to sit beside her, Spike threw an arm around her shoulder, resisting the urge (once more) to wrap her up in his arms and tell her how much he loved her and never let anyone hurt her again.
"You've been great Spike, but you should spend time with Giles, he misses you when you're not here."
"I'm worried about you, Goldilocks. I should've…"
"William, not everything bad in the world is your fault. But, thank you again, you're the best friend I could ask for." She kissed his cheek as she got up to call Willow and make sure she'd have someone with her (she was feeling better and wanted Spike to be with his father, but not that much better).
"I can't just be your friend much longer, Goldie," Spike murmured, resting his head in his hands.
"Look; lock, bars, pepper spray, telephone, cell phone, cell phone, alarm system," Buffy said to her nervous best friend as he walked her to her dorm room door. "Now, go home."
"I'm worried about you pet, I just want to know you're taken care of," Buffy sighed, annoyed. Yes, this was incredibly sweet, but really, Spike could take his protective act a step to far sometimes. She hugged him as they got to her door and kissed his cheek again.
"Goodbye, Spike," Buffy said, pushing him away as she opened the door.
"I'll just come in a minute, OK?"
"Riley's not going to try anything," Buffy said, resting her hand on the doorknob, "he'll be reprimanded for this, informally, and he could lose his commission if he does anything like this again. Ever again, and I know this guy, he's not going to do anything that'll get him out."
"Look, Buffy, you didn't think he'd hit you, did you?" Spike said, and Buffy sighed and looked up at him, he had moved so there were only a few inches between them and she had nowhere to go but the door- it wasn't intimidation, it was protective.
"I'll be with Willow, I promise I won't even let her go to the washroom without taking me, and did you see the security guard at the door?" Buffy had calmed down, Spike, however was getting increasingly agitated. "Now go home, Spike."
"Are you sure, because if Riley-"
"Home, William."
"Yes, Ma'am," Spike said, and saluted, "but first I just want to make sure Red's in there."
"Then you'll go home?" Buffy asked, opening the door, "Hey, Will."
"Thought you said this was girly make up time?" Willow asked noticing Spike lurking in the doorway behind Buffy. "He wouldn't go home, would he?" She smiled as Buffy nodded then turned to Spike.
"Do you need to check anything else?" She pivoted and looked at the platinum blonde who was standing in the doorway of the girls room looking completely out of place amidst the stuffed animals, posters and throw pillows.
"You mind if I check your underwear drawer for weapons?" Spike said, cocking an eyebrow at her, Buffy walked over purposefully and swatted his chest before hugging him again. She wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her head on his firm chest, while Spike pulled one arm around her shoulders and the other around her waist, resting his cheek on her blonde curls. Willow, watching from where she was seated by the computer noticed the look in his eyes and smiled inwardly. Riley may have been a class-A jerk, but the man holding her closest friend in his arms was defiantly worthy and willing.
Now if only Buffy would see that.
"Go home!" Buffy commanded, releasing him and pushing him out the door. "I'll see you at nine-thirty."
"Take care of her, huh?" Spike said to Willow, who nodded before getting out of the swivel chair in front of the computer and turning to Buffy just as she door closed.
"Are you really OK?" Willow asked, Buffy pulled off her shoes and went to the closet to get a pair of sweatpants before she answered.
"I'm better, and Spike was freaking, so I figured I could go home and give him some time to relax," Buffy smiled, "melodrama makes him more annoying."
"Yeah, it kinda does. But he's just worried about you, y'know. I mean, it's sweet, isn't it? He's all knight in shining armour and you're just waiting to be rescued…"
"Yeah, and going with the mediaeval thing, he's going to put me in a garter belt after this," Buffy said, lying back on her bed after shimmying into her black sweats, keeping Spike's old concert-tee on. "Not that he'd be wrong… I have bad taste in men, don't I? I mean, it's like whenever I sleep with someone they turn to pure evil… Scott did that whole priest thing-"
"To be fair that probably wasn't your fault."
"Then Parker was just a total bastard-"
"You were the only one who didn't see that coming."
"Xander and I didn't have spark-"
"You didn't sleep with him."
"Andrew was very, very gay-"
"And without you he might not have learned that."
