A/N: Well, here's the surprise. And Faeries Twilight, I was more than a bit confused by your review, but you gave me an even better idea to tack on to the original one. –lol- So thank you very much! Thanks to everyone else who reviewed: Krista, Jessica, Carla-p, Reesa, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Sarah, and EMBER91. It's very appreciated. There's a scene this chappy that I can't take credit for. It's from Say Anything I never saw the movie, but it's such a classic scene, and I had to use it. Finally, I know time passes really fast from afternoon to night here, but I wanted something to happen and realized it couldn't really unless it was night. Logically, if Spike's there it could, but… eh. Well, here you go!
Chapter 4: Unexpected Surprises
Here I walk down the avenue
looking at the pretty view
maybe there's a reason
I got my eyes on you
There you go like a movie star
How I wonder who you are
Listen, babe, do you believe when I say?
Buffy laughed at Spike as he tried to get her to agree that British football was better than American football.
"You don't even really need to use your feet!" he said. "Not like in real football. Or 'soccer' as you Americans call it," he mocked.
Buffy shook her head and was about to say something when the door suddenly opened on its own.
"Dad?" she said, utterly shocked, when she saw the man who had opened the door.
"Honey, you're home early," her dad said. "I was just going out to the office soon, though," Hank said before noticing his daughter's current company.
"I'm glad I caught you. Who's this?" he asked, glaring disapprovingly at Spike.
"Oh, this is my friend, Spike, dad," Buffy explained, hoping her dad wouldn't ask too much.
"Spike?" Hank said with disdain.
"Buffy opened her mouth to defend him, while Spike opened his to protest; however, both of them were stopped short by the voice of another.
"Hank? Who is it?" a woman's voice floated down the stairs. Hank's eyes widened as he spun around.
Buffy's jaw dropped as she saw the blonde walking down her staircase in her home in nothing but one of her dad's button-up brown dress shirts.
"Oh!" Anya exclaimed when she saw Buffy and Spike. "Hello. I'm Anya," she perkily informed them. Buffy took in this woman's, this Anya's, lack of clothes and bed hair and the lipstick staining one side of her mouth. She couldn't believe it. She simply couldn't believe it. Glaring at her dad, Buffy turned on her heel and left.
Spike looked from Hank, to Anya, to Buffy who was turning from the front walk onto the street. He didn't look back once as he ran after Buffy.
You the kind of man
walking out of my dreams
straight into my life (I wanna sing hallelujah)
Ain't nothing in the whole wide world
I wouldn't do for you,
I wanna say yes to ya
"Buffy? Pet, what's wrong?" he asked as he caught up with her, falling into step beside her. This was definitely not part of the plan.
Buffy just kept walking.
"Love, talk to me," Spike requested gently. He supposed he'd have to wing it from here on out. Hopefully he could manage that without mucking things up too badly.
Spike was about to say something again when Buffy sighed.
"Forgot he was coming home," she muttered sadly. "Otherwise I probably wouldn't have gone there."
Spike looked at her curiously. "Why's that, pet?"
"Don't really want to see any of his skanks," she responded sourly.
Spike's eyebrow rose. "He do this often?"
"Kinda," Buffy said. "I don't normally find out directly like this, but yeah. I get the feeling that some of his 'business' trips aren't all that business-y."
They continued walking in silence, Spike simply following Buffy's lead. He was thankful the sun was almost down though. He was just as thankful that the day had stayed overcast.
Just as that thought ran through his mind, rain started to fall. Spike squinted as he looked up at the sky. He stopped walking and looked down at Buffy. She was still walking ahead of him.
"Love?" he called as he caught up to her. "Shouldn't we get you home or summat? Out of the rain and what all?"
Buffy shrugged. "Don't really want to go home. Nowhere else to go though," she said.
Spike wasn't sure he had a response to that. This doing things on his own was turning out rather hard with the new turn of events. Luckily, Spike was saved from having to say anything about it at all.
