How To Kill Your Boyfriend In One Hard Lesson Chapter 14, an angel fanfic

Disclaimer: Don't own, etc., etc. Joss Whedon rules supreme and retains pretty much everything. Only written for personal enjoyment and because this plot bunny just wouldn't die, even after some serious staking…

Summary: Occurs after Brother, Unfortunately Mine. Rating 18 for sexual references. The sibling theme is not entirely played out …

HOW TO KILL YOUR (PSYCHO) BOYFRIEND IN ONE HARD LESSON

Chapter 14 – Getting Noticed By All The Wrong People

"Knock if off, Spike." Dawn ordered.

"What?" Spike asked with wide eyes.

"The 'I'm just dumb muscle' attitude. Anyone who can quote the Iliad at six a.m., in Greek and then translate it into good old U.S. is not lacking in the little grey cells department. Look, stop hovering and educate Gru." Dawn pointed to where Gru was examining every exhibit with intense fascination and deep interest. "I'm here to flaunt myself, remember."

"No flaunting," Spike vetoed sternly, "not with Buffy on the same continent, at any rate. You can mingle, but stay close."

Dawn nodded obediently; she wasn't stupid, despite recent evidence to the contrary. The Rosita had a lot of visitors today, due to the Spanish Links exhibition. The mill of people went a long way to preventing anyone noticing that Spike cast no reflection in the myriad glass display cases, and also made it nice and public for her to be 'noticed' by the right – or in this case hopefully the wrong – person. Conversely it also made it not as easy for Spike and Gru to be her bodyguards should Stefan display unexpected boldness.

They worked their way around the exhibition, Dawn listening as Spike filled Gru in on some of the more salient historical facts. After Drusilla Sired him in 1880, Angelus, Darla, Spike and Drusilla had eventually left London and actually gone to Spain, gradually working their way East through France, Germany and Poland until 1898, the fateful year they were in Romania, and Angelus became Angel when the Roma cursed him with a soul. Within days of their first ever meeting, Dawn had rapidly discerned that Spike was a lot brighter than he acted anyway, but now beyond that, he knew the interesting snippets of historical sex-and-violence scandals that the textbooks all glossed over in the dry and monotonous recitation of presidents, monarchs, dates and annual wheat yields of Carolina circa 1903.

Spike pointed out a brooch in a display case to Gru; a present from the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, to the Infanta of Spain, the King Alfonso XII's daughter, in 1881. However the devout Catholic princess had given the brooch to the Spanish community of Los Angeles the same year, as she in no way wished to have anything remotely associated with Edward VII or his eldest son, Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence & Avondale and possibly Jack the Ripper.

"Was he?" Dawn asked, fascinated.

"Not sure, never met the real Saucy Jack, not as I know to anyway." Spike admitted, "I thought it was Angelus m'self, until one of the Ripper's killings happened while me and Angelus were together up in Yorkshire – turns out he thought it was me. But young Albert Victor gave his grandmother conniptions. I felt for Queen Vic in a way, actually. The girl spent her whole life trying to survive, sometimes literally, the machinations of her libertine uncles - who stood to get the throne if little Vicky took a fatal header down a flight of Windsor Castle steps," Spike explained, "then her eldest son and his eldest son both turn out to be chips from the same debauched block. Faced with having two successive kings who had the morals of alley cats, it's no surprise she bit the bullet and had him done in."

Gru frowned. "Are you saying this Queen…Vic…assassinated the son of her son?"

Dawn saw a flicker of something reflected in a display case and tried to get a clear look while simultaneously listening to Spike's tale – far more interesting than the prissy little white cards in front of the display cases.

"She didn't take a trip into his bedroom with a broadsword, no. More like nudged the process along. See, her heir, Edward, well he was into the drinking and bedding of servants deal, but at least his bed mates were strictly female. Edward's heir on the other hand swung both ways," Spike told Gru. "He mated with males as well as females and as well as not being very particular, he wasn't very discreet. Official version is he died of pneumonia; unofficially he actually had syphilis and a few other STDs."

"Ess-Tee-Deez?" Gru repeated the unfamiliar acronym.