"OK, fine. And then Riley being a chauvinistic asshole is just the cherry on the cupcake of bad, bad, bad, bad boyfriends."
"What about the principal- the older guy, he didn't turn evil!" Willow objected.
"He was dating me because I reminded him of his mom, Will."
"Well, you can't always be wrong. Maybe next guy…"
"Ick, no more boys. None, a girl can't trust any man but her father… except have you met my father? A girl can't trust any man but Giles," Buffy crinkled her nose, "except, of course, Giles doesn't have man-parts. Right?"
"I think it's important that you believe that. And there is Spike, right? I mean, like I said, really sweet and he takes care of you."
"Yeah, but that's not a guy thing, that's just a Spike thing. I'm his Goldilocks, you know how he is." Willow sighed, maybe now wasn't the time to explain to Buffy that Spike had been head over heels in love with her for a long time.
"So, we still Bronzing it tonight?" Willow asked, "'cause, you know, shiner."
"Yeah, told Spike I wasn't going to let Riley take over my life- besides he promised he'd bring me up on stage sometime."
"Yeah, and the Dingoes are playing before Spike, so I'm supposed to go and be all roadie."
"It's only cool to date a guy in a band if you don't have to carry his amp around…"
"Oy!" Spike called, coming into his father's den and collapsing into the leather chair that he would forever associate with punishment (most parents ground their children, Giles sat his sons down opposite him at his desk and made them alphabetize while he lectured them).
"Did you get Buffy home?" Giles asked, raising his head from his book to look at his younger son.
"Safe as houses," Spike responded.
"So why are you twitching, exactly?"
"Worried about her, Rupes. Aren't you?" Spike said, running a hand through his slicked-back hair.
"Not as much as you and, besides, she can take care of herself. I'm just looking at a report Dr. Calendar gave me last week and," Giles trailed off. "She says he's getting worse, Will."
"I'm paying this woman that much money to tell me he's going crazier? Christ, Da, could've told you that myself." Spike said, pulling the sheet of paper away from his father and skimming it. "She recommends he be institutionalized."
"Don't sound so smug about it," Spike had always upheld that it wasn't safe for Angel and his father to live alone, that sooner or later someone was going to get hurt, Giles had fought back, saying that it was what Anne would have wanted. "I'm still not entirely sure that I should take her recommendation, perhaps a second opinion would be useful. Perhaps she's to close to us to understand fully…"
"Rupes, Jenny Calendar is one of the most highly respected doctors in this country, and she loves her job.
I now you two have been seeing each other- or at least thinking about it- but, what she says about Angel is true."
"He's never hurt anyone…"
"Do you want me to show you the scars, Da? He took a knife to me when we were kids, himself more times than I can count. Would have done the same to Willow last Christmas if I hadn't been there. I've been willing not to put up a fight about his living here while Jenny thought it was safe but I don't want either of you hurt."
"Look- that, there. You call her by her first name, far too close to trust her judgement!"
"Dad, this isn't safe for him, or you," Spike said, slowly, his voice getting lower and more accented as he got serious. "I know Mum wanted him to stay here, but when she was alive he wasn't half so dangerous as he is now. God, this house could be a deathtrap for both you. You keep a gun for Christ's sake!"
"For protection, it's never loaded."
"But there are bullets, and he knows where they are, hell, we found them before we came to bleeding Sunnydale," the Giles's had moved to Sunnydale shortly before Anne had been diagnosed.
"Look, William, I'll give you the gun tonight, dispose of it as you please, but this is his home. Will putting him in some hospital for the rest of his life make him calmer than being where he grew up?" Spike rested his head in his hands, propped up on the antique oak desk, and then raised it to look his father in the eye.
William and Rupert Giles looked nothing alike, and unless you knew you wouldn't think they were father and son, especially not since Spike had bleached his hair in high school. But looking at them now, both extremely determined and absolutely convinced they were right, the resemblance was clear.
"Your mother wanted us to keep the family together," Giles said to his son, "and I'm not going to let her down."
"I think she would also have liked to keep our heads attached to our bodies, Da. I know you don't want to talk about it, but Angel is dangerous to himself and you."
