Disclaimer: These characters belong to Joss Whedon, and Mutant Enemy, and were made flesh by the actors that gave them life. I borrow them here out of reverence, with respect and for fun, not profit.
Chapter Five - Patrol
Much later, after Buffy found the ace of hearts in the cuff of Spike's shirt, they agreed to call the tournament a draw. Then, after an unsuccessful attempt to find anything they could both agree on to watch on the TV, Spike suggested a quick patrol.
"We've been cooped up in here, and I reckon we both need to let off steam a bit. You game?"
"How's the knee?" Buffy asked, remembering how badly damaged it had been.
"Good as new, thanks to a certain slayer I know!" and he winked at her conspiratorially. "So, you up for a quick circuit of the cemetery?"
In truth, Buffy desperately wanted to get back to the routine of a good old-fashioned patrol although she was nervous about leaving the haven of Spike's crypt. But she couldn't bring herself to admit that so she nodded in agreement and the unlikely tag team headed out into the cemetery.
Within half an hour three fledglings had appeared. One was dressed in blue overalls like a motor mechanic and Buffy briefly wondered who he had pissed off so badly to get buried in his work clothes. The other two were dressed in smart formal dress suits, but as one was tall and slender and the other was shorter than Buffy and rather rotund, the overall effect was comical rather than elegant.
Buffy and Spike leapt, almost joyously, into the attack, he springing to the left, she to the right.
Spike slipped into his game face as he reached the taller fledgling, causing the newly risen vampire to hesitate, not understanding why another vampire should be attacking him. This was all Spike needed to bring the fledging to the ground with a fist to the face, followed by a knee to the same spot as the vampire crumpled. A kick, this time to the ribs caused a howl of pain from the floored vampire as he struggled to move away from Spike's steel toe-capped Doc Martens.
Meanwhile, Buffy had jumped towards the shortest vampire, kicking him hard in his gut, as she connected her fist to his jaw with the full force of her slayer powers, causing him to slump to the floor with a gasp that sounded like he was winded, had he been breathing.
"Take a seat," Buffy called over to the mechanic as she focused on the prone demon in front of her, "We'll be with you as soon as we've seen to Laurel and Hardy here."
The mechanic, caught between these two dervishes, looked in vain for an escape route, and seeing none, he decided the girl was an easier target than a vamped out psycho. He dove forward intending to grab Buffy's legs to bring her down. But Buffy had seen him. Just before he made contact she leapt again, rolling her eyes, mumbling, "Impatient much?" and bringing one booted foot to crack the short vampire's ribs, turning in mid air to bring her other boot smacking down on the mechanic's skull. Whilst the outcome was violent and sickening, the execution was fluid and controlled with all the grace and beauty of a well-choreographed dance.
Spike had wanted more action from his fledgling but when it was obvious that all he was going to do was whimper and try to crawl away, he lost patience and pulled out a stake, plunging it through his back and into his heart. Without waiting for the dust to settle Spike had turned, knowing instinctively where his opponents and his ally were, and leapt onto the sprawling mechanic, wrenching his head off with a satisfying ripping sound, at the exact same moment that Buffy drove her stake into the crouching form of the short fledgling.
"Awww," moaned Buffy as the dust drifted to their feet. "That was no fun. They didn't want to fight back."
"Fledglings rarely give a good fight," Spike reflected, "Too new to know how to handle themselves. Com'on, the night is yet young."
They walked amiably in silence, hoping to find something worthy of their skills and expertise.
Suddenly, Spike reached out, grabbing Buffy's upper arm and signalling to her to be quiet. Pulling her against the side wall of a family tomb, he whispered, so only she could hear, "Demon ahead," and inclined his head in the direction of the front of the tomb they were sheltering against. Buffy nodded her understanding.
Buffy motioned Spike to circle round the back of the tomb and indicated that she would move forward on her side. Spike gave her a brief nod of agreement and disappeared round the back of the tomb.
Buffy stepped away from the tomb wall and sauntered to the clearing by the tomb entrance. As she rounded the corner she stopped abruptly to face a well-built, seven-foot tall purple (purple?) demon with scales and a tail, looking for all the world like a large children's stuffed dinosaur or dragon.
'Barney?' Buffy thought to herself. To the dragon she said, "Hey, one dragon, one maiden, all we need is a handsome prince and we've got ourselves a fairytale!"
The dragon gave no indication of understanding anything other than 'me dragon, you food', and moved aggressively towards Buffy snarling and slashing the air with its front talons.
"How rude!" Buffy complained, as she scissor-kicked to the side of the dragon's drooling jaw. The kick appeared to have no effect other than to make the dragon more agitated. Buffy swung her fists to pound, one-two, to the side of its temple, but found herself yelping in pain as her fists met scaly flesh with the strength of hardened steel plates. Another kick, this time to its belly, all the while dodging its flailing talons, resulted in sore toes for Buffy, "Aww, my boots are all scuffed!" and an even angrier foe.
As Buffy prepared for another attack, Spike came around the far side of the tomb and launched himself at the back of the dragon to deliver a deadly head twist.
"Hey, the handsome prince has arrived!" Buffy quipped, as she tried to thrust her stake towards the dragon's chest while it was distracted by Spike, who was smirking at having just been called 'handsome' by the Slayer. Buffy's stake hit its mark but the steel-plated skin didn't even give, sending the stake flying out of Buffy's hand with the force of her attack.