"Erm, what human physicians call sexually transmitted diseases – and don't pretend Pylea had none of those. Anyway, in reality, his grandmother uttered the Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not kill, but thou shalt not strive officiously to keep alive. After Bertie V the heir was his younger brother, Prince George, who was as sober, responsible and moral as he was debauched and corrupt. So the doctors sort of eased him off the mortal coil by being a bit too enthusiastic with the laudanum, under the protection of the Queen and with the compliance of his dad, the Prince of Wales."

"Wow, it's almost as if he was there."

Dawn took great pride in the fact that not only did she not end up having to be peeled like a banana off the ceiling at the voice unexpectedly sounding in her ear, but neither did she scream, do the high jump, or wet herself. Sucking in a deep breath and trying to calm the hammering heart that was trying to jackhammer it's way through her sternum, she instead turned to the speaker, her heart picking up the pace again when it laid eyes on…helllloooo.

He was tall and slim, wearing faded jeans and a green T-shirt under a denim jacket. He had gentle eyes, a smiling mouth and dusky blond hair that fell in bangs nearly over his eyes. He smiled at her tentatively.

"Spike's travelled a lot." Dawn commented weakly.

A dint appeared between his eyes as he looked from her to the peroxide blond. "You two are…here together?"

"He's my step-brother." Dawn lied without missing a beat. "We always got a long better with each other than our parents did with each other, or with us. I'm visiting LA, I live in Sunnydale, my name's Dawn Summers," and I'm about to start babbling, oh shoot me now.

However he spoke, "I'm Connor Riley. I live in LA. So your brother's into this kind of stuff, huh?"

"No, this is my gig-" Dawn blinked as Connor seemed to light up inside.

"Really. Have you seen the mummies?"

"They have them here?" Dawn asked warily, remembering the story of the life-force sucking Incan Princess mummy who had gone within an inch of turning Xander into a raisin.

"Oh yeah, they're great, really well preserved..." As they chatted, drawing away from the crowd slightly, Connor found he didn't want to look away from her eyes. Something about this girl resonated with something deep inside him.

"You alright, love?"

Connor blinked, startled, as the voice suddenly cut through their conversation; nobody had been able to sneak up on him in years – his family joked he had ears like an elephant. It was as if Dawn's blond step-brother had just materialised next to him. Just as in the UCLA library, the hairs on Connor's body stood up in warning. The blond man had a smile, but his blue eyes were cold, and as Connor looked into them, he knew without doubt that something not entirely human was looking back. Just like with 'Sky', he was in the presence of something very old, and very dangerous.

Dawn smiled at 'Spike' and introduced Connor. Spike remained amicable but Connor knew those eyes were trying to see right through his skull, and then the blond man reminded Dawn that they had to go and meet 'Angel and the gang'.

"Yes, and then there's Stefan at two o'clock." Dawn nodded, smiling apologetically at Connor.

Who, acutely attuned to the situation in a manner far more deeply than anything he'd experienced before, instantly recognised that what Dawn was saying was of far more importance than the words coming out of her mouth. Spike's eyes turned even more frightening and just for a second, his eyes flicked towards his right, looking in the direction…of where two o'clock would be on a figurative clock face.

Connor watched as Dawn and Spike made their way towards the exit, being joined by a tall, well-muscled man with a broad grin. A grin that faded as Connor's sharp ears heard Spike tell the man, 'Gru', that 'Stefan' was at two o'clock. Glancing surreptitiously in the direction indicated, only moving so he stood in the spot where Dawn had been as she said it, Connor spotted a tall, muscular guy with a bad tan furtively lurking in the background, his attention focussed on Dawn as she left with Spike and 'Gru'. Bad tan also made his way to the exit and headed for a nondescript brown car that he got in and started up. Acting on impulse, Connor jumped into a cab just as a way-cool Viper came up out of the underground garage and turned right, followed a moment later by Bad Tan. "Follow that car."

The driver turned his head and regarded him with a flat, unfriendly stare. Pulling a twenty-dollar bill from his pocket, Connor thrust it at him. "Now. Keep back."

Continued in Chapter 15…