"I know, but Will-"
"I don't want to lose anyone else," Spike admitted quietly looking at his knees. He would never say it, never even really admit it to himself, but he loved his stuffy, stubborn father and he probably couldn't have taken losing him or Angel. Nor would Rupert Giles ever be able to quite admit how much his loud, annoying younger son meant to him.
"Oh, God, Will…" Giles said, repressing the urge to hold his son like a baby (however emotional, he didn't doubt for a second Spike would have hit him), "No."
"If you do this much longer someone's going to get hurt and none of us could take it if…" Spike pulled his head up and looked at her father, "Da, we barely survived losing Mum."
"I know, Will."
"No good can come of Angel staying here."
"I don't know about that… he's used to it and I'm-"
"Mum wanted what was best for him, and this is what it is." Spike waved the form from where it had been sitting on the desk. "When she was here Angel was just demented, he babbled, he cut me the one time, but if he got his hands on a gun in the wrong mood? God help us."
"I know. I said I'd give you the gun."
"Or a butter knife, or a rock," Spike said, "you'd have to live in a house made of marshmallows for this to be safe."
"That's an over exaggeration, William."
"It's not and you know it damn well."
"I can take care of my own son!" Giles said, slamming his fist down on the table, the compassionate mood of a few moments before dissipating visibly. Being replaced with both men's raw emotions. Blood and loyalty probably meant more to both of them than it should have, and they were both displaying that very clearly at the moment.
"I'm not saying you can't. I'm just saying other people might be better at it. People who are professionally trained to help people like Angel, Da."
"He's my son for Christ's sake, William! I love him and I don't want to fail him!"
"You wouldn't fail him, you'd be helping him. Please, see some sense about this. Mum couldn't tell the
future, she asked you to do what she thought was right, and it isn't right anymore."
"I promised her, Will."
"It was ten bloody years ago, and there's a good chance she was sodding delusional!"
"And there's just as good a chance she meant it!"
"She's still dead, Da, even if you do keep your promises!"
"And I still love her even if she's dead!"
"And the rest of us don't? Da, I know you loved her, I know how amazing she was… God, she was my mum, wasn't she? But she's gone and you're the only parent we've got left, and right now, Angel needs your mind to be clear." Spike said, calming down after his father's last words and looking at him evenly in the eye.
"Alright, I'll get the pamphlets from Jenny when we go in tomorrow, and we can look over them. I don't know if I can afford-"
"On me, Da, it's family. And while you're down there anyway, why don't you ask that chit out on a date already… can't go that badly. Though, you've got to remember that thing I told you about girls and the oper-"
"I am still the bloody adult here!"
"Uh-huh. So, like I was saying…"
Buffy smiled as she heard the knock on her door, wincing as she moved the muscles beneath her bruise, it was early yet for Spike, but she and Willow had both known he wouldn't be able to leave her alone for as long as he'd said he was going to.
"Hey," she said as she opened up the door, "admire the make-up magic."
"Very pretty, pet. I hope you never have to do it again. Where's Red?"
"Getting ready, what's up with you?"
"Nothing."
"You're all bad-moody."
"I'm fine."
"So, what'd you and Giles fight about?" Buffy asked, he was her best friend and she had been there when he was a teenager- he and his father simply didn't get along. Ever. They loved each other but they just didn't 'mesh'.
"Angel, and how'd you know?"
"I know you, Spike, who won?"
"Think I did, but it's nothing to be happy about, he's going to look into… for Angel… I mean."
"Homes," Buffy supplemented for him.
"Not bloody homes, they'll never be homes…"
"I know," Buffy said, not knowing that was going to become the keyword of the next twenty minutes.
"When's Red going to be back?"
"Twenty minutes, you're early."
"Can we talk?"
I, personally, think there's a fair few ways we could make this a more interesting story, starting with history. Let me tell you something, you're probably thinking that in all the years Buffy and I were friends there had to have been one kiss- in fact, it wouldn't be all that surprising if we'd lost our virginity to each other on prom night.
Pffut.
I'd never even kissed Buffy (wasn't for lack of thinking of it) anywhere else but the cheek, top of her head and hand. I loved her, even then, but we'd never done anything that would make anyone think we were anything more than platonic.
How's that for back-story?
Like I said, bloody boring.