Three vamps-- fledglings most likely if they didn't realize Spike was a vampire, too-- flew out of the bushes, attempting to attack Spike and Buffy.
Spike grabbed Buffy and pulled her out of the way of a vamp's fist on its way to her face as he dodged a right hook aimed at him. Buffy screamed as Spike pushed her further away from the vamps. Turning to face them, he let out a menacing growl. The vamps' eyes widened as the started to back up.
"Woah, man. Sorry. Didn't know you were a vamp, too. Thought it was free dinner, y'know?" one guy said nervously. Spike's eyes narrowed.
Buffy's eyes were practically bulging out of her head as she stared at their faces. They were contorted to unnatural appearances. And their eyes… Their eyes glowed a sickening yellow. As Buffy tried to figure out what was wrong with their faces, their words clicked into her brain. Vampires? But those weren't real, right? And he had said something else important… Something about Spike… Spike was a vampire. Wait, Spike was a vampire! Vampires were real. Spike was a vampire. Buffy started to panic, taking a step back as her breathing sped up.
Spike growled once more and the other three vamps scurried off into the pouring darkness of the night. He turned to face Buffy and saw her eyes widen to an impossible amount. Puzzled, he was about to ask her what was wrong when he realized what it was. Now Spike's eyes widened as he changed his face back to its human guise. Looked like he had messed up after all.
"Y-You're, you're a, a v-v-vampire!" Buffy stuttered as she pointed a shaky finger at him in shock.
Spike looked at her. "Well, yeah," he said slowly. "Hadn't really meant for you to find out quite like this, or this soon, but yeah. S'what I am."
Buffy gasped. Some part of her had been hoping it wasn't true. That there was some logical-- insane, but logical-- reason his face had done what it did. But he certainly wasn't telling her anything close to that.
Without another word, Buffy spun around and raced off into the night, hoping against hope Spike wouldn't try to follow her. She didn't stop running until she got to her home, and even then she raced up the stairs to her room and dived into her bed, huddling under the blankets in complete terror.
Buffy tried to calm the shaking that had taken over her entire body. Her teeth chattered loudly, filling the silence that stretched throughout the house. Her mind raced, trying to remember everything she could about vampires from books and movies. Garlic! She had garlic in the kitchen.
Shakily, Buffy slowly stuck one foot out of her bed, lowering it gently until her toes felt the soft carpet beneath them. Her other foot followed, and she headed towards her door. She paused at her jewelry box to grab every cross necklace she owned, a grand total of four. She put every one of them around her neck.
As she crept down to the kitchen, Buffy wished that her dad were still home. As much as she hated him, she would still feel safer if he was there. Hell, she'd feel safer with that blonde ditz, Anya, in the house with her.
Fifteen minutes later, Buffy was sitting in her bed again. A large knife from the kitchen was on her nightstand and other crosses from throughout the house and cloves of garlic were scattered on the mattress around her. A circle of salt surrounded her bed and had been poured onto her windowsill and the along the bottom of her bedroom door. Buffy's knees were curled up to her chest, and she clutched them and Mr. Gordo to her chest desperately. Every noise sent Buffy reaching for one of the crosses hanging around her neck. She really wished there was more garlic in the house than the small amount they had.
So crazy am I, crazy
'bout you
How crazy are you?
So crazy am I, crazy 'bout you
how crazy are you, are you
Crazy 'bout me?
Thoughts raced through Buffy's mind so fast she was barely able to register one before another rushed in. She didn't even know Spike's real name. How stupid was she? She had just blindly trusted him with no real worries of what could happen. Here she'd been worried that he would stab her or slit her throat, maybe rape her, not try and drink her blood. When they'd had dinner the fist night, she had started to trust Spike. She had been able to talk to him so easily, but now that she thought about it all that talking had been mostly him asking questions about her life. Buffy couldn't believe just how desperate for companionship she had been.
"How crazy are you?" she murmured to herself.