Spike's assault was no more successful, thwarted as it was by the dragon's powerful neck muscles and razor-sharp spiny dorsal plates that ran down the length of its backbone. He could only pound the side of its head with his fist before dropping to the ground and dodging its lashing tail.
Spike's shout of "Toes!" caused Buffy to jump sideways just as the creature raised its left foot to slice Buffy with its rear claws, balancing, as it did so, on its right foot and tail. Spike drew a knife from down the side of his Doc Martens and gouged a dorsal plate from its tail that was pressed flat to the floor. Green goo seeped from the wound and the bottom edge of the plate that Spike was now holding. The dragon snarled more deeply and bought its left foot down as it tried to turn towards Spike.
"Buffy!" Spike yelled as he threw the dripping plate to her. She caught it wielding it like a large razor blade. "Go for its throat!" yelled Spike again, as he ducked back to avoid the wounded tail that was whipping towards him.
As the creature was still turning to face the assailant responsible for the damage to its tail, Buffy shot forward and slashed the sharp dorsal plate across the dragon's throat, nearly decapitating it. The beast began to fall backwards when there was an audible 'pop' and the dragon disappeared, including the part of its tail that Buffy had been holding.
Stunned, Buffy looked at the empty space in front of her. "That shouldn't happen. Demons don't dust."
"Din't dust. Wasn't yer average demon, luv," Spike informed her. Must 'ave been some kinda creature from another dimension. Killing it just sent it back to its own dimension. Sorta dimensional balance thingy."
"Oh!" was all Buffy could think to say.
"Think it may have somethin' to do with Glory meddlin' with dimensions. What next, the Cookie Monster?"
"Aww, that dates you!" sniggered Buffy, eager not to dwell on the "G" being.
"Never denied me age, pet., but perhaps I should have said 'Teletubby' so's kiddies like you would understand the reference."
"Oi, I'm not a kid, you … you … pensioner you!"
"Ouch, that hurt," Spike laughed.
As they continued their patrol scanning the cemetery for potential combatants, they chatted quietly about music they liked. Spike told Buffy how he had attended the premiere of Stravinsky's 'Rite of Spring' in Paris in 1913 and how the audience had rioted. Buffy had never heard of the piece but was suitably impressed at the idea of a riot.
Spike entertained her with tales of jitterbugging, boogie-woogie and early rock 'n' roll. He fondly recalled feeding frenzies during Beatlemania and rich pickings at open-air concerts. He admitted to being a bit vague about the late sixties due to the acid-doped blood he had indulged in. He spat at the memory of glam rock and mumbled something about bands getting to big for their boots.
Buffy told Spike how she had asked her mother if she could go to a rock concert in LA which her father had offered to pay for (because he couldn't make it to take her to the ice show on her birthday) and her mother had flipped and refused to let her go. Buffy rolled her eyes and complained that she could put her life on the line each night fighting vampires and demons, but clearly the evils of a rock concert were far greater.
Spike agreed saying he'd had the misfortune of seeing Billy Joel in concert ("Peaches insisted") and that was worse than evil. He wasn't complimentary about 'Queen' either. Buffy protested, but Spike insisted that when he'd seen 'Queen' in Dublin in 1980, the supporting act, the London band 'Squeeze', were far better and the concert-goers had left the stadium singing the 'Squeeze' numbers, rather than the 'Queen' repertoire.
"Mind you, you'd go a long way to beat the original Ultravox line-up at the Marquee. Bloody raw power leapt off John Foxx. Course, best bloody band I ever saw, after the Pistols and the Ramones, was U2, before they made it big. They went downhill after Red Rock."
Buffy couldn't keep up with Spike's encyclopaedic knowledge of modern music ('modern' as in anything since the 1920's) so she turned the conversation to a discussion of movies they had enjoyed. Bizarrely, they discovered that they both liked 'Reservoir Dogs', 'Pulp Fiction' and the 'Terminator' movies, Spike commenting with conviction that, "Sarah Connor's some feisty bird". Buffy was exceedingly grateful that Spike loathed Star Wars, because she had been bored rigid by Xander going on about Darth this and Chew that, or whatever.
Spike made Buffy promise that she would watch 'Name of the Rose' when she next had the chance because he said it was a well crafted, well acted, intelligent film that deserved better recognition. Buffy wondered if that was Spike-speak for boring but made a mental note to rent the video anyway. Spike also told her that his small part in 'Nosferatu' had never made it to the finished movie having ended up on the cutting room floor, but Buffy was convinced he was pulling her leg.
During the next couple of hours they only saw two more fledglings, which they dusted with ease, but they were both enjoying each other's company as they wandered in and out of the headstones and mausoleums, having stayed out much longer than they had intended. Neither mentioned the kiss they had shared back in Spike's crypt, both needing time to understand what it had meant to them, if anything.
At length, Spike, with an eye for the coming dawn, suggested, "Com'on, luv, how about we head back now? We won't find anything more to dust at this hour. D'you fancy some chocolate chip cookies?"
"You have chocolate chip cookies?" an incredulous, and impressed, slayer asked.
The pair of them set off for Spike's crypt, in a happier mood than they had set out.