Heaving a heavy sigh, Buffy looked at her clock. It was only ten. She had a long way to go until dawn.
"Dawn!" Spike yelled as he walked into her hotel room. Dawn had given him a key card the night before so he could drop by, but she hadn't expected him that night.
"Spike! What's wrong?" she asked when she saw the look of anger on his face.
"Everything!" he growled as he threw himself down on the couch of her suite.
"Did it not work?" she asked about the plan she had helped him devise the previous night.
Spike ran a hand over his face as he sat up. "It was goin' fine! I got her outta school, and-"
Dawn cut him off. "Out of school?"
"Well, I was getting' impatient, and it was overcast, so I thought it would be all right," Spike said.
Dawn shook her head. "You moron. You could've gotten dusted if the clouds cleared up!" she scolded him.
Spike shrugged. "I live on the edge," he told her with a smirk.
Dawn laughed. "So, you got her," she prompted him to continue.
"Well, then I told her we'd go wherever she wanted. Ended up in a graveyard meetin' her mum's grave," Spike frowned. That had certainly answered his question about where Buffy's mother was. "After that we decided to see a movie, and the theatre was closed so we went to her house. When we got there, things started to get messed up. Turns out, her da had been due back, so he was there with some bloody bint. Buffy ran off, I went with her, and it started to rain. Then things got even soddin' worse!" Spike's voice rose, as did he, beginning to pace in front of the couch Dawn had also sat down on.
"Some bloody fledglings tried to attack us. I pushed Buffy out of the way; scared the pillocks off, but then I let her see my face. End of story was her runnin' away from the big, bad vampire," Spike finished as he sat back on the couch. He began picking at a loose thread in the arm of the couch.
Dawn shook her head. "Yeah, that definitely messed up the plan. I only told you to watch a movie with her and try to get a kiss. Telling her you're a vampire was so not part, yet."
"You're bloody well telling me," Spike said.
"Well, I guess we just have to fix this then," Dawn said.
"Don't think we can, bit," Spike told her. "You didn't see how scared the chit was."
"So? You've done nothing else to scare her, right? Well, besides stalk her," Dawn furrowed her brow as she thought about the situation. "Well, you got any ideas?" Dawn asked.
"Yeah, hunt down those bastards and stake every one of 'em, then get piss drunk and kill Buffy," Spike said before letting his head fall onto the back of the couch and his hand fall over the edge.
Dawn shrugged. "It could work," she replied nonchalantly. "Would get rid of the problem. Why don't you go do that, then? She all ready invited you in, didn't she?"
"Yeah," Spike said.
"So?"
"So no.'
"No?"
"No."
"Why no?"
"I don't soddin' know," Spike said, frustrated.
"Can't even think of one good reason? Hell, a bad reason?" Dawn asked.
Spike thought for a moment. "She's not ready. Not done with her, yet," he said.
Dawn raised an eyebrow. "Ok. So let's fix this," she repeated her earlier suggestion.
"Again with the how, love," Spike lifted his head up as he resumed picked at the couch thread.
Dawn sat quietly for a few minutes, immersed in thought. Spike grabbed the remote off the table in front of them and turned on the TV. He started flipping channels. Dawn barely registered what was flicking past on the screen, but something caught her attention.
"Wait!" she cried, leaning forward. "Go back, go back!" she waved her hand at him. Spike flicked up a channel or two to see some guy holding a radio over his head on the screen. Looking over at Dawn he saw a grin on her face.
"Oh, no!" he started. "I am not doing that!" he said.
"Oh, come on, Spike! It would be so cute! And it would totally get any girl to talk to you again! Well, any human girl. A vamp would probably eat you. Unless the song wasn't really a song so much as a recording of people screaming painfully as they died," she looked thoughtful. "But for Buffy, we just have to find a nice song! You know what kind of music she likes?" Dawn cocked her head to the side as she stared at Spike intently.
Spike ran his hand through his hair. It looked like he was doing this after all.
Spike cursed beneath his breath. He couldn't believe Dawn had convinced him to do this. The stereo he carried in one hand repeatedly banged against his leg. He growled in annoyance. He was about ready to hurl the thing across the street. The pocket of his duster on his other side was heavy, as was the bag in his other hand. Stopping on Buffy's lawn, Spike looked up at her window. It was nearly midnight. He was probably going to wake a lot of her neighbors. That thought cheered him up some. Just hopefully they wouldn't call the police or anything. Spike didn't want any interruptions if he had to do this. With another curse, Spike set down the bag and stereo. He reached into the not-so-heavy pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and his lighter. He took a long drag to calm his nerves. Tonight had been a long night, and he hoped that after this he could just grab a bite to eat on the way back to his crypt, and then sleep until sunset the next day.
With a final pull on his cigarette, he clicked it to the ground and bent down to pick up the radio once again. He frowned at it. He felt like such a bloody poofter for this. Oh well. If he wanted Buffy to not be so terrified of him, he supposed he had to do something, and this was as good as anything else.
Buffy opened her eyes. She was curled into the smallest ball possible with a phone, a cross, and Mr. Gordo in her arms. Definitely not the most comfortable position to fall asleep in. She wondered what had woken her up. She sat up, holding on to Mr. Gordo just a little bit tighter. She heard music. Getting out of her bed, she let the phone and cross fall from her grasp as she went over to her window. She slid it up and poked her head out to be greeted with possibly the weirdest thing she'd ever seen.
There stood Spike, radio lifted over his head as he stared up at her from his spot on the ground. She giggled as she recognized the classic scene. She leaned against the windowsill watching him, fear forgotten at the cute display in front of her. She smiled. Spike smiled back at her.
Been a while since I felt this strong
This time it just can't be wrong
Baby, you're the reason
I been waiting for so long
I reach out for you hands
Hey babe, there's no second chance
Trust me darling
Do you believe when I say?
Suddenly, Buffy noticed her neighbor's lights turn on. Her eyes widened, and she looked down at Spike again.
"Spike!" she hissed. "Turn it off! You're gunna wake up all my neighbors!"
"Don't care, love," he smirked.
"Well, I do!" she told him angrily. She tried not to listen to the song, tried to ignore it when it asked if she was crazy. She struggled desperately to remember how scared of him she'd been, how mad at herself she'd been.
Spike flipped the switch to turn off the radio and set it down on the ground again. In a flash, he was on the tree branch right across from her.
"But soft; what light through yonder window breaks? It is the East, and Juliet is the sun! Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, who is already sick and pale with grief that thou her maid art far more fair than she," Spike smirked at Buffy.
Buffy's breath caught in her throat. She remembered the first night she had seen him. He really was making this hard. She swallowed the lump in her throat.
"You're a vampire," she stated as she took a step back.
"So we've clarified, pet," he grinned at her, his eyes dancing with amusement.
"So you kill people," Buffy took another step back. Spike noticed she was wearing what she had been wearing all day.
"You drink their blood," Buffy said.
"That I do, pet. 'S either I do that, or die," he raised an eyebrow as he answered her. Buffy paused. She wasn't sure what she'd been expecting, but it hadn't been the straightforward responses he was giving her now. She realized what she had been expecting was for him to kill her.
"You going to kill me now?" she asked.
Spike cocked his head to the side, staring at her. Buffy felt a shiver run up her spine. It felt as though he was staring right into and through her.
"No," he said. Something so simple as that, just little one word, and she wanted to trust him again.
I climb the rocky mountains
I swim the deepest sea (I wanna sing hallelujah)
I said there's nothing that I wouldn't do for you
I wanna say yes to ya
Spike reached into his pocket and pulled something out. He held it out towards Buffy. Buffy gasped when she saw it.
"It's so cute!" she exclaimed as she saw the kitten Spike held up by the scruff of its neck.
It mewled at her.
"Awww!" Buffy's eyes were glued to the tiny, black ball of fluff hanging before her. She stepped forward again and reached out, taking the kitten from Spike. She cuddled it to her chest.
"It's adorable! Aren't you just the cutest little thing?" she asked the kitten. It mewled at her again. Buffy's smile lit up her face.
"I have some things for it, too, if you want," Spike told her. Buffy raised her gaze to meet his eyes again. It was her turn to stare at him. Spike shifted uncomfortably under her intense gaze.
"Ok," she finally said after what seemed like an eternity to Spike. "I'll go down to the back door," she said before she turned around and walked out of her room. Spike watched her leave. He took a quick glance around her room, taking a closer look while he was there. He smirked when he saw the crosses and garlic covering her bed. With a chuckle, he dropped down to the ground and picked up the bag before swaggering around to the back door.
Buffy was on the porch, the kitten still in her arms. Spike stood before her, not quite sure what to do now. Dawn hadn't told him anything beyond giving Buffy the kitten.
"Is it a boy or a girl?" Buffy turned her eyes to him once again.
"What?" he asked, caught off guard.
"The kitten. Is it a boy or a girl?" Buffy repeated.
"Uh, I'm not sure," Spike said. When playing poker, you didn't really think to find out the gender of your winnings.
"Oh," Buffy's face fell. "That's ok, I can find out tomorrow, and then I can name you!" she told the kitten. "Or maybe I can name you something that works for boys and girls?" she quirked an eyebrow before shrugging. She looked at Spike once again, then down at the bag in his hands. Buffy took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
"Spike?"
"Yeah, pet?" he asked her.
"Did you, um, did you want to come in?" Buffy really needed to get over this stuttering thing. Spike smiled.
"Love to, pet," he smirked before following her inside.
"This doesn't mean that anytime something happens you can just play the radio in the middle of the night and buy me a kitten. And this doesn't mean that things are ok. I mean, you're a stalker vampire," she said as she led the way to the living room and settled on the couch, kitten in her lap. Spike left the bag on the kitchen counter before following.
He chuckled as he sat down near her, leaving a couple feet of space between them.
"Course, love," he agreed absentmindedly as the fur ball waddled over to him. He scratched its head before letting his hand fall to his side again. As the kitten waddled back over to Buffy once again, Spike got an eyeball of something he didn't think he'd ever really cared to see.
"Hey, love? Pretty sure it's a boy," he told her.
"Really?" Buffy asked eagerly. Spike nodded. Buffy's head tilted to the side once again as she watched Spike.
"What's your name?" she asked. Spike looked at her confused.
"Spike," he said slowly.
"No, I mean your real name. I don't know anything about you. Where you're from, how old you are, your favorite color, or anything. Including you name," she explained.
Spike smirked. "London, 127, red, and William," he replied. Buffy stared at him in amazement. She had known he was a bit old than her, but she hadn't been expecting him to be over a century older than her.
Slowly, she smiled. "Then I'll call him William," she said. Spike smiled back.
"Don't much care for the name, but it'll do for him," he said as he watched the kitten curl up on Buffy's lap and start purring.
Buffy looked at the little kitten, too. "I like it. He seems like a William," she said with a grin. She looked up to find Spike staring at her. She blushed and looked at William again as she pet his sleek coat.
One plan had backfired, but this one seemed to be working out like he'd wanted. Spike smirked. It was only a matter of time before things got really interesting now.
A/N: Wow, that was long! Went a bit further than I'd planned, but Buffy seemed to want to invite Spike inside. –lol- The song was "How Crazy Are You?" by Meja. I like to get story titles from songs, and I thought the lyrics worked so that's the song I chose for this story. Whatever it sounds like is just as much of a mystery to me as any of you, though! –lol- What Spike first says to Buffy while he's in the tree is from Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet. Hope you enjoyed this chapter, and remember to review, please!
